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Plans approved for Kohl's next to Dick's

By Howard B. Owens

A subdivision of Batavia Towne Center to make way for a Kohl's Department Store was approved by the Town of Batavia Planning Board on Tuesday night.

The subdivision is necessary, according to Kate Johnson, of COR Development (top photo) because Kohl's needs its building on its own parcel for financing, tax and insurance purposes.

Kohl's will own its building, but COR will continue to own the land.

A subdivision carves a parcel of land from an existing parcel to make a new parcel with its own tax ID number.

Kohl's is planning 56,883-square-foot building roughly in the area of the former Lowe's garden center.

Johnson also revealed that Marshall's is planning a store next to Dick's Sporting Goods and said a fourth store is planned for the former Lowe's space, but said she can't mention the name of the store.

Previously, it was reported that the discount chain 5 Below was planning a store for the location.

Town officials are also considering a sidewalk for pedestrians that would connect Batavia Towne Center and Batavia Downs as well as an extension of Richmond Avenue through to Veterans Memorial Drive.

Doug Yeomans

That means Peebles or Target will be closing, or Kohl's will close within a few years of opening. One of them has to fail in order for one of them to survive.

Jan 22, 2014, 4:40pm Permalink
Howard B. Owens

Doug, you forgot, GCEDC approved tax breaks for this project because there's no other existing retail in the county it will compete with, so obviously, Target and Kmart and Peebles are all safe, just as safe as Fisher Sports.

Jan 22, 2014, 4:54pm Permalink
Mark Potwora

As all can see this just adds to the demise of downtown the city of Batavia.Smart growth and planning is non existence in this area..Kill one area and grow the other area with tax breaks..The town has no Economic Development Coordinator .The city of Batavia does. Economic Development Coordinator Julie Pacatte were is the growth you are getting paid to bring in..

Jan 22, 2014, 5:33pm Permalink
Doug Yeomans

Kohl's sells a lot of the same things that Peebles, Target, and Walmart does. Actually, now that I think about it, BB & Beyond will be impacted by this, too. Kohl's also sells furniture. Time will tell what the impact will be. A given area can only support just so much retail before it collapses.

I think a better idea is to have development on two sides of town. It's a PITA for us to get to the west side of town from East Bethany, so developing some retail outlets on the east side would make much more sense than clustering them all on Veterans drive.

Jan 22, 2014, 9:13pm Permalink

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