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Cover Memo updated 136 West Street, Suite 103 Northampton, MA 01060 Office: 413.517.0133 Fax: 413.517.0136 DoucetandAssociates.com September 24, 2012 City of Northampton Planning Board City Hall 210 Main Street Northampton, MA 01060 RE: OPAL Real Estate Group, LLC Updated Materials - Site Plan Application for Clarke School Redevelopment Project Board Members, Updated materials are being respectfully submitted by Doucet & Associates, Inc. (D&A) on behalf of OPAL Real Estate Group, LLC (OPAL) for the Clarke School Redevelopment Project Application for Site Plan Approval as a Major Project with Special Permit for Parking Reduction. The Special Permit requirement is for a reduction of greater than 20% of the parking requirements for the gross building areas. This site redevelopment project has come about as the Clarke School for the Deaf (Clarke) works to consolidate their operations into the Bell Hall facilities (this work will be covered under a separate site plan application). As part of this consolidation, OPAL is proposing to redevelop the remainder of the Clarke campus to accommodate mixed uses, including residential, general commercial, offices, day care, and a medical/dental component. It is important to note that the breakdown and location of the various uses has been projected for the purpose of establishing a site design and application package, but the reality of the use locations will be largely based on the demands of leasing for the site. The interior building renovations will be phased to accommodate leasing demand and will not be done all at once. The enclosed Building Areas Summary, Peak-Hour Trip Generation, and Parking Calculations provides a detailed analysis of the projected gross and leasable areas per building and of the associated parking requirements and peak-hour trip generation as calculated using city Zoning Ordinance rates. The project proposes to: -Renovate Hubbard Hall and Rogers Hall as primarily residential. -Renovate Gawith, Adams, and Skinner as primarily commercial. The preliminary use breakdown for this application assumes 80% professional office use and a maximum 20% medical/dental offices and/or “other offices” use. This breakdown is subject to change and could include a residential component. -Coolidge is proposed to house professional offices on the ground-level, a day care on the first floor and a mixture of medical/dental office and professional offices on the second floor. -The existing accessory buildings are proposed to retain their current uses to support the campus. These include the Boiler Room, Engineer’s House, Maintenance Garage, and Galbraith Gymnasium. It is important to note that Galbraith is proposed to maintain its accessory use as a gymnasium and pool facility for the other buildings in the project. In other words, it is not proposed to be turned into a membership-type gym. COMMITMENT YOU EXPECT. EXPERIENCE YOU NEED. PEOPLE YOU TRUST. A core goal of this Project is to maintain the character of the Clarke campus with both the structures and site components. To accomplish this goal, OPAL is not proposing any changes to the exterior of the buildings and is only proposing minor adjustments to the site to better accommodate efficient and safe site circulation. A summary of the site safety and circulation improvements includes: -Widening the driveway for Rogers & Hubbard to accommodate 2-way traffic. -Restriping the Rogers & Hubbard parking lot to allow for (8) back to back spaces. -Installing a drop-off area with associated sidewalk, drainage, and safety striping for the proposed day-care use in Coolidge. -Constructing (2) new parking spaces adjacent to Adams and (2) new spaces behind Skinner. Restriping (3) new spaces behind Skinner. -Striping (1) new handicap accessible space adjacent to Adams to serve Adams & Coolidge. -Installing a new way-finding sign at the entrance to the west side of Round Hill Road to show a map of the buildings along with their names & street addresses. -Installing (5) new bike-racks around the campus. An important aspect of this application is the request for a reduction in parking requirements to allow OPAL flexibility in leasing these historic educational buildings. The enclosed Calculations provide a detailed breakdown of the building gross and leasable areas as well as associated parking peak-hour trip calculations for this mixed-use redevelopment project. With approximately half of the redevelopment project being projected as residential and half projected as commercial, this reduction is being requested based on the staggered nature of parking demands for these uses as well as due to the projected inefficient use of building space. Also, being located in downtown, the site is ideally situated for tenants to take advantage of transit service provided by PVTA and for access by pedestrians and bicyclists. Per pre-application discussions with the City, it is the Applicant’s intent to establish a total “available” parking count for the project that would then allow the Applicant to work with the Building Commissioner’s Office to phase building renovations within this overall “available” parking total. It is worth noting that there is opportunity to construct a significant amount of additional parking on the property in the large grassed areas and in the existing tennis court areas, but this would be in direct opposition to the core goal of the project – to maintain the character and appearance of the campus. The Traffic Impact Assessment (enclosed) for the Project calculates that the roadway Level of Service is only impacted at one location and for one time period – the southbound approach at the intersection of Elm Street and Round Hill Road during the weekday evening peak hour (evening commute). The report predicts a Level of Service Drop from D to F when comparing the 2017 “No-Build” and “Build” scenarios. The City Zoning Ordinance addresses traffic mitigation fees in section 350-11.6.B.(2) and requires a $1,000 fee per peak hour trip over existing use traffic generation. The applicant has previously agreed to provide off-site mitigation in the form of new granite curbing along an agreed upon extent of Round Hill Road, but this was for a fully residential use. With the project now being proposed as a mixed-use redevelopment, including some commercial, models show an additional increase in traffic generation. Specifically, based on gross floor area calculations, the Traffic Impact Assessment predicts 130 peak hour trips. As detailed in the enclosed calculations, it is proposed to apply a reduction to this number based on the percent of usable (leasable) space within the buildings. Also within the calculations and per discussions with the Planning Department, a reduction of (10) trips due to Clarke School Operations has been applied to the mitigation fee scenario. This scenario results in 112 peak-hour trips for a total maximum mitigation fee of $102,000. It is PAGE | 2 COMMITMENT YOU EXPECT. EXPERIENCE YOU NEED. PEOPLE YOU TRUST.