At the last Planning & Zoning commission meeting, applicants Sage + Sound and Mill Post Realty were approved for a change of use from Restaurant to Retail and Café with seasonal outdoor dining on the first floor, and a wellness center on the lower floor with classes and treatment rooms. The café will be open for breakfast and lunch.
Sage + Sound Greenwich will be the second Sage + Sound location, joining the first wellness center at 84th and 3rd Ave in NYC.
The business reflects a move away from traditional retail in Greenwich, and both the popularity of wellness and personal services and the proliferation of restaurants.
116-136 East Putnam Ave is 1.074 acres located to the east of Whole Foods.
According to a letter to P&Z from attorney John Tesei, Sage + Sound is a wellness destination offering curated programming, products and self-care services.
The lower floor will have 8 treatment rooms and an entrance from the rear parking lot off Milbank Avenue. The floors will be connected with an interior stairway.
The treatment rooms will operate with one practitioner and one client at a time for Facials, Lymphatic Drainage, Massage (Swedish, deep tissue, prenatal, Thai), Energy Healing (Reiki) & Acupuncture, and the Head Spa for scalp treatments. A “contrast room” will be set up for hot-cold therapy (i.e. cold-plunge and sauna), and there will be a ‘study,” where mindfulness classes, meditation, sound meditation, breath work and mindful movement will take place.
Existing lower level accessed by rear parking lot (above) and existing first floor (below).
The Sage + Sound space includes part of the former Moon/Asiana restaurants. They will be located between Freebird and Lucenti Interiors which expanded into the former Wine Wise location.
The new retail café will have on East Putnam Avenue. The applicant will be required to re-apply annually for seasonal outdoor dining approval.
The building is grandfathered in regarding the number of parking spaces. There are just 64 existing spaces, plus 2 ADA spaces, making it legally nonconforming.
The total number of parking spaces for the existing uses with the proposed wellness center change would require 131 spaces.
The applicant explained that the parking lot was under-parked because the other five tenants have low traffic.
Commissioner Dennis Yeskey questioned the daytime parking demand analysis. He said he had recently been unable to find a parking spot during the day, and went next door to Whole Foods where there was an even greater challenge.
“It’s a very constricted area in the back of the building. I can just see the overflow on those hours spilling into to Whole Foods, which is already overflowing,” Yeskey said.
54 spaces open on Friday, July 12, 2024 at 4:00pm
The building owner provided photos of the rear parking lot with 54 spaces open on Friday, July 12 at 4:00pm, and 42 spaces open on Wednesday July 17 at 8:30am.
Ultimately, the commission agreed with the applicant that the site was under-parked because the mixture of tenants avoids simultaneous peak demand for tenants.
The busy time at Patsy’s restaurant, which occupies part of the former Asiana/Moon space, is at dinner time when all other tenants’ businesses are closed.
Free Bird is a food use with mostly take-out pickups and a peak time 11:30am-1:30pm.
Berkshire Hathaway employs brokers who are mostly in the field rather than sitting at desks.
SLT is a class-based personal service with average class size of 8 people operating 6:30am-11:30am, and closed by around 12:00pm.
Osteo Strong operates one-on-one by appointment, with a maximum of three clients. Their busiest days are early in the week. Later in week they close by 3:00pm, and on Saturdays they close by 1:00pm.
The Greenwich Health Dept advised it will need to license the facility, which requires a plan review of the space prior to application to the building department.
The hours of operation will be 9:00am until 7:00pm, Monday through Saturday and 9:00am to 5:00pm on Sundays.
The commission was convinced the application would not increase non-conformity. On Oct 1 they approved the final site plan and special permit unanimously 5-0 with Alban, Levy, Lowe, Jones and Yeskey voting.
See also:
In Greenwich, “Hands-On” Businesses Put the Squeeze on Traditional Retail
Glenville to Get a New Supermarket: Greenwich P&Z Approves Application for DeCicco & Sons