This article was updated Friday morning, with a quote from Jane Iredale.
Great Barrington — The Planning Board last week (January 28) completed its site review of Vijay and Chrystal Mahida’s updated plans for The Berkshire, an 88-room upscale hotel in the former Searles school building on Bridge Street, and voted 4-1 to send a positive recommendation to the Selectboard, which will make the final decision, likely by the end of this month, as to whether the hotel can be built.
After months of community division and struggle over the design and size of the $25 million to $30 million hotel, which jumped the town’s 45-room limit bylaw with a historic preservation loophole, the Mahidas said they would save the building and reuse it for the sake of town harmony.
Board member Malcolm Fick, despite reservations mostly over the bylaw issue, voted yes, as did Brandee Nelson, Jack Musgrove and Chair Jonathan Hankin.
Suzie Fowle voted no, saying that even though she had “faith in this [hotel] team,” the hotel was still too big. “I can’t make a leap into this big a jump of hotel rooms without a [town-initiated] economic study,” she said. “I am concerned that a hotel of this size would be tempting for a chain to purchase.”
Perhaps knowing her colleagues might vote yes, she was tenacious with Mahida on the subject of phosphates that might make their way into the wastewater treatment plant, and closely questioned him about his plans for detergents and soaps.
“Once the wastewater gets treated it goes right into the Housatonic,” she said. “Phosphates are our biggest problem. You need to think about the people downstream.”
Mahida said he was planning to use green products and give guests the option to reuse their linens, given the upscale clientele that demands and appreciates such touches. Fowle appeared satisfied, yet wanted phosphate control listed as a permanent condition of the board’s site plan review.
The town uses an Environmental Protection Agency standard for phosphate levels in effluent out of the sewage plant.
She was also concerned about runoff flow and chlorine from the indoor swimming pool.
“We meet all 10 wetland protection act standards and exceed some of them,” said the Mahidas’ civil engineer, Jim Scalise, who noted the project has another round of analysis at the Conservation Commission. “And more flow is good for the sewer plant. We’re paying by meter readings. It doesn’t overload the large main.”
Vijay Mahida explained that he would use ultraviolent light to kill bacteria and lower the amount of chlorine necessary in the pool.
Scalise further explained that “only backwash from the pool goes into sewer system.”
Then came the parking worries. The hotel is planning 88 spaces, with 11 extra near the Housatonic River Walk, which it abuts, and 40 spaces offsite. Zoning bylaws demand a space per room. The developers are going beyond that, but have faced concerns that it’s not enough.
The board also voted to place a condition that those 40 offsite spaces be required unless it turns out they are unnecessary. They also voted on a waiver to provide one loading space instead of the town-required three.
“This is a downtown hotel and we already have parking issues,” Fick said. “What if there’s a wedding there and the hotel is sold out?”
Scalise explained that it’s a tricky balance between providing enough parking, and not putting down too much asphalt. He said parking was an experienced engineer’s judgment call. “It’s a mistake to just follow zoning bylaw to add parking,” Scalise said. “I could show you a Google map of a Walmart in Pittsfield with two acres of parking that never gets parked on. There’s a huge shift away from that.” He said he understood the concern, however, that it could be “a perfect storm [in town] with everything fully occupied.”
Scalise also noted that the Mahidas are in an “ongoing dialogue with the baseball people” who use the current lot to park for games at the diamond across the street from the site. “Any given day if we aren’t busy,” said Vijay Mahida, “they will be welcome to park. We will be a good neighbor and work with them.”
Despite the Mahidas’ coming round to meet their critics more than halfway, some still wished for more compromises, and they were doing it, said chair Hankin, at the wrong board meeting. With a push from Fick, the board entertained something beyond its purview.
“I’m thrilled the hotel is going to be saved,” said Housatonic resident Carol Diehl. “It’s a tremendous opportunity for the community. But this is nothing like the boutique hotel model that has been so successful. It’s not a thing of architectural interest on its own.” Diehl spoke, she said, from her perspective as an art and design magazine writer and consultant. She said the design appeared to want to make “the school look like the Red Lion Inn.”
“My recommendation is that we celebrate what we have,” she added. “We should hold to the intent of bylaw, not just the shell [of Searles] but the integrity of the building itself.” She said it should be “not just a place to stay in the Berkshires, but a reason to come to the Berkshires.”
Fick agreed, while pointing out that the “board can’t redesign the building.”
“It’s a good statement about what I feel is wrong with the design,” he said, turning to Vijay Mahida. “Vijay, it’s your money, but I think it could be a more distinctive building.”
Mahida said his hotel design was approved by Jane Iredale, who turned the Bryant School into Iredale Mineral Cosmetics’ modern world headquarters while sensitively preserving the former school’s charms. President Jane Iredale and Iredale CEO Bob Montgomery still own Searles, and are under contract with Mahida.
“Jane and Bob approved this design [for Searles],” Mahida said, “and they have design approval rights.”exterior
Jane Iredale later told the Edge that she approved the design “within the constraints of the town bylaw,” but that the new design was not what she would have necessarily chosen.
