HADLEY — Redevelopment of an auto service garage on Route 9 for several tenants, including Action EMS whose ambulances serve both Hadley and Holyoke, can proceed.
Previously held up by concerns over customers at the neighboring Esselon Cafe parking on West Street next to the Town Common, the Planning Board earlier this month voted in favor of the site plans for reuse of the Hadley Auto Service building at 97 Russell St.
The board’s unanimous decision came after the Select Board prohibited parking along a 500-foot section of West Street near Esselon, meaning that customers will have to park in either Esselon’s lot, or in a large overflow parking area next to the garage.
Planning Board Clerk William Dwyer said Friday that the approval was made in conjunction with the no-parking signs, which the Public Works Department has since installed along West Street.
The project also was delayed more than a year and a half as permission for a curb cut was sought from the state’s Department of Transportation.
With the approval, Mark Krause, who owns Esselon and is handling the garage redevelopment, can have the ambulances use garage bays and can also have aspects of the coffee roasting production in the building.
In other Planning Board business, board members rejected a plan by Planet Fitness, a tenant at Hampshire Mall, to refurbish its exterior entrance by surrounding the doors and its sign with purple paint.
Mall general manager Lynn Gray explained that this would make the entrance more pronounced and welcoming to members. “It’s simply a color change surrounding the immediate entrance,” Gray said.
Dwyer said planners need to get a handle on when a business is blurring the line between signs and paint. Planners have traditionally interpreted signs as more than just letters, and worry that the mall does not become a “patchwork quilt.”
At a meeting where the plans were presented, board member Mark Dunn said the current color scheme makes the mall whole.
“Brick and cream give the building a sense of cohesiveness,” Dunn said.
Though Planet Fitness is not visible from the streets due to its being at the rear of the mall, there is concern about setting precedent through painting its entrance.
“I’m not too worried about it, but I don’t want to see JC Penney painting their entire structure in their primary colors,” Dwyer said.
The Planning Board has also not yet rendered a decision on Ideal Movers and Storage’s plans to build a three-story climate-controlled storage building on South Maple Street. The board has scheduled a hearing on a special permit to use the transfer of development rights bylaw that would allow a denser project, with more limited parking, by making a payment for preserving agricultural land.
More complicated for this project, Dwyer said, is the developer’s need to get water to the building, both for drinking water and sprinklers. A new water main will likely have to connect from the nearby malls and may require going below the Norwottuck Rail Trail crossing.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
