HADLEY — A proposed dentist office to be built at 101 East St., at the corner of Route 9 and East Street, may need to scale back the parking lot before the development wins approval from the Planning Board.

While members of the Planning Board at Tuesday’s first hearing on special permits for the site plans and business use in the aquifer appeared to appreciate the colonial look of the 4,554-square-foot building, with a pitched roof and cupola, the associated parking lot may need to be pushed farther from the road. The property will be used by Hampshire Meadow Pediatric Dentistry.

“You’re almost on East Street,” said Planning Board Chairman James Makismoski as plans were presented by Keith Terry, civil engineer at Sherman & Frydryk, LLC of Palmer.

Maksimoski said the closest parking space is just 19 feet from the road, whereas the board would prefer the business meets a 50-foot setback.

“Seeing you have frontage on two roads, obviously keeping 50 feet from both roads is very unreal, so that’s understood,” Maksimoski said. “However, we would like to see 50 foot from one of the two roads, or something close to it.”

The project, located across from the bankESB branch at 100 East St. and taking design cues from that building, would include demolition of an historic residential farmhouse on the property.

Terry said the setbacks, 19 feet from East Street and 20 feet from Route 9, are allowed since the project received a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals, which recognized the hardship caused by the widening of Route 9.

Still, Maksimoski said the scale may not be appropriate to try to squeeze so much onto the property. “You’re putting a big building, with a lot of parking, on a small parcel,” Maksimoski said. 

Larry Tuttle, who runs Architectural Insights Inc. in Palmer, said the building is 50 feet back from East Street and 37 feet back from Route 9, though the parking is closer.

“I don’t know if you need all the parking area you have drawn,” Maksimoski said.

Terry said the parking is provided to meet the needs of customers and employees, and additional growth of the business.

Cyrus Safizadeh, who runs the business with Noelle Nubani at 207 Russell St., said his is one of the few pediatric dentists accepting Medicaid, and gets 50 to 100 referrals a week from Berkshire County. “That is why we are looking at this size building,” Safizadeh said.

Planning Board member Joseph Zgrodnik, a longtime orthodontist, said he is concerned about whether such expansion is realistic.

“Right now there are 12 dentists within walking distance of them on Route 9,” Zgrodnik said. “That’s a huge number, and anticipating that kind of success with all that kind of competition is fairly ambitious.”

Safizadeh did offer to have a sidewalk connection to ease access to the building for those using public transportation.

The hearing on the project continues Oct. 15.

Storage building feedback

While Planning Board Clerk William Dwyer said the board typically doesn’t get into a back and forth with the public over its decisions, planners used the meeting to explain how Ideal Movers and Storage was allowed to build a three-story, climate-controlled storage building on South Maple Street, in close proximity to the Norwottuck Rail Trail. There have been continued complaints from some people about the building blocking views of the Holyoke Range and impacting agricultural land, with a resident recently asking Town Hall for an explanation of the approval process.

“The project was an allowed use in the district, and had no dimensional variations,” Dwyer said, noting that the property has been industrially zoned since 1962.

Maksimoski said that the hearings in 2021 came after abutter notifications, and that no one commented for or against the project, including officials with the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation.

Zgrodnik explained that the industrial zoning of the parcel was sensible, since the rail trail is located on what used to be railroad tracks that were used as siting for the coal cars supplying the fuel to heat huge greenhouse complexes for flower growers once located nearby on Route 9.

“It was not just picked out of a sky, it was zoned a long time ago, and it was at a much larger industrial base than it is now,” Zgrodnik said.

One of those was Montgomery Rose Co., which operated until the 1990s on the property now occupied by the Home Depot plaza and at one time grew 200,000 plants in 20 greenhouses on 9 ½ acres. The other was Butler & Ullman Florists, whose operation began in Northampton, and eventually transitioned to Nuttelman’s Florist Shop in the 1970s, and then expanded to Hadley, growing 90,000 plants in 13 greenhouses on about 10 acres. Later sold to the Keyes family, who ran Keyes Flower Market in Northampton and Keyes Flower Shop and Greenhouses in Florence, that property also was developed in the past 30 years or so, and now includes an office building and a Wendy’s Hamburgers.

That stretch of Route 9 also had a third flower grower, Jeffrey Florists, located in front of Stop & Shop on land now occupied by a Chili’s restaurant.

Other activity

In other business, the Planning Board gave the OK for signs at several businesses coming to Route 9, including a Jersey Mike’s sub shop at 355 Russell St., a Towneplace Suites by Marriott hotel at 237 Russell St., and The Skinny Pancake creperie at 379 Russell St.  The board also approved the graphics for the menu board at the Dave’s Hot Chicken, 5 South Maple St.

Only The Skinny Pancake request came with any controversy, as Bridgette Shoemaker, owner of Ayzo Ridge Design in Albany, New York, asked to put a sign on the rear wall of the building facing the Hampshire Mall. While planners agreed small signs could be put on the rear doors, as those are directional signs, they would speak against any variance request Shoemaker might bring to the Zoning Board of Appeals for additional building signs. 

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.