Drug Mart Proposal at Ganley Site Heads Back to the Drawing Board

It looks like the  on Detroit Avenue is headed back to the drawing board.

The Sun Post-Herald reported that the Lakewood Planning Commission denied a few of the drug store chain’s requests at its meeting on Thursday. 

The commission approved the lots consolidation at the site of the former Ganley Auto dealership, but denied other requests including a lot-split at 1425 Grace Avenue and a conditional use for an adjacent 11-unit apartment building to be used for accessory parking.

That means the apartment building won’t be demolished after all.

The issue of a conditional use of a drive-thru at the proposed drug store was tabled, the Sun Post-Herald reported.

“The planning commission did a good job talking through some very complicated issues,” Dru Siley, the city’s director of planning and development, told Lakewood Patch. “We’ll see where it goes from here.”

— with its — has plans to move its eastern Lakewood location to the corner of Cohassett and Detroit avenues.

Plans call for a red brick structure, 92 parking spaces, a drive-thru, and green space that includes space for a bio-retention swale. 

The former auto dealership's showroom building would be demolished — along with an apartment building and vacant house at the rear of the property — to make way for a 24,000-square-foot Drug Mart, according to plans submitted to the city.

Those plans may need to be altered now, Siley said.

He said that — which now owns the Ganley site — is “going to evaluate their options.”

The company was scheduled to present plans at next week’s architectural board of review meeting. Those plans are on hold, while company officials decide what to do next. 

“They are pretty invested in the property,” Siley said. “They’re committed to finding a design for the property.” 

Neighbors have organized — and spoken out — against the development.

In a recent , nearby resident Mary Grodek said that most neighbors aren’t opposed to development — but rather the commercial “encroachment” into a residential neighborhood.

“Although many residents are concerned about Drug Mart’s impending location across the street from Garfield Middle School, the neighborhood is NOT anti-development,” she wrote. “The Ganley lot is zoned for and needs a commercial tenant. Drug Mart’s plan, however, is not progress.”