GUILDERLAND — A developer is looking to bring back to life a dormant building along Western Avenue. 

Project applicant David Zhang was before the Guilderland Planning Board at its March 13 meeting with a proposal to reconfigure 1975 Western Ave., the former Westlawn Lanes bowling alley, into a 15,000-square-foot multi-tenant strip shopping center.

The plan is to have storefronts running along both Alvina Boulevard and  Western Avenue. 

“Currently there is no tenant plan,” Zhang told the board. “So we don’t really know what the use is going to be, but [the] plan [is for] retail and professional offices.”  A couple of years ago, there was a plan for a daycare center, but that proposal fell through over costs, Zhang said.

Other than moving the current sign, which is “smack in the middle of the parking lot,” minimum site work is planned, said Zhang.

“See, the problem I find with this site, and it’s not  — I guess it's your issue — but it’s so out of compliance with our existing standards,” Chairman Stephen Feeney told Zhang.

The zoning board is the lead agency for the project. 

Feeney said the town code states that the board “shall consider the design standards — shall — when considering … the redevelopment and reoccupation of sites.”

Feeney said he didn’t see Zhang receiving a positive recommendation from the board if his current proposal is what he planned moving forward with. 

“There’s not a stitch of landscaping. There’s not a single tree. There's not a shrub,” Feeney said. “There's not a blade of grass. The parking in the front doesn't even comply [with town code].”

Feeney said the front parking spaces were just 15 feet deep. 

“So, if you took your new parking lot in the back and tried to place it up front with a standard 9-by-18 [foot] and 24-foot drive aisle, the parking would be out on Western Avenue,” he said. 

Feeney acknowledged that the parking was existing and that “it's kind of bizarre,” later adding it had been that way for probably 60 years. But, he said, “It doesn’t meet our basic standards.”

He also acknowledged his board wasn’t the project’s lead agency, so he wasn’t sure what kind of direction Zhang would receive from the zoning board. But Feeney said, “You’d get a significant amount of negative comment from this board.”

Feeney added that he didn’t think the front parking proposal was safe. He said 22 feet was needed for a car to back out, and that 24 feet is what’s in the town code.  “And when I did the measurements,” he said,  “I …  got like 10 [feet].”

For his part,  Zhang told the board he’d had conversations with project engineer Hershberg and Hershberg about a better parking lot layout, “but we just wanted to get in front of the board, show kind of the existing conditions and the elevations, just so we can get all your feedback.”

And then, Zhang said, “we can improve” parking.  “This way,” he said, “we can do it all in one shot.”

The board ultimately tabled the proposal, pending changes to the parking and landscape plans.