The Springs General Store has been shuttered since the end of the 2022 summer season, and while the new owners are getting closer to winning approvals for changes they plan, one of them, Daniel Bennett, confirmed via text last week that the store will remain closed for the summer of 2025.
An application to make changes to the Springs institution began working its way through the East Hampton Town Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals, and Architectural Review Board after the store was sold in September of 2022.
The interior and exterior of the building will undergo extensive renovations. The core changes to the site are this: A storage shed will be converted to an organic wine sales hut, a table will be added to the inside of the store, a number of aging structures on the site will be removed, a kayak rental area will be discontinued, and the parking area will be tamed and delineated with handicapped spots and an access ramp. The existing picnic tables on one side of the store will remain but will be surrounded by over 11,000 square feet of new native plantings.
Further, the interior and exterior of the building will undergo extensive renovations.
In September, the project received a natural resources special permit from the Z.B.A. and last week, with the closing of a sparsely attended planning board hearing, that process too, was nearing an end. After the planning board formally approves the application (a wrap-up memo could be issued by the Planning Department by the end of the year, with a vote held shortly after) only approval from the A.R.B. stands in the way of work commencing on the cherished landmark.
Daniel Bennett said that after he receives all the necessary approvals and gets a building permit, work is expected to take at least a year.
“I’m incredibly excited to start working on the project and get things moving,” said Mr. Bennett, who enjoyed multiple, positive character references at the hearing. “We’re always going to be malleable with regards to the community’s concerns about how we are operating. I do think, though, that once people see what we are going to do they will be pleased. I’m really trying to do this right and delicately.”
A single resident, Scott Gilbert, along with his lawyer, Martha Reichert of Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelley, Dubin & Quartararo, spoke out against certain aspects of the planned renovation.
“The discontinuance of the kayak use in exchange for an organic wine store is a net loss to the community,” said Mr. Gilbert, who lives directly adjacent to the store, on Shipyard Lane. “It was a place where parents and children could go. The countervailing benefit of getting organic wine is not a compensation, considering that we have two liquor stores within two miles of the place. This wine store is being placed in close proximity to a school and church. It is nonsensical. In my opinion, it has been the reason this process has been delayed so much.”
An earlier iteration of the narrative accompanying the application sought approval for on-site consumption of alcohol. Mr. Bennett had been influenced by a trip abroad where wine was sold in grocery stores, and enjoyed on the premises, with cheese and bread. The planning board was moved more by community concerns that the store could turn into a drinking spot than by Mr. Bennett’s vision, however, and ultimately, the owners agreed to remove alcohol consumption from the store’s narrative. Wine will be sold from the shed, but must be consumed elsewhere, not at the picnic tables.
Mr. Gilbert wondered, however, how that would be enforced. “The town should demonstrate how it’s going to do that. I don’t think the store is going to have the resources or incentive.” He also said the planning board should require a traffic study. His attorney, Ms. Reichert, picked up the thread about traffic concerns and expressed skepticism about the store’s parking plan.
“This is a heavily trafficked road,” she said. “The parking plan reduces the number of parking spots that are already haphazardly there in terms of historic use. One-way entrances don’t speak to the reality of the school drop-off line or the Springs Food Pantry line. The parking plan could be improved upon.”
However, Michael Schiano, an environmental planner with InterScience, speaking for Springs General, said the parking plan was created with input from the board. Four spots directly in front of the store, six behind, and three more running parallel to Old Stone Highway were one more than the board had requested way back when the kayak use had been sought, in 2001. The fence that was added to create a clear entrance and exit to the lot was also at the suggestion of the planning board.
All eyes now turn to the eventual determination by the planning board. After that, it will go to the A.R.B. No date has yet been set for that meeting.
