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The Design Review Commission met Tuesday evening at 7 pm via Zoom. Two main items were on the agenda, sign replacement for Birchwood Bakery & Kitchen (former location of the Cake Bar) and a new proposed warehouse on King Street.
Present for the meeting were Vice Chair Sam Williams, Members Mark Fitzgerald, KP Sompally, and Gerald Wood, as well as Maxine Kinhart. Chair, Jim Bartro was not present.
Birchwood Bakery planned to reuse the existing Cake Bar bracket and planned a sign for their business of the same dimensions. After a short discussion, the new signage was unanimously approved by the Commission.
The imminent departure from the Commission of member Fitzgerald was noted.
The next project under discussion was a site plan review for a new development off of King Street at the I-495 interchange.
Josh Berman, with Marcus partners, and a project engineer presented. Berman noted that he is proposing a roughly 293,000 square foot industrial warehouse building. Per the zoning requirements this building will be just shy of the 40-foot height requirement and will be built using concrete tilt-wall methods. Berman noted that he already owns three similar buildings in Franklin.
He explained that his team had developed a landscaping plan to meet site requirements and provide “additional buffer zones around the property,” which backs up against the I-495 right of way and has most of its loading docks and traffic facing the wetlands and Taft Drive.
The commissioners had many questions. First, Berman was asked whether the plan could have been ‘flipped” with the back of the building facing the wetlands and the homes on Taft Drive, to at least provide some protection from noise.
Berman explained that the powerlines make it impossible to put a building close to that side of the property line. He said his team had tried six different configurations. He also noted the limits imposed by the wetlands and said that, as it stood, they would need to cut through wetlands to get to the intersection with Constitution Boulevard and expected to ask the Conservation Commission to consider recreation of wetlands elsewhere on the property.
Commissioners also asked about the impact on the already heavy King Street traffic (Berman mentioned the traffic studies done for the project), and lights shining into nearby residences (Berman said the property had been arranged to minimize the problem).
One commissioner stated, “it would be a perfectly fine building if it was up in Forge Park or on Constitution Boulevard....but I am concerned that the neighborhoods, both on Washington Street and Taft are both going to be just blown away by the trucks going in there.” Of course, that aspect of the project is outside of the Design Review Commission’s responsibilities, but commissioners made it clear they were unimpressed with the project.
Summarizing the views of the commission, Sam Williams, stated that he would not recommend this site plan as submitted. Other commissioners agreed. “Let the record show that the Design Review Commission is unanimous against recommending this project as submitted.” However, they followed that with a motion to accept the lighting plan, as submitted, which was agreed to unanimously.
The Commission also discussed the landscaping plan. Fitzgerald commented on the relatively small ‘caliper’ (trunk diameter) of the trees proposed for the buffer zone and said they were inadequate. Largely on the basis of that concern, the Commission voted unanimously to not approve the landscaping plan
Shortly thereafter the meeting adjourned.
