HADLEY — Planet Fitness, on the backside of the Hampshire Mall, will be allowed to repaint the walls surrounding its exterior entrance, but not using purple paint.
With members of the Planning Board in September expressing concern that the business intended to use a color that is part of its branding to improve the entrance, planners this week gave the OK for the business to instead use March Wind, a Sherwin Williams color that is dark gray.
Mall general manager Lynn Gray said the paint job is needed to give more prominence to a business that, like other fitness studios, has been affected during the pandemic.
50/50 Fitness/ Nutrition, a fixture on Route 9 for the past eight years, for instance, recently announced it would close at the end of November. 50/50 held its last group class in September.
The gray color, Gray said, is similar to what is already used at the entrances for the Target and PetSmart stores. “It’s well within that scheme,” Gray said.
Planning Board Chairman James Maskimoski said he no longer had objections. “I’m good with that shade,” Maksimoski said.
Planners, though, informed Gray that a new directional sign Planet Fitness installed on Route 9 during the summer will have to be taken down. Gray said that the company placed that sign due to not having its information on the main pylon that lists Target, JC Penney, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Pinz and PetSmart.
Planet Fitness also installed a directional sign on South Maple Street between the Hampshire and Mountain Farms malls that can stay.
Board member Joseph Zgrodnik said all tenants inside the mall would want signs on Route 9 if that Planet Fitness directional sign doesn’t come down.
“We are going to ask them to have the Route 9 sign removed,” Gray said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
