WESTFIELD – The Legislative & Ordinance Committee will recommend that the full City Council approve a special permit to allow a business, Expert Fitness, to occupy a former car dealership at 99 Springfield Road.
The committee reviewed the details of the special permit petition Tuesday and voted to give a 3-0 positive recommendation to the full City Council tonight. If the full council acts on that recommendation the project will take its second major step forward this week.
The special permit application was submitted by Julie and Nabil Hannoush, who plan to move their existing business, Expert Fitness, to the property they purchased from the owners of the former Balise dealership, with the intent to convert the property into a retail complex.
There are currently two other businesses located in the former Balise car dealership showroom and repair building which is located in a Business B zone. Both of those businesses, Extra Innings, a batting cage with associated retail, and a cafe with a patio, are allowed uses in that zone.
Expert Fitness is an allowed use only if the City Council approves a special permit as a place of assembly.
Rob Levesque of R. Levesque & Associates, who is representing the couple before several boards and commissions, said Expert Fitness is a use that does not fit cleanly into any use defined by city ordinance.
“The third use, a gym, Expert Fitness, doesn’t fit into any zoning,” Levesque said during the public hearing conducted by the City Council on the petition. “There was nothing specific in the ordinance. The place of assembly was the closest.”
The city’s License Commission voted on Monday to approve an all-alcoholic restaurant license for the Shortstop Bar & Grill to be located in the former dealership.
The restaurant liquor license and the City Council special permit for a place of assembly will allow the couple to convert the 26,450-square foot building for their commercial businesses, independent of action by other boards on pending permits.
The couple is seeking Planning Board and Conservation Commission approval to redevelop the rest of the 11.36-acre site, with plans to construct three new buildings with a total of 26,000 square feet of retail space.
That project is being reviewed by the Planning Board and will require approval of a special permit, site plan and stormwater management plan by the Planning Board. The board voted Tuesday to continue its public hearing on the project because of recent changes required to the site plan by the State Department of Environmental Protection.
The project is before the Conservation Commission, the local DEP agent, to determine the impact on the environment, an issue because of the close proximity of the Westfield River to the proposed retail area development.
The original site plan called for cutting trees in the riverfront protection zone to create compensatory storage of flood water, an action which is currently allowed. The DEP has decided to review the policy allowing proposed tree removal activity, meaning that the project is stuck in both the Planning Board and Conservation Commission until that issue is resolved to the satisfaction of the DEP.
Levesque has already begun to modify the site plan before the Planning Board, in part to accommodate the DEP requirements.
Another state agency, the Department of Transportation, may also impose additional requirements on the project after the retail businesses are constructed. Levesque said the three businesses in the former dealership building will not trigger the need for a DOT-required traffic study, but the additional retail property may generate sufficient vehicle movement to require a formal study on the business impact to determine if a new traffic light will be needed to be installed to address traffic safety on the heavily traveled section of Route 20.
The DOT review of the traffic impact could take two years or longer before a decision is made on installation of a new traffic-control signal, Levesque said.
