Dandy Mini Mart gets go-ahead

Officials involved in the management of Dandy Mini Mart stores say construction at the Lansing location of the gas station and convenience store could begin at the end of the year.

The project, which would bring a Dandy gas station to the town, was approved by the Lansing planning board in late March. Officials said the mini-mart would be situated on a projected 4.7-acre plot of land at the corner of East Shore Drive and Ridge Road (Route 34 and Route 34B). Dandy’s site plan proposal calls for a 6,100-square-foot convenience store with two gasoline fueling islands, one diesel fueling island and a drive-through window. It also includes 36 parking spaces, with four designed for tractor-trailer trucks and four for electric vehicles.

Dandy is a “family owned and community driven” chain of gas stations and convenience stores that originated in Sayre, Pennsylvania, in 1983, according to the company’s LinkedIn profile.

The company’s offerings include pizza, sub sandwiches, specialty coffee and café items, salads, wraps and sides. There is also the selection of drinks and grocery items that customers would expect from a gas station/convenience store.

The company operates 67 stores throughout the Twin Tiers region of Pennsylvania and New York.

“Lansing, and the Finger Lakes region in general, are our markets where we’re growing and developing,” said Duane Phillips, Dandy’s general manager. Dandy currently has locations in Freeville, Slaterville Springs, Ithaca and Enfield

Phillips, who has been with the company for about 35 years, noted that construction of the Lansing project could start later this year.

“I can’t speak to the timeline yet. There are still things with our permitting that we’re working through,” he said. “Until those are all completed, we’re not in a position that we can start the project. I would hope that we can start at possibly the end of this year. If not, it will be on next year’s build schedule. But again, we’ve gotta get through those permitting things first.”

As the company prepares to iron out the last few details before starting construction, they are also coming to the end of a two-year process of getting the project through the town’s planning board.

John Zepko, Lansing’s planning director, detailed the project’s timeline.

“The initial concept came in about two years ago, and that was really just to feel out the town and get an idea of whether or not the town would be receptive to the project,” Zepko said. “Then, [Dandy was] silent for a long time.”

A year later, the company returned with an official site plan. 

“The reason that it took so long is just the normal back-and-forth between a planning board and a developer,” he said. “The planning board asked for a lot of changes, and the developer accommodated everything.”

The developer, Zepko noted, worked on elements such as the building’s orientation and location of the driveways to bring the proposal into compliance with the town’s zoning guidance. 

They changed the architecture to feature a brick exterior and shingle roofing and to accommodate the gas pumps.  

“They worked quite a bit with the lighting,” Zepko said. “The applicant did a traffic study, and that also took some time because it needed to be reviewed. It was an iterative process.”

Residents have expressed concerns regarding the development in the past. Zepko said some concerns were voiced by residents connected to the Rogues Harbor Inn, which is situated across the street from the proposed Dandy site.

“They were very concerned about how this would impact their operations, and rightly so,” Zepko said. “There were some residential neighbors around that were also concerned about the size of the project.”

Another general concern, Zepko said, is the overall uncertainty that new developments can bring.

“I think people are always concerned when something new happens. They immediately go to the worst,” he said. “They’re always concerned about changes in the neighborhood and the character of the neighborhood.”

A potential solution that could help alleviate those concerns would be to conduct more outreach and more resident education about how projects go through the planning board, Zepko said.

“But you just don’t always have the capability of doing that while you’re reviewing the project,” he added.

A more interactive approach to government could be key to alleviating residents’ concerns as well, Zepko noted.

“We always post and make all the materials available for the public to read, but those are physical documents,” he said. “It is tough in this day and age for people to download large PDFs and comb through things that are going to, by and large, be read by professionals.”

Creating a website that highlights the key features of a proposed site plan would be a practical way for residents to get direct information from applicants, Zepko added.

“There’s a lot of misconceptions out there in the world, and just because the public doesn’t want a project to be approved doesn’t mean that everybody has a basic package of rights,” he said. “Land use entitlements are part of those. Whether you’re a single-family homeowner on a half-acre lot, you have certain rights. If you’re a commercial developer, you have certain rights. It’s difficult to speak to people about that because developments can be an emotional subject for some.”

Lansing at Large appears every week in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@vizellamedia.com. Contact Eddie Velazquez at edvel37@gmail.com or on Twitter @ezvelazquez.