By Connor Adams Sheets
College Point residents will have a new option for all their relaxing and lounging needs if a proposal to build a spa moves forward as planned after the College Point Corporate Park Task Force, a Community Board 7 committee, recently recommended it for city approval.
Alan J. Sigman and H. Irving Sigman, representatives of the project’s developer, S&I Property Management, presented the New York Spa of College Point project before the task force at its Sept. 15 meeting in the corporate park’s trailer on Ulmer Street.
Slated to be built in a 37,000-square-foot building at 131-23 31st Ave., within the special district created for the corporate park, the project would be a major addition to the growing spa industry in College Point and would feature spa pools, exercise programs and classes, therapeutic pools, a nail salon, eateries and more.
The Sigmans came before the board to ask that it make a recommendation to the city Board of Standards and Appeals that it grant the developer a special permit saying it supports the construction of a spa in the corporate park, thus allowing it to move forward.
“The [BSA] has yet to rule on this, probably in large part because they’re waiting on a recommendation from this board,” H. Irving Sigman said. “The objection from the [city] Buildings Department is that the proposed physical cultural establishment is not permitted under M-1 zoning.”
The criteria for a developer to obtain such a permit under the special district established there requires that any business it plans to open there be “suited to a high-quality corporate park environment” and that it bring in revenues, according to Alan J. Sigman, who said he believes the proposed spa meets both criteria.
The task force sided with the developer, voting 8-1 to recommend that the BSA grant it the special permit application it seeks. Task force President Chuck Apelian cast the lone “nay” vote.
Some attendees of the meeting expressed their concern that there may not be the market for another spa in the neighborhood and that it would cause traffic headaches.
But Alan J. Sigman said neither concern should be an issue for New York Spa of College Point.
“Before it was warehouses and they generate truck traffic, which this use will not,” he told the task force. “The owner has done his studies and he feels there’s a lot of people that want this facility, otherwise he wouldn’t be making the investment.”
Arnold Wagner, a Community Board 7 member and member of the task force, voted to recommend the project.
“I’m familiar with the site as it is and as it is proposed, and I think this is a betterment,” Wagner said. “And I think it will bring dollars into the community.”
Reach reporter Connor Adams Sheets by e-mail at csheets@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4538.
