UPDATE: Nanuet Mall to Become 'The Shops at Nanuet' with a Main Street [VIDEO]

Last night was an informational meeting between the Clarkstown Planning Board and Simon Property Group, Inc., owner of the Nanuet Mall, at which Simon revealed its plans, walked through the concept and took questions from town officials.

Since this was an informational meeting, no questions were taken from the public.

“We are here now because Simon knows what it wants to do,” said Dwayne Furukawa, regional vice president of development for Simon.

Here are the main points (Keep reading below the list for more details):

• Open-air Main Street concept
• The ‘L’ road you see on the birds eye map is the ‘Main Street’ Simon is referring to when driving down Main Street, there will be 1- and 2-story buildings with shops/food on either side with independent entrances connecting to the sidewalks and streets.
• There may be a movie theater and fitness/health club
• Macy’s and Sears will remain as is through demolition and completion since they own their respective stores. The former Boscov’s building will be demolished
• A completely new building will be built for a ‘gourmet grocery’ store
• Internal demolition and asbestos work will start later this year. Fencing and major demo will begin Jan. 5, 2012, and should be done by June for site work to begin.
• No stores for the site have been named yet; Simon is still in contracts and leases with stores.
• The site plans may change as everything is still in a preliminary and working stage. The artist renderings of the street-level views will change because the drawings are only to depict the “flavor” and style of the new site and shop owners will ultimately decide the design and look of their store.

The Shops at Nanuet:

The new structure that will go up will be several buildings with an “open air” Main Street concept.

“The mentality is to change from a traditional enclosed mall to an outdoor center,” said Furukawa. “Currently we have a Main Street that runs through the project. This ‘L’ shape here is a series of 1-level story buildings with retail/restaurants within those. These buildings here between Macy’s and Sears … on the ground level are retail shops, and on the second level are multi-story (with) functional uses. Right now we’re talking to a cinema and a health club.”

Dorsky + Yue International LLC Architecture designed the current proposal. Furukawa added that there may be changes since everything is still very “preliminary” right now.

“The architecture we created for these buildings is we created a dialogue between the past and the present, alluding to these industrial pastoral buildings giving it a modern flair with new materials with glass and metal,” said Furukawa. “Each individual building will have its own identity, but (the design flavor) it all kind of ties together.”

The real importance … is Main street … you see quite a bit of that beige is around,” he added. The beige shading shows pedestrian walkways. “It’s not going to be sidewalks … we really want it (main street) to be a really animated experience, both from the vehicular and pedestrian (viewpoint) as you’re going through there.”

“(Along main street) there’s lots of plantings and lots of places for people to sit and relax. We envisioned water features incorporated throughout (main street). And areas, similar to this plaza area,” he said pointing to the beige triangular spot to the right of Sears, “… where there will be flexible area.”

More information?

After they’re finalized, renderings of all the drawings shown last night will soon be at the Planning Board office at Town Hall. Also, come to the next Nanuet Civic Association meeting at 7:15 p.m. Nov. 3 at the Nanuet Library’s community room where this topic will most likely be discussed. Simon is on the tentative schedule for the Planning Department’s Nov. 30 meeting.

Read about the meeting’s outcome in a 4-part series today and tomorrow. Later today, another article will look at demolition, construction and a rough timeline.