A letter from the town of Tisbury concerning the town parking lot is the cause of another bump in the road in Stop & Shop's effort to get approval for an expanded Vineyard Haven store. The Martha's Vineyard Commission held a four-hour hearing Thursday, then continued it to April 17.
A redesign proposal for the parking lot adjacent to the Stop & Shop building featuring 64 parking spaces set at 90 degrees and a multi-use path was approved by Tisbury selectmen on Tuesday.
The Martha’s Vineyard Commission Thursday approved a request from the grocery chain to postpone a public hearing scheduled for Feb. 20 to March 20. The drawn-out process has become one of many sticking points in the expansion plan.
As the Stop & Shop presses its expansion plan in front of the Martha's Vineyard Commission, focus shifts to a potential redesign of the town-owned parking lot adjacent to the store.
A Martha's Vineyard Commission review of the grocery expansion plans in Vineyard Haven will go to a seventh public hearing in February. Sticking points remain amid growing frustration over a drawn-out process.
As a months-long review by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission of expansion plans for the Vineyard Haven Stop & Shop continues, members of the commission expressed frustration late this week with the lack of progress.
And spokesmen for the international grocery chain told the commission that they have reduced the size of the plans as much as they can.
Questions of size and character dominated discussion at a Martha’s Vineyard Commission public hearing Thursday night, the third such session the commission has held on plans to renovate and expand the Stop & Shop Vineyard Haven store.
Originally an A&P, the Vineyard Haven Stop & Shop was built years before anyone on the Island ever contemplated problems with overcrowding. Water street once hosted a modest ferry terminal, a hot dog stand for tourists and the Smith, Bodfish and Swift farm and feed store.
Plans for a large expansion and renovation of the Vineyard Haven Stop & Shop, which have raised concerns about a range of issues from aesthetics to traffic, had a slightly different look when they came before the Martha’s Vineyard Commission again Thursday night.
Discussion continues on a controversial plan to more than double the size of the Vineyard Haven grocery store. Issues involving the municipal parking lot adjacent to the store will be the subject of a public meeting with the Tisbury selectmen on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. in the Tisbury senior center.
