WESTFIELD – The Planning Board took more than two hours of testimony Tuesday night at the public hearing on the Pride Limited Partnership proposed project on Southampton Road directly across from Exit 3 of the Massachusetts Turnpike.
The Planning Board voted to keep the public hearing open for further comment at its May 5 session.
Robert L. Bolduc, the founder of Pride and engineering consultant John Furman of Springfield office of VHB, presented detail of the complicated project which involves two separate property parcels, one for commercial vehicles and the other for privately-owned vehicles (POVs). Both parcels have frontage on Owen District Road and Friendly Way.
“We will bring jobs and tax revenue to the city and it will be a very good looking retail and commercial area,” Bolduc said. “We just need to get it started because there is a very large restaurant chain interested in coming to one of the Southampton Road pads, bring casual dining with a liquor license. The other pad, the one next to Friendly’s will be a QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) without a liquor license serving breakfast and sandwiches.”
The commercial truck facility will be located behind the Friendly’s Restaurant and given the designation as 33-39 Southampton Road. That site will primarily provide diesel fuel for commercial trucks, but will also have a compressed natural gas (CNG) pumping station which will be operated in conjunction with the Westfield Gas & Electric (WG&E) Department pending a public-private partnership agreement.
Bolduc said that CNG is the “fuel of the future” because it costs half of the price of diesel fuel and because CNG is 14 times cleaner than diesel.
“CNG burns 14 times cleaner and is safer if there is an accident because it is lighter than air and will dissipate quickly,” Bolduc said. “It is considered to be the fuel of the future by the EPA (federal Environmental Protection Agency).”
The commercial fueling station is designed to fill the saddle tanks of truck from both sides of the vehicle.
“The fueling bays are only wide enough for one truck at a time,” Bolduc said. “The truck operator will use a credit card on the master pump to being the initial fueling at the driver’s side tank, then walk around the vehicle to begin fueling (the passenger side tank) from a slave pump connected to the master pump.”
The entry and exit into the commercial fueling station would both be on Owen District Road.
The passenger car fueling station across Friendly Way from the commercial facility also will have an alternative fueling station proposed in conjunction with the WG&E Department, Bolduc said. The plan is to [put a recharging station at the front of the passenger vehicle facility.
The passenger vehicle fueling facility would have to one-way entrances, one form Owen District Road (the jug handle) and the other From Friendly Way. There would be a second entrance and exit onto Owen District Road and a second entrance and exit, with a right turn only onto Friendly Way near the intersection with Owen District Road.
“The partnership between Pride and the WG&E will be the first and only alternative fueling station along the (Massachusetts) Turnpike with both CNG and an electric vehicle recharging facility,” Bolduc said.
One resident asked how the Pride project is being coordinated with the improvements to North Elm and Notre Dame Street and programmed improvements to Southampton Road at the turnpike exchange.
Furman said the project has several infrastructure components out of the scope of the Pride plan, including turning and traffic management improvements to Exchange 3 of the Turnpike and will be done either by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation or by the city.
Furman said that much of the road work will be triggered by the Mass Turnpike transition to electronic tolls, replacing the toll booth system with Fast Lane technology and cameras to record registration plates of vehicles, without Fast Lane transponders, entering and leaving the turnpike.
“The scheduled improvements have been held off because the final design will be coordinated with removal of the toll booths by the DOT in July of 2016,” Furman said. “The intent is to have that (electronic) system in place. There has to be construction.”
The plan is to add the dedicated right-turn lane between the turnpike exit and Arch Road to eliminate truck traffic entering the southbound lanes of Southampton Road (Routes 10 & 202), installation of a dedicated right turn lane in the northbound lane of Southampton Road onto Friendly Way, and the addition of two lanes one Friendly Way, one would be a dedicated right turn onto Southampton Road and an additional eastbound lane from Southampton Road on Friendly way.
Residents questioned the impact on traffic of the turning movements and the additional traffic which would be generated by both fueling facilities, impacts that will affect traffic patterns as far as Springdale Road and Holyoke Road.
Ward 6 City Councilor Christopher Crean asked the Planning Board to establish a “strict timeline” for construction “because you know if that is not in the permit, it will not happen.” Crean also requested that the board consider imposing a performance bond on Pride “to hold the developer to a strict timeline.”
The board continued the hearing to its May 5 meeting to allow residents supporting or opposing the project to make statements.
Bill Lawry of Western Avenue jumped to that section of comment, asking the board to support the project because of the economic benefits to the city and state.
“I’m asking you to support this for economic reasons. The city will see an increase in business and the state will see an increase in fuel tax revenue,” Lawry said. “All of the truckers coming into Westfield now just want to get out because there’s nothing for them here. They fuel in New York. We lose all of that fuel revenue.”
