At a Southampton Town Planning Board meeting in March 2025, a board member suggested Target paint its bollards white. Those are the big concrete spheres that keep cars off the walkway at nearly every Target in the country. Ken McQuade, an architect for the company, did not like the idea. "Respectfully, white shows every scuff and every mark," he said, according to The East Hampton Star. He suggested a neutral gray instead, and another board member pointed out that gray would match the sign.
Later that month, town building inspector Marjorie Reilly put the question in writing. As the Star reported, she concluded that "the bollards painted red would be considered a sign — however, painted gray would not be considered a sign."
That ruling explains most of what you see at the new store in Bridgehampton Commons, which opened to shoppers at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, October 6. For this project, the town's say came through the shopping center's signage rules, and those rules reached all the way down to the color of a concrete sphere.
When a Bollard Counts as a Sign
The Bridgehampton Commons signage rules had already shaped the storefront before anyone discussed the bollards. Lit signs aren't allowed anywhere in the center, so Target's name is lit from above instead of glowing from inside, Ken McQuade told Newsday. The letters and bullseye are white on a gray background.
Clare P. Shea, Southampton's assistant town planning director, told Newsday that "the Planning Board requested with the pre-submission process that the Target sign be white and the applicant was amenable as their site in Medford has a white sign." The East Hampton Star added that the exact sign size had to fit a set ratio to the height of the facade.
Once the sign was settled as a branding question, the bollards followed the same logic. One board member called them "somewhere between an architectural element and a safety issue and signage," and said they work as a marketing element because they represent the brand, the Star reported. In Newsday's account, McQuade described the result plainly: "We agreed to make those gray because the town didn't want it to feel like there was too much branding, using too much red on the outside. So, we changed those to gray, which is something we don't normally do, which is kind of fun."
The Star called the outcome "an uncharacteristically de-Targeted Target."
The Chairs and the Parking Lot Got Their Own Hearings
Most of what Target offered on its own drew questions too, because anything new on the Commons frontage goes through the same board.
In 2026, the company's attorney, Taylor Gonzalez, asked the Planning Board to approve a small seating area by the main entrance. The plan called for six Adirondack-style chairs set among flowering bushes under trellises. "It's supposed to be more warm and welcoming and make it more unique to a Hamptons Target," Gonzalez said, as 27east reported. "They don't want it to look like their cookie-cutter Targets."
Chairwoman Jacqui Lofaro raised practical concerns about snow clearing in winter and litter in summer. Dennis Finnerty, the board's longest-serving member, saw it differently. "People might actually be sitting out there drinking their coffee and might bump into a neighbor," he said, adding that snow and garbage are Kimco's job either way. Board member Glorian Berk also backed the seating. Newsday later listed Adirondack chairs and trellises among the Hamptons touches Target added outside the store.
The parking lot was a bigger issue. Target's plan added 10 Drive Up stalls for order pickup, and the Star reported the reconfiguration would cost six regular parking spaces. Target's attorney at the March meeting, Brian W. Kennedy, called a Kimco representative to confirm there were "no parking issues" at the site. Lofaro remained concerned about the precedent it could set for future tenants. Newsday reported that a zoning variance granted in June 2025 let the center's total parking drop from 1,253 required spaces to 1,247.
Anyone who shopped the Commons during construction will remember the cost of the work. With the drive in front of the old Kmart blocked, getting from one end of the center to the other meant leaving. "You have to leave, go out to Montauk Highway and come back in again," deputy town attorney Christine Scalera said at the same meeting, according to 27east.
The Fifth Discount Chain in the Same Box
The East Hampton Star traced the building's tenants back to its opening:
- W.T. Grant, opened October 1972, in what was then the Plaza East Shopping Center. Grant went bankrupt in 1976.
- Woolco, Woolworth's discount chain, moved in a few months later and closed in 1983 when the chain shut its remaining U.S. stores.
- Caldor came next and closed in May 1999 after its own bankruptcy.
- Kmart took over later in 1999 and stayed 25 years. When it closed in October 2024, it was the last full-size Kmart in the mainland United States.
- Target, open since October 6, 2026.
The objections started before the first tenant arrived. After Plaza East was announced, a group of residents from Bridgehampton and nearby towns, including the writer Peter Matthiessen and the artist Saul Steinberg, published a petition in the Star. Calling themselves "Citizens Against the Shopping Center," they warned of traffic congestion, unfair competition for established merchants, and damage that would "irreparably alter the visual quality of our countryside." In 1983, after Kimco bought Plaza East, its plan to expand onto the old drive-in movie theater next door led to more protests and legal action. That expansion eventually became the Bridgehampton Commons of today.
The petition's third concern was "visual quality." Fifty-three years later, the same building's appearance went back before a town board, down to the color of the bollards.
Target waited a long time for this space. Brandt Uthus, Target's regional real estate director, told Newsday that land availability is what makes the South Fork hard: "this Kmart really was the only box that was available that would be big enough for us, and so it required a lot of patience on our end to wait it out."
What's Inside, and What Arrives in November
The store is 91,036 square feet, Newsday reported. Target typically averages about 125,000, so this is smaller than usual, though it isn't one of the company's small-format stores. It is also Target's farthest-east location on Long Island. Inside, Target brought in its own version of the "classic Hamptons house." Newsday listed shake siding on several walls, fitting rooms with shiplap and porthole-style mirrors, coastal artwork, and wicker-wrapped ceiling lights. The front brick wall was also opened up with a row of glass windows.
For daily errands:
- Store hours: 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week, per Target's Bridgehampton store page.
- Starbucks: listed at 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
- CVS Pharmacy: Patch reported when the store opened that the pharmacy would open in November. Check the store page for hours before you bring in a prescription.
- Pickup and delivery: Drive Up, Order Pickup, and same-day delivery through Target Circle 360, according to Target's corporate store-openings fact sheet.
- Address: Patch and Target list 2102 Montauk Highway. Newsday and Kimco use 2044 Montauk Highway for the shopping center as a whole.
Patch reported that the store is expected to employ 140 people and is the 109th Target in New York.
The rest of the Commons is mostly the same, with one pending change. King Kullen is still in the center. Its parent company has announced that the Bridgehampton store is one of 24 King Kullen supermarkets being sold to Giunta Meat Farms, and the announcement said no closures or layoffs were expected, according to 27east.
The drive across the front of the old Kmart is part of the shopping trip again. Next time you use it, the gray spheres by the doors are the town's signage rules at work.
At James R. McLauchlen Real Estate, our brokers and certified appraisers have followed Southampton Town planning decisions like these since 1962. If you want to understand how town approvals affect a property you own or are considering, we'd be glad to talk. Request a Valuation & Consultation.
