East Lyme — Eight months after abandoning plans to open a big-box store at Gateway Commons by Interstate 95's Exit 74, Costco is now back on board and wants to break ground in September, the Gateway developers announced.

The Gateway developers said they will go before the town's Zoning Commission on Thursday for approval of architectural modifications to the site plan and are working to get a permit from the state to build the associated traffic infrastructure.

The developers are moving forward with the anticipation that if those last two approvals are met, construction will begin in September, said Newton C. Brainard, vice president of development and acquisition for The Simon Konover Co. of West Hartford, which is developing the Gateway site with KGI Properties of Providence. The goal is to then open a Costco store, with a gas station, as the "anchor store" for the commercial phase of Gateway Commons, in November 2019.

Costco said its policy is to not "comment on locations that will be opening more than three months from today."

The Gateway developers had in 2016 received approval from the Zoning Commission to move forward with a 138,000-square-foot anchor store building and gas station, but the plans for the Costco store stalled last November.

Brainard said he could not speak directly for Costco, but he said Costco had about two months ago expressed a renewed interest in locating to the East Lyme site and working together to expedite a groundbreaking.

The developers from KGI Properties and Simon Konover, under Gateway Development/East Lyme LLC, will present the proposed site plan changes at the Zoning Commission's meeting at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Town Hall.

The application does not call for changes to the size or layout of the big-box store building but concerns minor, cosmetic changes, such as to the building materials, and reduces the size of the gas station by one bay and creates more parking spaces, East Lyme First Selectman Mark Nickerson said.

The developers also have been working for the last eight weeks to obtain a permit from the state to build the temporary traffic infrastructure for the site and expect to have a permit in place within 30 days, Brainard said.

Beyond the developer's plans for temporary improvements, the state Department of Transportation has said it is planning a project, slated to begin in 2021, to completely redesign the Exit 74 interchange.

KGI Properties and Simon Konover had received approval from the Zoning Commission in 2008 for their master plan for 425,000 square feet of retail space, with one big-box store and five smaller "junior anchor stores," near Exit 74, and a residential area by Exit 73 on a total 200 acres of land. The plans stalled for several years during the recession, but the developers began in 2014 to build 280 apartments for the residential phase of the development near Exit 73 that then opened in 2015.

Nickerson said the town has been planning for the Gateway district for about 20 years and it's the only area in town identified for a major commercial development. He called Costco a "natural fit" and a "premier anchor store" for the Gateway parcel, which will serve as an economic driver to add stability to the town's tax base, create jobs, and bring people to the town who then will visit the boardwalk, downtown, other shops and restaurants. Costco also will serve as a catalyst for stores to locate to Gateway and for improvements to the nearby road infrastructure, he said.

"We knew we needed this economic driver," he said. "We’re very pleased we have Costco back at the table and ready to go."

k.drelich@theday.com