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04/02/2019 01:15 PMThe flurry of activity that’s been happening over the last several months on the corner of West Main and Hull streets should come to an end by Sunday, May 12 when the new CVS that’s being built on that site is set to open its doors. The announcement came via a sign at the pharmacy desk at the current CVS location.
“According to the project manager, the work is progressing as planned and he does not expect that the May 12 date will need to be extended,” Clinton Building Inspector Ed Smith said.
Smith added that the interior of the building is not yet complete and that final inspections have not yet been scheduled, though he anticipates that will change soon.
The construction of the new CVS store was a lightning rod of controversy for many residents during 2016 and 2017. In a unanimous decision, the Clinton Planning & Zoning Commission (PZC) voted on Feb. 13, 2017 to deny the application for a new CVS, citing traffic concerns.
However, in March 2017 it was revealed that in December 2016, seven members of the PZC held a private meeting, in violation of the state’s Freedom of Information requirements, reportedly to discuss a change in PZC leadership, which exposed the PZC to a lawsuit as the CVS application was still open at the time of the meeting. Arista Development, LLC, the developers of the CVS site, filed a lawsuit seeking the PZC denial of the application be declared null and void. Attendees of the unnoticed meeting have stated that the CVS application was not discussed, a claim that cannot be substantiated as there are no official records of the meeting.
In July of that year, the PZC voted to accept a settlement with the developers through which the original proposed CVS is scrapped in favor of a new design. The new design called for a 13,000-plus-square-foot store, and a drive-through exiting on Johnson Street Extension.
PZC meetings concerning the CVS were highly attended, with a vast majority of speakers at the public hearings voicing their objections to the new store. Objections to the new development continued into 2018 and 2019, and the topic can still inspire heated debate among some residents over the merits of the building any time it is mentioned. In fact, plans to possibly redesign a portion of Dan Vece Jr. Way have been put on hold, in part so that the town’s traffic authority can study what impact the new CVS will have on traffic flow on the corner.
Besides traffic flow issues, those opposed to the building pointed to concerns over an aversion to having a box store on a main entrance to Clinton’s downtown and what some alleged was a political motivation in approving the site. According to the 2016 application for a zone change, the site on which the CVS is being built consisted of five lots, three owned by Richard Mazzella, one by Fred Hassan, and one by John Giannotti. At the time the CVS application was discussed and the lawsuit eventually settled, Giannotti was a member of the town’s Board of Selectmen, which led some members of the public to single him out for their ire. In 2017, Giannotti told the Harbor News that he believed that by constantly referencing his position as a selectman, the press and residents were implying that he was behaving in a corrupt or improper manner, a charge he vehemently denied. Giannotti also added that the developers were the ones who came to him, not the other way around.
People in favor of the project have argued that the new store looks aesthetically pleasing, is an upgrade in location from the current CVS, and is an improvement from the structures that used to be on the site.