HADLEY — A Towneplace Suites by Marriott will replace the Rodeway Inn on Route 9.
The Planning Board on Tuesday voted 5-0 to approve site plans for the 77-room hotel at 237 Russell St., being developed by Pioneer Valley Hotel Group, which also operates two other hotels on the commercial strip, the Homewood Suites in the Home Depot plaza and the Hampton Inn near the Coolidge Bridge.
Two, three-story buildings will be constructed for the extended-stay rooms. At their highest point, the buildings will be nearly 50 feet high, a height necessary to meet conditions of the village center overlay district, in which peaked roofs are required to have an historic and colonial appearance. The roof also will be topped with a cupola.
Hadley zoning bylaws limit the height of commercial buildings to 42 feet or less. Board Chairman James Maksimoski said this is defined as the actual height of the roof to the ground level, not the average height of the roof, which is how the state building code calculates height. The mean height of the buildings will be under 42 feet.
Planning Board Clerk William Dwyer said while three stories are allowed in the business district, the town may need to update the zoning bylaw to clarify whether height means the highest point of the building.
Although the site has long been the location of a hotel, with the Pioneer Valley Hotel Group in 1984 buying what was then known as the Spruce Hill Motel and eventually expanding it to 90 rooms in 2006, neighbors who live on the adjacent Pine Hill Road have expressed concerns about the redevelopment, including how lighting and drainage would be addressed by the town once it is built.
Maksimoski said lighting has been an issue and corrected at other commercial properties, pointing to the Lowe’s Home Improvement and Texas Roadhouse projects. Typically, he said, if there are problems, businesses are accommodating and reasonable in correcting them.
As part of the approval, the Planning Board agreed to a special permit so the developer can use the transfer of development rights bylaw that supports farmland protection in town. Because the development does not have adequate parking required by the bylaw but does have enough parking for the business use, the hotel owner is making a cash contribution of about $72,640 to a fund the town can use to support Agricultural Preservation Restriction projects in town.
Another special permit was issued to Pioneer Valley Hotel Group to operate a business in the aquifer overlay district.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
