The Village of Old Westbury Board of Trustees continued discussions Monday on a special-use permit sought for renovations to the Exxon-Mobil station at the corner of Jericho Turnpike and Glen Cove Road.
The project’s architect, Chris Tartaglia of High Point Engineering in Farmingdale, said “significant revisions” were made to the project’s plans including an increase in the convenience store’s setback from the Northern State Parkway and the addition of a generator.
The convenience store’s proposed depth on the property was reduced from 39 feet deep to 30 feet deep, increasing the property’s setback to 8.4 feet, Tartaglia said.
With that additional room, Tartaglia said a 80 to 120 kilowatt natural gas generator will be added to the station “based upon the lessons that we learned from the storm last year.”
The changes were the sixth revision of the plans put before the board. At the village’s May 20 trustees meeting, the size of the proposed convenience store was decreased to 2,100 square feet and the number of fueling islands was decreased from eight – which would have allowed for 16 pumps – to six.
The new plans eliminated the need for a number of variances that been originally sought.
The board voted to continue its review of the application after restricting fuel deliveries to between midnight and 5 a.m.
“We’ll provide whatever you like,” said Bolla Operating L.I. Corporation’s Chief Executive Officer Harry Singh, who owns and operates more than 40 gas stations and convenience stores in the Northeast.
Trustees said they were still dissatisfied with some of the architectural features in the convenience store’s plans.
Village of Old Westbury Mayor Fred Carillo said he wanted the station to look more like the Mobil station along the Hutchinson River Parkway “with a gable roof and stone, matching the stone on the bridge adjacent to the site. At the last meeting you said ‘Whatever you want, we’re gonna do.’”
Tartaglia said his architects planned for the same type of roof over the convenience store as the one above the gas pumps, but “the problem we had was that the canopy, in emulating the gable roof of the building, ended up close to 28 feet tall and it was really a massive looking structure.
“Looking at the two, it was a little too massive to go with the full gable, but we’re willing architecturally. Once we’re talking architectural features, we feel like we’ve done our job.”
Trustee Michael Wolf said the gas station and the Old Westbury Diner are the village’s only two commercial properties in the area. Wolf said he would like both buildings to feature similar aesthetic properties.
