GREENFIELD — The Planning Board has approved the site plan for a 19,432-square-foot Aldi grocery store on the site of the now-demolished Candlelight Motor Inn, bringing the public process to a close.
“Thank you for bringing something affordable to Greenfield,” resident Stephanie Duclos said Thursday, speaking to planners during a site plan review for the proposed Aldi development at 208 Mohawk Trail. “I don’t know how many people in this room have been to Aldi, but it saves me a lot of money. … Aldi is out of town, so our money is spent out of town. I’d love it if something affordable was here to keep my dollars here in town.”
The 6.5-acre property, located west of Interstate 91 behind McDonald’s, is owned by Benderson Development, according to Matthew Oates of Benderson Development. The plan includes 97 parking spaces, accommodations for bicycle racks and e-commerce pick-up.
“We’re very excited about this project,” Oates said.
The proposal to build an Aldi previously received approval from the Conservation Commission, provided that a stormwater pollution prevention plan is submitted before construction starts and the commission gets a report annually for the first two years on progress toward wetlands resource restoration. An operations and maintenance log must be kept throughout the work as part of the conditions of the commission’s approval.
Oates noted that the project is still going through the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) process, which reviews potential environmental impacts for which certain actions by state agencies are required. The comment period for this closed last month.
Addressing questions from Planning Board members, Lucien “Luke” DiStefano, an associate with Bohler Engineering, said there would be “no impacts to wetlands” or the 25-foot no-disturb zone.
“We really took a long, hard look at this site and tried to put a building that fits the site,” DiStefano said. “We really think we’ve done that.”
As for whether this could have been designed as low-impact development (LID), he said that given the site restrictions, many typical LID designs didn’t lend themselves to the project.
“We tried to implement LID where we could, but the site wasn’t ideal,” DiStefano said. “The grass swale is really the only LID technique we utilized at this particular location.”
Responding to questions about solar power, Richard Derbes, director of real estate at Aldi, said the building would be “solar ready.”
“We’ve gone to great lengths to make this one of the most efficient buildings we’ve worked on,” he said.
On the subject of traffic, a prominent concern for those in attendance Thursday, planners anticipate “limited impact.” In part, this is related to traffic improvements being overseen by the state Department of Transportation that are slated to start this fall. The upgrades will add signals to the intersection at the Big Y plaza.
Though spoken of favorably by a handful of residents at the John Zon Community Center this week, a majority of residents who were present expressed concern for the environmental and traffic impacts.
“I’m very concerned about the impact on wetlands,” said resident Susan Olmsted. “I think this project is too big for that site.”
She said Greenfield already has “countless small groceries,” including Fosters Supermarket, Stop & Shop and Big Y.
“This is redundant and unnecessary and extremely in the wrong place,” Olmsted said.
Resident Al Norman called the design a “dead piece of architecture.”
“It’s a design you see all over the place,” he said. “We don’t need more of this. This is changing the whole nature and character of our town.”
Norman also argued that the new development would have “undesirable and unstudied traffic impacts,” particularly on an already busy section of the Mohawk Trail. He said impacts on environmental resources could be eliminated with a smaller-scale building footprint. Norman pointed out that, due to a City Council vote in 2019 to raise the threshold for vehicle trips per day from 1,000 to 3,000, the project will not require a Major Development Review, which would have “at least required a traffic peer review.”
Resident Ryan Whitney, however, emphasized that the group in the room on Thursday wasn’t representative of Greenfield.
“This is the same group I see continuously coming and representing the same opinion, but I don’t see anyone my age,” he said, commenting on the older demographic represented in the room. “I don’t see anyone with kids at school. … Somebody with three hungry boys that play football cannot afford to shop at Green Fields Market. … We traveled everywhere so we could afford milk. I’ve heard the same speech from the same people, but I never see anyone from Leyden Woods, Greenfield Gardens. … There are a lot of people who aren’t represented here who just can’t wait [for Aldi].”
Reporter Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne.