Whole Foods withdraws Morristown pizzeria plan

MORRISTOWN – Whole Foods Market has withdrawn a controversial plan to open a pizzeria next to its store that is nearing completion on Washington Street.

Whole Foods has approvals from the town Planning Board to convert a former 20,000-square-foot A&P Supermarket into a new market with a cupola and cafe seating. Interior reconstruction has been under way for months on the old A&P that closed its doors in December 2013 after 44 years but the exterior is still missing a new facade and the property is surrounded by fencing while construction is under way.

The popular, upscale market is on track to open sometime in the spring.

A vacant, dilapidated dry cleaners is situated at the corner of the Whole Foods parking lot and the company proposed in October to convert it into a pizzeria, and requested a use variance from the town Zoning Board of Adjustment.

Upon hearing of the proposed pizzeria, Sal Rosania, owner of Suvio's Pizza Ristorante on Washington Street, hired attorney Daniel G.P. Marchese, who objected to the eatery and cross-examined witnesses at town zoning board meetings on the proposal.

Whole Foods attorney Robert C. Garofalo on Jan. 6 sent the town a letter saying that the company was withdrawing its plan for a pizzeria "without prejudice," meaning it could refile an application for the same or similar use of the vacant dry cleaners at another time.

Whole Foods spokesman Michael Sinatra said that no further decision has been made on potential uses for the old dry cleaners.

"We're excited to be joining the community and are focusing our efforts on the store itself, which will open later this spring," Sinatra said in an e-mail.

Garofalo wrote that the decision withdrawing the request for a use variance was made after consideration of public comments and Suvio's positions.

"Whole Foods is very community-oriented and as a result has determined not to proceed with the use variance application for the pizzeria," Garofalo wrote the town.

"It was hard fought but we are elated," Marchese said.

Suvio's, established in 1979, is located about one-eighth of a mile from Whole Foods on Washington Street. Marchese said his client objected to Whole Foods seeking a waiver of submission of an environmental impact statement and to using a former contaminated dry cleaners to house a food establishment.

Marchese had said his client obviously didn't want the competition but believed a pizzeria surrounded by a large parking lot would change the character of the residential neighborhood and could lead to groups of people hanging out.

Marchese had written the town: "For sure it cannot be denied that the notion of the Whole Foods construction project would help resolve the blight that currently exists at that location. However, the establishment of a separate pizza restaurant in a suburban neighborhood (on a toxic site no less) thwarts the very purpose of Morristown's land use regulations and the responsible town planning they were created to promote."

Staff Writer Peggy Wright: 973-267-1142; pwright@njpressmedia.com

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