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The developer who wants to bring a new CVS building to the corner of Bennetts Road and Route 25A, said he has never met such opposition to a new project before. As a result of the Three Village community outcry against the designs for a large, box shaped store planned along the historic corridor of Route 25A, developer Paul Slayton proposing the CVS drugstore has taken the advice of local leaders and hired a local architect.
Architect and Stony Brook resident Peter Caradonna has signed onto the job and will be designing the building's exterior. His goal is to try to blend the New England colonial architecture of the Three Villages with CVS's requirements. Since the chain store needs a flat roof to accommodate its machinery, Mr. Caradonna will be drawing his designs of the store's front with a chateau's mansard roof, which will slope into a flat area. He will avoid vinyl siding and use cement fibre (Hardy Plank) instead, which Mr. Caradonna will paint the "colors of autumn," to blend the building into the hillside.
Mr. Slayton has left the building's design "open ended and completely to the architect." A few months ago, Assemblyman Steven Englebright had taken Mr. Slayton on a tour of the Three Village area in an attempt to show him the lay of the land. The two men had studied the buildings in the historical districtt. Mr. Slayton said during a recent phone interview, "I feel Steve is sincere. Because of his sincerity is why I'm doing this."
He hopes to meet again with Bob deZafra, president of the Civic Association of the Setaukets, Assemblyman Englebright and Cynthia Barnes, assistant to the Assemblyman, and co-coordinator of the Hamlet Study, to get the representatives to grant final community approval for the drawings.
But the civic association president is reluctant to speak for the whole community. "If he wants to cross all of his T's and dot all of his I's, the appropriate thing to do would be to go before the civic association," said Mr. deZafra, who hopes to present the drugstore's drawings at the next civic meeting on the first Monday in June. Along with his concerns about the developer's plans to excavate the property's hillside he added, "Mr. Slayton should understand that there is little enthusiasm in the community for speeding his maxumum sized building on the way."
