The application for a permit to demolish the property at 570 Riverside Ave., now occupied by Doc’s Café, is under review by various town departments including the Historic District Commission at its Jan. 13 meeting. The property, owned by William Gault, will be part of a Saugatuck Center development project approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission last year. The approved plan calls for a mix of retail space and residences. The commercially-zoned property built in 1954 has 1,950 square feet and is situated on a half-acre lot. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com
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19 thoughts on “WestportNow Teardown of the Day: 570 Riverside Ave.”
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Oh, how sad. Great coffee there and wonderful natural muffins made locally by BlueBelle Muffins that everyone adores. Is this going to be just another shopping mall and where will Doc’s Cafe go? I know I can order the muffins online (www.bluebellemuffins.com) but it’s so much better to get them with a great cup of tea or coffee! Darn, is this “progress”?
We watched Magee’s Bridge Market get shoved out knowing a family market and Deli was being replaced by a short term specialty cheese and expensive fru fru shop, now dead. We see Shaw’s dead after Saturday our only local alternative to Mega Food Shops. And now Docs a local alternative to $5 starbuck.
People you better wake up and start to ask your representatives and mayor “How can we preserve some part of local Westport” Greed and no long term town planning except for building more cluster housing and mc mansions is a sin. It
Are you sure she is not in the new development?
I think that most of the small retailers are at least being offered a chance to stay, although the rents will likely be higher. Some of the mixed housing/professional/retail blocks have been quite successful in other places. Hopefully this will work as well.
It’s a free market economy. Part of what you are seeing at the corner of Bridge St. and Riverside is a result of that. Sometimes it’s not pretty, but that’s the way it works. I miss Magee’s too, but there are other forces at work here.
The bail out of Wall St,, Banks and Autos argue against your point on the national level, There are tools to save domestic business when we want.
On the local level we have tools too such as Tax incentive, Zoning and political and resident pressure. A good example was the Old Mill market where the neighbors said we need this place!
We can do it Westport if we care….
Simple start, to everyone who shops at Doc’s, starting now:
When you stop in for a cup of coffee, buy two. When you pick up a muffin, pick up a dozen for the office.
Can’t wait for it to be replaced by either:
4) A Starbucks
3) A YMCA
2) A parking lot
1) or most needed a bank
Chip – are you arguing against the overall Saugatuck project? Are you suggesting that this neighborhood is quaint and charming and of historical value that should be preserved for years to come?
Dan – yes, we are saying that the Saugatuck project is going too far. One thing is to redevelop an area in need…but the restaurants and businesses near the Westport station do great business.
This aspect of the Saugatuck project to tear down a successful coffee shop to develop to build retail and residence is nothing but GREED by developers. It’s not like one would build middle income housing…something so close to the train would easily go for a premium, which is not really needed in a town like Westport.
If we could stop the developer/corporate greed, then perhaps we could begin to dig ourselves out of the mess of 2008. If we continue to do the same things, we will continue to get the same results!
E
How sad. Doc’s is the kind of neighborhood-binding institution that we want and need. Hopefully Doc’s and all its terrific people will be able to relocate and serve the same role in our everyday lives—as well as the same great coffee and food. I have heard that there is a chance of that happening, which would surely please many of us who have come to regard Doc’s as part of our lives.
Thanks for being there for us and best of luck to Yvonne and her great crew—Chris, Alex, Katie, Erin, and of course Kathleen, and anyone who I might have missed (with apologies). We hope to see you at 570 for a little while longer and then somewhere nearby really soon.
Jeez Chip, Lou’s been playing golf in Florida for several years (over 5?). Pat does a great job, but doesn’t dabble in politics like our favorite Mayor of Saugatuck. Where do you get your haircut? <grin>
The Saugatuck PO is non-functional in just about every aspect, despite the great staff. I really do want Saugatuck to survive as a community, but there are so many constraints on housing, parking and traffic that it often feels like a house of cards to me. Remember that the Gaults are a long-time Saugatuck family. I have confidence that they will do a good job which we all will appreciate when it’s done.
Dan
I do not have enough hair left to cut at today
There is something about the Saugatuck P.O. that says Westport is still a town that has a sense of history and connectedness to its roots. Same with the rest of the immediate area, the downtown of what we know as Saugatuck. This downtown will change under the new plans, and there will be more residences as well as some businesses; with the projected population density it may well become more like an outer borough of New York than what we have now.
Nothing has changed since we first began this dialogue, except that ground is closer to being broken. The essence of the Saugatuck that we know will be transmuted into something else. I’m not sure it will be any better, but those who don’t know it now won’t know what they have missed. What should have been preserved in real life may now last only in the pages of books and in memories.
Lets cut out the mud forgive me for using the greed word. Let me put in a civil way to Dan.
Do I think the structures in Saugatuck are award winning, modern or irreplaceable? No
Do I think that Dave Derosa (Derosa’s), Evonne and Chris (Docs) Lou at the Saugatuck Barber and then Mike and Ed at the Saugatuck Post Office (the area rent increases will force out the post office) and all the local icons that we know by name will be missed ? Yes !
They are Saugatuck, Saugatuck is not the buildings (which with their improvements are not ugly) Saugatuck is the people we know by name, some them descendants of the hard working men that built the railroad and Saugatuck and stayed. They are people that will not be there because the “project” will not provide space that they can afford, just ask them, you know them.
And so to answer your question Dan, YES I do believe Saugatuck is quaint and charming and historical. And worth a diatribe on saving it and Westport.
Maybe we should all chill and drink decaf.
I’m not sure that we should chill and drink decaf…that’s for people who want to continue being duped by corporate greed and developers/organizations that will tear down buildings when nothing is wrong and put up a bank (like they’re a winning business model).
Perhaps chilling and drinking decaf might work while a developer takes your house by Eminent Domain and then constructs a retail strip mall….yes, it can happen, and now it’s perfectly legal. (look it up).
There isn’t a problem with the Saugatuck area….focus energies on infrastructure and technology of depressed areas.
There are so many of us in the wider Westport area who just love Saugatuck and make a point to shop there and run into the post office and feel good that there is such a great history there. The Italian festival (with the help of the Westport Historical Society) always displays photographs of the ancestors who built this part of town and the roots run so deep. I have friends who grew up in Saugatuck and I hope that this will be a goal of the entire town of Westport (including Saugatuck, Greens Farms, etc.) to keep the flavor and people of Saugatuck the same. Just drinking decaf (even with a BlueBelle muffin) won’t do it! We need to admit how much the COMMUNITY of Saugatuck means to our town.
Hello everyone,
My name is Kathleen Dougherty, and as many of you already know, my mother is the owner of Doc’s Cafe. It came as a bit of a shock to our family when we saw our coffee shop listed as the “teardown of the day.” Thankfully, that title is not entirely accurate. Though we will eventually have to leave 570 Riverside Ave, we expect to be there for at least the next several months. The future of our little store remains uncertain, but we would love nothing more than to stay in the Saugatuck area. We will do our best to make that happen.
More importantly, I posted to let all of you know how sincerely grateful we are for your support. Doc’s Cafe would be nothing without all of the kind and amusing customers that visit us each day. You are so much more to our family than mere coffee orders. You are our friends. We hope that we will continue you to see you all for a very long time.