Oakfield-Alabama Future Farmers of America(FFA) is excited to announce that they have just received the “Tractor Supply Company/National FFA Grants for Growing, $5000 grant”. The Grant funds are made possible through Tractor Supply Company and donations are made to local stores during National FFA Week in mid-February each year.
OA FFA will use the awarded funds to help offset the cost of a new 2x6’ maple arch. The OAE FFA Alumni will match the funds to complete the purchase of the new arch.
"This is so exciting," said OA FFA advisor, Todd Hofheins.“The old 2x4 arch that the students made 10 years ago has done a great job for the maple program here at school but a new 2x6 will help the students be more efficient in the boiling process and will produce higher quality maple syrup, quicker. I am also very appreciative of the support Tractor Supply Company provided. Maple production can be very expensive and without this grant and help from our OAE FFA Alumni, we wouldn’t be able to make this upgrade.”
OA FFA is scheduling an open house during the spring of 2024 maple season and will be demonstrating their new equipment. Follow us on Facebook for more details: https://www.facebook.com/oaeffa.
Attorney Peter Sorgi goes over the final site plan for Town of Batavia planners for a new Tractor Supply location on Lewiston Road. Photo by Howard Owens.
Town planners in Batavia heard from multiple Lewiston Road residents about potential traffic issues and a perceived lack of transparency before the board voted to approve a site plan for a new Tractor Supply location.
The site plan approval was the last step in a long process for developers, who are building a location at 8727 Lewiston Road, which will allow the company to close its smaller, older store on East Main Street Road in the Town of Batavia.
Lewiston Road residents expressed concern that the busy corridor already produces a significant number of accidents, a few deadly, and the town is planning too many projects for the area.
"We are not upset about potential growth in Batavia, the potential of people moving into the area, all of those things," said Tanni Bromley. "But these projects that you're bringing affect the people that have lived here for 30 years who are putting equity in the properties that will be affected by these things."
A proposed road that connects Lewiston Road with Veterans Memorial Drive, running behind The Home Depot, has been part of the master plan for decades. The Tractor Supply project will start to make the first part of that road a reality, with some other potential developer building out the remainder of the road for some future, as yet, unknown project.
The property behind The Home Depot is farmland owned by the Call family. It is earmarked in the master plan for commercial development.
So is the property on the other side of Lewiston Road, with another road proposal to connect Lewiston with Route 5.
There is also the potential of a solar farm going in near Lewiston Road and the Thruway.
"It doesn't seem transparent to the people affected, because you're not allowing us to know the information ahead of time," Bromley said. "I understand you have a process as far as lead agencies and all of those things that need to be approved. And you have to take it all into account at the same time. Otherwise, the traffic study that you paid for is totally obsolete. It doesn't make any sense to do one traffic study. And then another traffic study when something was already built, because it didn't take into account the other traffic study that might have to happen. It's all connected."
"We are not upset about potential growth in Batavia, the potential of people moving into the area, all of those things," said Tanni Bromley. Photo by Howard Owens.
Terry Marshall said, "As everybody's talked about, you can't take each piece at a time. You have to look at the full plan when you're doing these things. This piece of a road here is going to go all the way up to Veterans. Now it's going to go all the way across the street, and it's obviously a very dangerous area. Right now, we're all very concerned."
Other residents raised similar issues.
Board member Steve Tanner noted that it isn't possible to do traffic studies for projects that don't exist.
"I think the issue is we haven't seen any of that, nor have there been any studies that say what that road would look like," Tanner said. "What would be the proposed businesses along the roadway? What kind of traffic? Would they connect to the roadway? What would it do to the traffic that would make improvements required or not required? We don't have any information. I can't show you something we don't have. Is there some sort of plan to put a road there? I don't know. It sounds like there is. It's in the plan, but it might be 10 years from now. How do I study so it might not even ever happen?"
Board Chair Kathy Jasinski said that the board has rules and laws it must follow that limited its ability to act in the way, perhaps, residents expected.
"If we were to turn a project down because we didn't like it, the town could be sued, and probably would be," Jasinski said. "We have to make sure it fits in the comprehensive plan, that it meets all the requirements of the town. And that's what we're here to do. We can't say who can buy land or sell land or any of those things. We're just here to review the projects."
Town Engineer Steve Mountain said that while these potential changes have been on the books for a while, there have also been studies, and there will be more done.
"There are a lot of accidents and the whole corridor of Lewiston Road," Mountain said. "As I mentioned, several meetings ago. We've done a traffic study for just Tractor Supply, but we also have in the works, a full corridor study, which will identify all of those future needs for all the future expansion."
After public comments, Peter Sorgi, attorney for the developers, made his planned presentation in advance on the board vote on the proposed site plan.
He noted the original application for the project was submitted seven months ago, on Oct. 4, and since then, the developers have gone through six required steps, with public meetings all along the way, to get to this final approval stage.
The project has been to the County Planning Board. It received an area variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals. It's been through the environmental review process. It had traffic studies completed. It's been approved for a water hook-up by the county in accordance with the county's Smart Growth plan.
After his presentation, the board approved the site plan by a unanimous roll-call vote with a contingency for final engineering review.
Michael Schrader shares his concerns about the approval process and the potential traffic issues for a new Tractor Supply location on Lewiston Road, Batavia. Photo by Howard Owens.
