Town skeptical of proposed commercial buildings

The effect of additional traffic signals or more turns would make traffic on the state road, originally intended as a bypass, choppier than it already is, commissioners said.

‘‘That’s going to hold up a hell of a lot of traffic,” Commissioner Debbie Zimmerman said.

The Walkersville Zoning Board of Appeals in February cited serious traffic concerns in denying a Muslim group permission to hold religious retreats on the 224-acre Nicodemus Farm, just a mile south on the road.

Walkers Village, which owns the site where an abandoned Exxon gas station stands and the land around a Valero station, wants to build three buildings on four acres.

One of the buildings will house CVS⁄pharmacy, which would relocate from Walkers Village Shopping Center – also owned by Walkers Village – across the street.

The company has submitted a site plan to the town for review, Frederic A. Tomarchio, of Carroll County-based Tomarchio Enterprises, told commissioners.

He and partner Ralph Norton brought to a regular town meeting design sketches to illustrate their ideas, and promised to deliver the results of a professional traffic study in the near future.

Regardless of whether the buildings go up or not, Walkers Village will press on with $750,000 in exterior renovations to Walkers Village Shopping Center over the next four months, Walkersville’s only commercial district, according to the developers.

‘‘Right now, it’s rundown and it needs to be refaced and it’s tired,” Tomarchio said.

But the ultimate prize sought by Tomarchio is a commitment from the store that anchors the plaza, Safeway, to rebuild its location. Barring that, significant improvements would suffice, he added.

Greg Teneyck, Safeway’s spokesman on the East Coast, said in a phone message that the company would renovate the interior of the grocery store within the next few years as part of a nationwide effort to update all of its 1,743 stores. He did not know when the Walkersville location would be scheduled for renovation.

In fact, Tomarchio and Norton said, Safeway’s reluctance to improve the store has held back their commitment in recent years to giving Walkers Village a long-needed facelift.

They blamed the Maryland State Highway Association’s refusal to grant Safeway its own entrance from Md. Route 194 for Safeway’s response, and asked town officials for help in securing assistance from the state agency.

Burgess Ralph W. Whitmore told the developers he would try to help.

Walkers Village bought the shopping center in 2002 for $7.9 million. It includes 86,231 square feet of enclosed retail space, and the land around the Valero gas station.

Business has slowed at the plaza since Riverside Center and the Shops at Monocacy opened on the northeastern edge of Frederick city three years ago. Whenever stores there make improvements, Tomarchio said, it ‘‘just sucks that much more life out of this place.”