Planning Board accepts environmental assessment for Fairgrounds

Move puts Country Chevy relocation and new supermarket one step closer Warwick — The Warwick Town Planning Board has accepted the Environmental Impact Statement as complete for the project on Route 94 known as The Fairgrounds. The project has been in the works, on and off, since 1999 when Frank Petrucci, owner of Country Chevrolet Oldsmobile in the village, decided to expand his business on property he owns across from ShopRite on Route 94. At the time, the plan only included the car dealership. He revised the plan to include a full-service supermarket and two other smaller businesses. Between a building moratorium and a potential tenant going bankrupt, the project is still before the planning board. The latest snag was the claim by ShopRite, which is the only supermarket in town, that the endangered bog turtles might live on the land that is slated for development. After nearly two years, the planning board heard testimony from the developers’ bog turtle expert and was satisfied that no bog turtles are living on the Route 94 property. “This is headed in the right direction,” Petrucci said in an interview this week. “The FEIS lays the framework that everyone agrees to work with.” Petrucci will continue to meet with the planning board and the engineers to work out some site plan details. However, because the FEIS was so detailed, the site work should be less complicated. “The planning board did such an awesome job in making sure this FEIS is complete,” he said. “All the details are there. They were so diligent in this process.” Hannaford Brothers started in 1883 as a fruit and vegetable stand by Arthur and Howard Hannaford in Portland, Me. Now, there are 116 supermarkets throughout Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York and Massachusetts under the names Shop ‘n Save and Hannaford Brothers. The average store size is 48,200 square feet; 81 have in-store pharmacies. The Warwick proposal would be larger than the average at 55,000 square feet. There are still many more hurdles to get through for The Fairgrounds. Now the applicant and engineer will produce a findings statement and there will be public hearings on that study, as well as for the preliminary and final approvals. So the public still has lots of opportunity to get their two cents in. Bog turtles, however, have been spoken for.