The Gloversville Planning Board on Tuesday reviewed a site plan application submitted by the CAES Group LLC to convert the former St. Thomas Leather manufacturing facility at 12 St. Thomas Place into a commercial, retail, office, warehouse and self-storage facility. The building is shown on Wednesday. (The Leader-Herald/Ashley Onyon)
GLOVERSVILLE — Owners of a pair of area liquidation outlets and a local remediation company presented a site plan application to the city Planning Board on Tuesday seeking to convert the former St. Thomas Leather manufacturing facility into a multi-use commercial building.
Andrew Weigle and Adam Bido of the CAES Group LLC appeared before the Planning Board presenting plans to convert an existing manufacturing building at 12 St. Thomas Place into a commercial, retail, office, warehouse and self-storage facility.
The CAES Group purchased the approximately 74,000 square foot facility in September. The property is situated on 1.4 acres on a single parcel that is split into two lots by Hamilton Street between St. Thomas Place and Elm Street.
Consultant to the Fulton County Planning Department, Sean Geraghty, commented that the exterior of the building appears to be in good condition. Weigle and Bido agreed, saying that the interior is also in good shape.
The new owners are currently performing asbestos abatement throughout the entire interior of the building through their remediation and renovation company, Clean Air Environmental Services Inc. This process is expected to be complete by June.
Weigle and Bido also plan to perform roof work in the spring followed by some interior construction before moving another of their existing businesses, GoodbuyZ Liquidation Outlets, into the second floor of the building. The available space is substantially larger than existing locations in Johnstown and Amsterdam that would likely relocate to the new space to become a single GoodbuyZ Superstore.
Additional plans call for warehouse space on the first floor and the construction of climate controlled self-storage units on the third and fourth floors of the facility. Weigle and Bido said these plans will only utilize about half of the building space with the remainder to be converted into available commercial, retail and office suites according to the needs of incoming tenants.
Geraghty noted that each of the proposed uses are allowed at the site that is zoned manufacturing subject to site plan approval, but asked that the building owners submit rough estimates showing how much space will be allocated for each use throughout the building. The extent of each use will impact the number of parking spaces required under city code, prompting Geraghty to additionally ask for an accurate count of existing spaces.
“Each one of those components the way the code reads requires a certain amount of space,” Geraghty said. “This board needs to make sure that there’s a calculation of exactly how many spaces are going to conceivably be needed there and how many are on there, so we’re going to need an accurate count.”
Weigle and Bido agreed to supply the information, while noting that the property has three existing parking lots with two located around the building itself and a third located across Hamilton Street behind Wandel Park.
Geraghty went on to request that Weigle and Bido in the future submit a single site plan drawing showing building dimensions, property boundaries, exterior lighting, parking and other information detailing the plans for the site that had been submitted as written text.
The Planning Board members raised no objections or concerns over the proposal, but requested that the building owners complete a Short Environmental Assessment Form as part of the State Environmental Review Process.
Geraghty pointed out that the site plan application will likely be classified as a Type II Action under SEQR in the future given that plans call for the reuse of a building, but due to the dissimilarity between the former and proposed uses recommended the completion of the assessment form before board action. Classifying the proposal as a Type II Action means the project will not cause any significant environmental impact and will not require further review.
“This is kind of really different from what was done in the building before,” Geraghty said.
The Planning Board agreed and approved a motion tabling action on the site plan application to convert the former St. Thomas Leather manufacturing facility at 12 St. Thomas Place into a multi-use commercial building until the next meeting on Feb. 4 at 7 p.m. pending the receipt of requested materials.
