HATFIELD — A large indoor arena featuring tennis and pickleball courts, locker rooms, a pro shop and a snack bar could break ground this summer and open sometime in 2025 on a section of Routes 5 & 10 in North Hatfield, following Planning Board approval of site plans this week.

Planners on Wednesday unanimously endorsed the 61,750-square-foot project that will include a large parking lot and possibly outdoor courts in the future, on 9 acres of farmland just north of Rescue Towing and Recovery, 253 West St. The plans were approved with conditions that an elevation plan, a planting plan be submitted, and that curb cuts are obtained from the state’s Department of Transprotion,.

Proposed by Ashley Schaffer and Patrick Roche of Northampton, the project is being called The Fieldhouse, according to images provided to planners.

Chris Chamberland, principal civil engineer at Berkshire Design Group in Northampton, and Dan Bonham, an architect with at Thomas Douglas Architects, also in Northampton, presented the plans.

Chamberland said there will be a significant amount of trees planted along the frontage, with sycamores close to Routes 5 & 10 and a mix of evergreen and understory trees closer to the building, to soften the front of the structure.

The business will have a minimal traffic impact, adding about 200 vehicles, or 3% of the 6,700 vehicles that travel on that section of the state highway daily.

Dan Bonham, architect with at Thomas Douglas Architects, said efforts have been to diminish effect of large roof and the peak of the building, which rises to 34 feet, 10½ inches.

This includes two entry pavilions in front that are different in color, scale and material, providing a more familiar roofline, he said, and separate the arrival space from the gathering space. They also become the “primary reading of the building from the street, break up the facade visually, and provide hierarchy to the entrance,” Bonham said.

The roof and sides of the building will have a light gray color, with banding on the roof further adding to the aesthetics. The building complies with design guidelines in town zoning.

The oral feedback at the meeting included both support and opposition, with Heather Dostal of Plain Road encouraged that the project will bring tax base growth to town and is an appropriate use of a commercial property on a state highway that abuts Interstate 91.

“As a person who’s tired of her taxes going up, I think having some more people in our town to pay taxes is a benefit to all of us,” Dostal said.

“Change is hard, this town really struggles with it,” Dostal added.

Jennifer Margolis of Nolan Circle said The Fieldhouse will help keep the town viable and mean something special for the community.

“We’re bringing a business in that’s going to bring in recreation, it’s going to bring people in to go to our restaurants, shop our farmstands, be part of our community. It’s going to bring a tax base,” Margolis said.

But detractors, like Halina Wilkes of West Street, said it will diminish quality of life through the “din and noise pollution of this unncessary project” and that it also won’t boost Hatfield’s economy because no restaurants are nearby, and people will likely come and go via Interstate 91.

Wilkes said the zoning bylaw demand that planners reject the project to protect the neighborhood and agricultural aspects of town. “For me, to protect that rural character is vital,” Wilkes said. “A vote of determination to allow construction of said project, to me, dishonors it and disrespects the old and current farming community and its people.”

Ed Malinowski of West Street, whose farm is immediately across the street, said that farmers made the town, not pickleball players. “If farmland disappears, so does Hatfield,” Malinowski said.

Before the vote, Planning Board Chairwoman Stephanie Slysz said she appreciates the concerns but the entire stretch of Routes 5 & 10 is zoned for commercial and industrial activity. She encouraged people with farmland to get it into the state’s Agricultural Preservation Restriction program.

“I sympathize with the neighbors on this, but we also have to do what we think is in the best interest of Hatfield as a whole,” Slysz said.

Slysz said emphasis by past boards has been on bringing businesses, but using vegetation to shield the intensity of the commercial corridor, “so it doesn’t turn in to a King Street-like landscape,” pointing to the look of both rk MILES, at 21 West St., with a line of shrubs forming the perimeter of the parking lot, and Stiebel Eltron, at 17 West St., with a lawn and bushes in front.

Planning Board member David Leon Bell Jr. said that the board laments any loss of farmland, but the property was on the market for eight years.

“You have to remember it’s a business-zoned piece of property in Hatfield on 5 & 10,” Bell said. “It’s not going to sit there with cucumbers in it.”

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.