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that a Public Hearing will be held by the Town of Batavia Planning Board regarding an application by Hix Snedeker Companies LLC, 8727 Lewiston Rd., Batavia, NY for a major subdivision and retail building for Tractor Supply Store. This is located on approximately a 52 acre parcel (8.-1-7) in the Town of Batavia, Genesee County, New York. The land is zoned Commercial.
Said hearing will be held at the Batavia Town of Batavia Town Hall, 3833 West Main St. Rd., Batavia, NY on Tuesday, March 7, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. at which time all interested persons will be heard. If you cannot attend, you may send your comments and concerns to the Chairman at kjasinski@townofbatavia.com before the hearing. A copy of the application is on file at the Town Hall for review.
By order of the Town of Batavia Planning Board
Kathleen Jasinski, Chairman.
The Town of Batavia Planning Board voted unanimously on Tuesday night to appoint itself the lead agency in the environmental review process for a new Tractor Supply location at 8727 Lewiston Road.
Tractor Supply is planning a 24,000-square-foot building to replace its current store at 4974 East Main Street Road.
Not only will the new location be larger, but Tractor Supply will also own the land and building. The company leases the current location.
"The main effort is to expand into a larger space and be an all-inclusive store that competes more with The Home Depot, Lowes, and those types of stores," said attorney Ryan McCarthy.
Real Estate broker Tony Mancuso said previously that he has potential tenants already considering the former Tractor Supply location, so it may not go vacant long.
The current location is owned by 1515 Management Company Inc., which appears to be a company based in Iowa with principles living in Boca Raton, Fla.
Tractor Supply is acquiring 5.08 acres, a portion of a 50-acre farm field owned by the Call family and actively farmed by MY-T Acres. The five acres will be divided into four parcels.
Tractor Supply will occupy a parcel 340 feet from Lewiston Road. There will be another parcel between that parcel and Lewiston Road. It's expected that the parcel, zoned commercial, will be developed at some point, as well as the other two parcels being acquired by Tractor Supply, but there are no firm plans for development at this point.
The new location will have 110 parking spaces, which is 10 fewer than required by ordinance, which means Tractor Supply will need to apply for and receive a zoning variance.
McCarthy said Tractor Supply, which operates nationwide, knows the flow of its business well, and the store will not need 110 spaces, which means less land to cover with asphalt.
Plans to convert the farm field into commercial development have been on the books for more than 20 years. As part of the project, Tractor Supply will start construction of a road -- initially a driveway into the new store -- that will eventually connect Lewiston Road to Veterans Memorial Drive on the north side of The Home Depot.
A planning board member asked if it will be necessary to install a traffic light at the new road and Lewiston Road, and Mancuso said, "not yet." Not until a planned roadway is installed directly opposite the location that will connect Lewiston Road with West Main Street Road. That vacant land, in the town's Comprehensive Master Plan, is designated for commercial development.
The proposed project will be back before the board in a month when the board will review the environmental impact report.
For more than two decades, a 52-acre island of farm field behind Walmart and The Home Depot and off Lewiston Road has been designated for commercial development.
Tractor Supply is proposing a new store at 8727 Lewiston Road that will occupy 5.08 acres of the farm field, which is currently owned by the Call family and farmed by MY-T Acres.
The new store will replace the Tractor Supply store at 4974 East Main Street Road, Batavia.
Commercial real estate broker Tony Mancuso, who is assisting in the development of the project, said Tractor Supply is looking to move into a larger, more modern, more efficient building.
"They rent that building," Mancuso said. "They will own this building."
Mancuso and his father were involved with developing Veterans Memorial Drive, starting with Walmart, so he knows the history of the property.
"This has been zoned for this kind of development for over 20 years," Mancuso said. "When we did the other development, we put a road roadway up by the highway to come behind Home Depot and down (to Lewiston). So this has been on the books for 20 years so it was the logical place to go."
The developer will be Hix Snedeker, with engineering by Dynamic Engineering with legal representation for the permitting process by Hopkins Sorgi & McCarthy.
The project was presented to the County Planning Board on Thursday night and the board voted unanimously to recommend approval of the project with the following modifications:
The applicant obtains a permit for the new road and intersection from the Department of Transportation;
The applicant completes a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan and obtains a Stormwater Permit from the Department of Environmental Conservation;
Given that the project is located in an archaeologically sensitive area, the applicant obtain a permit from the State Historic Preservation Office.
"With these required modifications, the proposed store should pose no significant county-wide or inter-community impact," the Planning Department said in its memo recommending approval with modifications.
The driveway into the project will take the same route as the planned roadway through the 105-acres of farmland and will be dedicated to the town so that it can eventually be part of the roadway that connects to Veterans Memorial Drive, coming out on the north side of The Home Depot. It will be up to the developer of any new commercial space on the remaining land to complete the road.
Mancuso said the same process was used when Walmart was built, with the start of Veterans Memorial Drive initially serving just Walmart.
Attorney Peter Sorgi said he expects the Calls to continue farming the undeveloped portion of the property, which they will continue to own.
The project will be considered by the Town of Batavia Planning Board at its regular meeting at 7 p.m. on Tuesday in the Town Hall.
With Tractor Supply vacating its location on East Main Street Road, it will add to the inventory of empty commercial buildings on the east side of town, which includes the former CountryMax location and the unoccupied gas station and convenience store on East Main.
Mancuso said not to worry. He expects announcements soon about new tenants for those two vacant buildings and he already has two potential tenants interested in the Tractor Supply building.
"I don't like to see empty buildings either," Mancuso said. "So I'm trying to work it out as fast as I can."
