LENOX — When McGee Automotive demolishes the former Luau Hale Restaurant on Pittsfield Road (Route 7/20), it won’t just create vehicle offloading storage space for its new dealership under construction across the state highway.
It also will be required to beautify and landscape the currently forlorn-looking property across from New Lenox Road.
Here’s how McGee Automotive plans to use the former Luau Hale restaurant lot
Those conditions were set by the Zoning Board of Appeals last week, which granted unanimous approval to the special permit and site plan for Phase 2 of the project.
Hanover-based McGee has already begun constructing a $22 million Audi/BMW/VW dealership at the corner of New Lenox and Pittsfield roads. Last spring, it purchased for $900,000 the building that formerly housed Luau Hale restaurant, which closed at the end of March. It was seeking permission to raze the building and create an auxiliary facility where it could receive and store new vehicles.
ZBA member Kimberly Duval cited concerns in the community about the changes to that stretch of road, not far from where Berkshire Mazda also has just built a dealership.
“I’m concerned with the offense of what’s clearly a parking lot full of cars that you can see from every direction,” she said, emphasizing her goal of “making sure that this is a project that at the end of the day people feel like at least we did our part to make it look better.”
The town’s Historical Commission already has approved the demolition of the former Luau Hale building. And local attorney Jeffrey Lynch noted that the Lenox Conservation Commission had signed off on McGee’s plan for the site after reviewing nearby wetlands issues.
The state Department of Transportation asked for a revision calling for truck carriers delivering new vehicles to access the site through the north entrance and exit through the south for safety reasons cited by Mass DOT.
“We think we’ve nailed all the substantive questions they’ve had,” said Lynch.
Other changes:
• The lighting plan has been revised to reduce the height of the downward-facing light poles, responding to previous ZBA concerns, also adding winter-season motion sensors to reduce lighting after the facility closes at 6 p.m., and several hours earlier following late autumn and winter sunsets.
• The dealership will take additional steps to ensure that there’s no public access to the auxiliary site where vehicles will be stored after they’re delivered, with after-hours gates to be closed to prevent unscheduled truck deliveries or unauthorized public intrusions on the property.
• Landscape design, including the height of trees to be planted, will focus on making sure there’s no interference with sight lines from the facility to the heavily traveled highway.
Lynch noted that the site plan is aimed at softening the look of the car-storage facility on an already-developed area with virtually no vegetation currently.
The focus, he said, is to make the location as attractive or less intrusive for the town as possible, consistent with the dealership’s business plan and what the site allows.
He also pointed out that the auxiliary facility’s plan responds to nearby residential neighborhood concerns aimed at eliminating 18-wheeler truck traffic on New Lenox Road east of Pittsfield Road, where two condominium communities are located.
In order to enhance landscaping, McGee’s representatives agreed to reduce the number of spaces for cars on the inventory parking lot to 91, rather than the 102 originally planned.
“I’m pleased by what I see,” said ZBA Chair Robert Fuster Jr. “It looks like it’s going to be much more attractive than what’s there now.” But he stressed the need for maintenance of the site.
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