Lee — With Eagle Mill’s phased-in development underway, the site’s owner, Jeffrey Cohen, approached the Lee Select Board on May 20, introducing plans for another project across the street, one that will bring still-needed affordable-housing relief and a daycare facility to the town.
A special permit has been filed for the West Center/Canal Housing project at 58–62 West Center Street that is proposed within the town’s Smart Growth Overlay District. A hearing before the Planning Board on the matter is set for June 9 at 6:30 p.m.
The details
The proposal is a joint venture between Cohen, who heads up the Eagle Mill Redevelopment LLC, and nonprofit Community Development Corporation of South Berkshire (CDCSB), represented by its new Executive Director Stephanie Lane. The latter organization is considered a specialist in financing affordable-housing developments and recently completed the transition of Great Barrington’s former Thornewood Inn into The Thornewood as dedicated workforce housing.
Jim Harwood, president of the CDCSB Board of Trustees, said the project will be the third in a series of similar projects undertaken by the 30-year company over the past five to seven years.
The new West Center development is slated to be constructed directly across the street from the Eagle Mill mixed-use, affordable-housing project currently underway. With its five-phase construction, that project will transform an 1808 former West Center Street paper mill into affordable-housing units that may see their first tenants by the end of the year.
Cohen called the new proposed development “the final piece of the potentially six sites of the Eagle Mill project” 13 years in the making. “The same spirit of that [Eagle Mill] process applies to the development of the property that you’ll hear about tonight on West Center Street,” he said to the dais before the presentation’s start.
The project’s May 6 plans can be found here.
The property is owned by the West Center Street Trust, which also leases the Eagle Mill site, he said, making it part of the same group. The proposed project is contingent upon town approvals and state financing, and the presentation followed meetings between the developers and local government departments informally discussing the tract’s future.
Project Architect Nick Elton, one of two principals in West Work LLC, addressed the features of the approximately 82,000-square-foot project site area that includes retail space, community areas, and 69 units of multi-family housing: 18 one-bedroom, 34 two-bedroom, and 17 three-bedroom units. In addition to a larger L-shaped primary building housing most of the residential space, the project, as filed, includes three smaller buildings with three units out of the 69 total units in each outer building. Elton suggested to the Select Board that, in lieu of three smaller buildings, the primary building be enlarged to 63 units, or 65,000 square feet instead of 64,000 square feet, so that one of the outer three buildings could be nixed but the project could retain the same number of proposed residential units.
Although two to four stories are proposed for the main building, Elton said the West Center view of the structure will appear as three stories.
One parking space will be allotted for each unit—65 residential regular or compact vehicle spaces, with four spaces reserved for handicapped drivers and five retail spaces. Elton said some parking spaces at Eagle Mill may also be used for this site.
About 33,000 square feet of open space for the project, along with just under 4,600 square feet of decking—including a rooftop deck—are proposed, as well as amenities including an exercise room, bicycle parking area, a community or event site, and individual tenant storage spaces. An onsite daycare center is also in the proposed plans.
The property is partly in a floodplain, and developers are working with the engineering team SK Design Group Inc. to address those issues.
Canopies are proposed to be constructed over the building entrances, and the main building exterior will primarily be comprised of brick, in addition to fiber cement, glass, and metal. Solar panels are also anticipated, in addition to electric heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, or HVAC, and the project lighting will be dark-sky compliant.
Elton said the project’s main design took some cues from the surrounding downtown Lee structures with its corbels and accent tile but is still “more of a contemporary building.”
“We’re trying to have the building be something that makes a little bit more of a statement as you’re walking into town,” he said.
Select Board pokes holes in the project plans, will seek constituency feedback
For Select Board member Robert “Bob” Jones, the project “was a lot to take in,” and he said he hoped to have the proposal online for citizen feedback.
Board member Gordon Bailey praised the plans as greatly improved over the prior iterations presented to the Lee Planning Board but voiced apprehension over how the main structure would appear given its height and nearness to the property line.
“My concern is, not when you get through Main Street and you’re right on the corner, but when you come down the hill into our town, that’s a heck of a slab, a heck of a huge looming thing,” he said. “You are so close and with such height and we don’t have that anywhere else in town.”
For Bailey, the main building is still “totally out of scale with anything at that end of town,” especially with its modern look that is not in the style of the Eagle Mill project.
Cohen countered that the area and its view will change as taller structures are constructed across the street at Eagle Mill, lessening its visual impact and creating a better balance for the new project.
“There are going to be new buildings at Eagle Mill,” he said. “They’re going to be three and four stories. So, when you come down the hill, you’re not going to see just one building standing here by itself. You’re going to see a community with varying heights of buildings.”
Gordon cautioned that, in the site plan, the trees are close to the building, creating a problem when those plantings mature and overwhelm the space between the road and walkway. Cohen responded that his landscape consultant will investigate the plantings.
Regnier questioned whether having the two entrances across the street from each other—the entrance to the Eagle Mill project and the entrance to the proposed project—would create a traffic problem.
“We’re going to have over 100 units at the Eagle Mill site, and now there’s [69 units] at your site—that’s going to create a lot more traffic on that end of town, so I see a potential issue there,” he said, adding that the intersection in the area is confusing now as it traverses the railroad tracks on Main Street.
Cohen suggested adding a crosswalk with a sign and push button with flashing lights to allow walkers to cross the intersection, with Regnier responding that the town would be willing to work with the developers on improving that area.
Although the project does not meet the 500 daily trips needed to trigger a traffic study, Elton said one would be performed but down the road.
