The Marketplace at Newburgh, a $150 million mega-mall that has been stalled by an economy looking to find traction, has received approval of a conceptual amended site plan by the Town of Newburgh Planning Board.

John Bainlardi, representing the developer, Wilder Balter Partners of Elmsford, N.Y., said the plan is to begin construction early this fall with store openings by spring 2012. Bainlardi told planners this past Thursday that Wilder Balter now has signed leases from BJ’s Wholesale Club and ShopRite, which led to changes in the configuration of the Marketplace layout.

BJ’s replaces one of the original announced Marketplace anchors, Costco. Costco and JC Penney’s withdrew plans to be independently owned anchors last year when the nation’s economy slowed to a crawl. The loss of Costco and Penney’s must have pained the developers, who had won at least two legal battles allowing them to subdivide the 128-acre property.

Costco and JC Penney’s both have corporate policies requiring them to own the ground under their stores. Opponents to the Marketplace lost legal battles in December 2008 and February 2009 when State Supreme Court Justice Francis Nicolai ruled Wilder Balter could subdivide the 128 acres to allow tenants Costco and JC Penney to own their own stores.

Plaintiffs in those cases included Newburgh Capital Group, which leases the Newburgh Mall, and Save Open Space, which has fought the Marketplace plan all the way back to its 2005 conception.

Under Wilder Balter’s new plan, the BJ’s store will take up about 85,000 square feet of the mega-mall; ShopRite’s  store is scheduled to be 66,000 square feet in size.

When the Marketplace at Newburgh was first proposed, the developer said that it would mean the addition of 1,500 permanent jobs and the addition of $2.7 million in property taxes. It also promised the addition of $20 million a year in sales taxes.

When the plan was introduced, it was to be an 850,000-square-foot mall on 128 acres on Route 300 across the street from the Newburgh Mall. Since then, it has been scaled back slightly to 784,000 square feet. The developer continues to attract interest from major retailers such as Best Buy, AC Moore and Staples.

Wilder Balter Partners has cleared major hurdles over the five years since the development was first broached. Multiple public hearings have been held and governmental agencies at all levels have endorsed the plan.

On Thursday night, the Planning Board was advised by its attorney Michael Donnelly that it should still seek approval of the Orange County Planning Department for the amended site plan.

“You don’t have to declare yourself the lead agency,” he said. “You already are the lead agency.”

Donnelly noted that the board has amended its finding twice during the progress of the project and could make a SEQRA Consistency Declaration if it wished.

“You need to be clear with the Building Department about the level of the project,” he told the board. “You also need to be sure that Code Compliance is comfortable with the plan.”

“And you need to decide whether another public hearing is required,” he said.

Board Chairman John Ewasutyn polled the board whether another public hearing was wanted and a majority said “no.” Board members Tom Fogarty and John Ward expressed an interest in another public hearing but were outvoted.

There has been numerous reviews of the Marketplace plan over the past 2 ½ years, the spokesperson for the developer reminded the Planning Board.

“This has been a very public process.”

During the meeting, Tim Miller, of Tim Miller Assoc., pointed to a 40-page findings statement and said that anticipated modifications to the site plan involving tenants were mentioned frequently.

“I don’t see any topic [from SEQRA point of view] that would call for modifications of the findings statement,” Miller said.

By ALLAN GAUL
agaul@tcnewspapers.com