GREENFIELD — The three-story hotel and separate LongHorn Steakhouse proposed for 125 Mohawk Trail can move forward, having secured Zoning Board of Appeals and Conservation Commission approval.
The ZBA voted unanimously last week to approve DVR Greenfield LLC’s special permit application to allow parking within the 25-foot front yard setback. DVR Greenfield, owned by Dinesh Patel of Springfield, plans to construct a 92-room hotel on the back of the 3.29-acre lot and a 5,800-square-foot LongHorn Steakhouse closer to the road. The site is the former home of the Rodeway Inn, which was torn down in 2018.
ZBA Chair David Singer reminded board members that as the parcel is located within the General Commercial District, the proposed use of a hotel and restaurant is allowed by right, and the matter before the board was whether the development could include parking spaces within the 25-foot setback along the Mohawk Trail and Miner Street.
DVR Greenfield’s original site plan showed 236 parking spaces on the lot, including eight Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)-compliant spaces and 127 spaces specifically for the steakhouse, as is required by LongHorn Steakhouse’s site selection criteria. The remaining 109 parking spaces would be for the hotel.
After lengthy discussion in previous meetings, which indicated the public and members of the ZBA had concerns that the proposal had too many parking spaces, that the design could negatively impact traffic in the already busy stretch of the Mohawk Trail and that the plans did not include enough pedestrian access, DVR Greenfield and design consultant Berkshire Design Group modified the plans to remove two parking spaces in the front to allow for a sidewalk connecting the existing Mohawk Trail sidewalk to the restaurant.
Kris Baker with Berkshire Design Group added that, per board feedback, designers added more shrubbery to prevent motorists on the road from being impacted by the headlights of vehicles pulling into parking spaces that face the road, as well as three bicycle racks at the hotel and three at the restaurant.
Board members continued to express on Thursday that they felt the number of parking spaces was too high. They discussed how and if spaces could be removed, and if anything can be done to address safety concerns with turning on and off the Mohawk Trail.
“Overall, the plan’s fantastic,” board member Debra Gilkes said. “I would love to see it happen. I just don’t think we should allow parking on Route 2.”
Throughout the discussion, Dinesh Patel could be overheard in the audience saying that if the board decreased the number of parking spaces or required that the only entrance to the site be on Miner Street, he would walk away from the project.
His son, Rishi Patel, told the board that they wish the number of spaces could be reduced, as it would also save them money, but much of the quantity is dictated by LongHorn Steakhouse. When asked if the site could be reconfigured and some of the parking spaces slated for the hotel be reallocated to the restaurant, Patel said LongHorn Steakhouse only counts the spaces within the restaurant’s direct vicinity as its parking and would not consider the spaces farther back on the lot toward the required 127 spaces.
“It may seem like we’re trying to shove parking into here, but we’re the last people who want to be spending more money on parking,” Rishi Patel said. “If we didn’t have to do that, we wouldn’t want to do it in the first place.
“While LongHorn users can use the hotel parking lot, they don’t consider that in their analysis,” he continued later in the discussion. “They just want their parking close to their restaurant.”
Singer added that denying the parking spaces along Miner Street and the Mohawk Trail would amount to a denial of the special permit, and then, while no parking could be placed along those streets, the project could still proceed under a site plan review with the Planning Board, where the ZBA would not be able to issue any conditions for approval, such as the requirement that a privacy fence and blackout curtains be installed on windows facing nearby residential areas.
Jeff Sauser, who attended as chair of the Planning Board, said he felt the changes made by the applicant were minor, and argued that while the site is not located in the Central Commercial District, it is still part of Main Street and should be redeveloped to bring the restaurant up against the sidewalk.
“From my perspective, working with the Planning Board, we’ve been trying to work on the image of downtown Greenfield as a more walkable, pedestrianized place. This is not part of the CC District — that’s where we’ve been focused — but it is Main Street, effectively,” he said. “Not by name, but it’s the gateway to Greenfield and this is a really important site. … I would rather see the building up to the street like we would see in a downtown setting.”
ZBA member Charles Roberts said that in a previous review, the board had asked if the site could be reconfigured to bring the building closer to the street, and Berkshire Design Group explained that due to easements with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and existing drainage, the building cannot be moved.
Sauser added that he is in support of development on the site, but he wants it to better fit the community.
“We need a hotel,” Sauser said. “It’s really great to see investment in our community.”
Gilkes noted that none of the existing buildings near the site are close to the sidewalk, and if there had been, she would feel more comfortable requiring the new structure to be shifted forward, but as the existing structures are all pushed back on their lots, she “personally wouldn’t feel the need to pull this forward.”
“The idea of making it look like downtown is not appropriate for this location,” added member Eric Greene.
After some back and forth, ZBA member Mark Maloni reminded the board that it has already been established that the building can’t move, and that the applicant had already addressed all of the concerns raised by the board.
“I actually feel like we kind of resolved most of our concerns at the last meeting. We kind of kicked it out to this one because we wanted to hear from ConCom,” Maloni said. “We asked for some things to be addressed in the site plan that were addressed. When I left the last meeting, I was in support of the project, didn’t have concern with the front parking, and that hasn’t really changed for me.”
Gilkes said Maloni made a good point that any changes they would require would likely do little to improve traffic along the Mohawk Trail.
“We’re not going to solve the traffic issues by removing 10 or 11 parking spaces,” Gilkes said. “Everything we asked for in the last few [meetings] was on the site plan that we were given. They showed some flexibility.”
Conservation Commission approval
Last month, the Conservation Commission approved the notice of intent and order of conditions for the hotel and restaurant.
According to the minutes from the commission’s Aug. 25 meeting, members approved the project with conditions that a third-party project manager be hired to monitor erosion controls during construction, all trees that are removed must be replaced on a 1:1 ratio, snow piles must not be stored in the wetlands zone during construction, and displaced soil cannot be stored during the wetlands or buffer zone. Additionally, any new vegetation that is planted within the wetlands and buffer zone must be native to Franklin County, and plant growth must be monitored for three years.
