Golub plan means moving road

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Town planners will get their first glimpse tonight of a large-scale expansion project planned by the Golub Corp., parent of the Price Chopper supermarket chain.

Part of the project proposes to move a small stretch of Dunnsville Road about a quarter-mile west of its intersection with Duanesburg Road (Route 7). Moving the county thoroughfare would be a precursor to a 360,000-square-foot Price Chopper warehouse that would one day be built on vacant land the company owns abutting National Grid’s power transmission lines.

The proposed relocation project would also widen a section of the heavily traveled Duanesburg Road and move Golub’s truck entrance to an area off the new Dunnsville Road. A traffic signal near the Cumberland Farms store would also be moved to Dunnsville Road’s new entrance, according to schematics on file with Rotterdam’s Planning Department.

Golub representatives expected to pitch the relocation plan during the Planning Commission’s meeting at 7:30 p.m. in Town Hall. Planning Commission Chairman Lawrence DiLallo said the company’s long-term plans associated with the project are ambitious and will help build Rotterdam’s tax base.

“It’s a good project for the town,” he said Monday.

Plans for the project come as Golub continues work on a $22 million six-story office building in Schenectady, which will house the company’s headquarters when it is completed later this year. Price Chopper spokeswoman Mona Golub said the road relocation is part of a phased project that will address the company’s needs for the next 10 to 15 years.

“It’s reflective of our health and growth as a company and our long-range plans,” she said Monday.

Price Chopper’s most aggressive expansion in the past decade occurred about seven years ago, when Golub Corp. broke ground on a 195,000-square-foot addition —125,000 square feet of dry goods storage and another 70,000 for fresh foods — to its main distribution center. The construction was part of an $18 million project, which at the time represented the largest expansion in the chain’s history.

In 2005, the company completed a $16 million, 160,000-square-foot frozen food distribution center at the adjacent Rotterdam Industrial Park in 2005. The new center allowed Price Chopper to centralize its operations in Rotterdam in anticipation of future growth.

Then last year, the company advanced a project to build an 89,000-square-foot warehouse for perishables off its main complex and an expanded recycling operation. The new buildings are among roughly 524,000 square feet of new warehouse space Golub has planned for Rotterdam once it relocates its headquarters.

The road relocation project won’t be without its impacts, DiLallo said. The company is rumored to be purchasing some of the affected homes so that Duanesburg Road can be widened.

“There will be issues that have to be mitigated with the surrounding residents,” he said.

William Schmidt didn’t seem adverse to the project, even though it will bring Dunnsville Road to the edge of his property off Duanesburg Road. He said Golub tried to buy the house where he and his wife Rosemary have lived for more than five decades, but they refused to sell.

“We’re not about to sell out at our age,” he said. “But they’re not bothering me with what they’re doing anyway.”

Despite an abundance of vacant land abutting the Golub complex, the company is basically landlocked in terms of future expansion. About 64 acres of its property was deed-restricted by the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the Army Corps of Engineers after Golub’s last major expansion in 2001.

In addition, the company will need to seek rezoning of some of the land. Rotterdam Planner Peter Comenzo said some of the property is still zoned for agriculture and business, meaning the project will also need to go before the Town Board for review.

Schenectady County Public Works Director Joe Ryan said the county Legislature will also need to approve the road relocation. He said county officials would await Rotterdam’s findings before weighing in on the project.

In general, Ryan said, relocating Dunnsville Road would probably help alleviate some of the issues caused by the steady procession of truck traffic on Duanesburg Road.

He said the new location would reroute a lot of traffic away from the often congested intersection near the entrance to the Rotterdam Corporate Park.

“Right now, there’s an awful lot of traffic conflict on [Duanesburg Road],” he said.