Board to hear pitch for new sports facility
Bellingham residents will be able to air any concerns about a proposed sports complex, slated to open as soon as next spring, Thursday night during a Planning Board hearing on the project.
LIG Development Co. LLC, based in Westwood, wants to turn a 63.3-acre parcel near High and Maple streets into an athletic complex consisting of six outdoor soccer fields, and a building housing two playing fields and two basketball courts, as well as a 654-space parking lot.
LIG bought the 144-acre property from the
Earlier this year, the town's Zoning Board of Appeals granted approvals for the project, which is situated in the northwest corner of the property. The Planning Board will conduct a development-plan review in determining whether to grant a special permit for a major business complex, a process that will examine everything from traffic and parking to site access and how storm-water runoff will be handled on the property.
Town Planner Stacey Wetstein said that this week's hearing will be the first of several meetings with LIG representatives. "It's a little bit of a different kind of project, so there's a learning curve as to what is involved," she said. The hearing is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the Municipal Center's Arcand Meeting Room.
"Traffic will probably be the majority of the discussion," Wetstein said, noting that evening and weekend traffic, combined with spillover from the proposed nearby Shoppes at Bellingham complex, "could be a little overwhelming." LIG is already working with the town on a traffic study, she said.
Anticipating that the project receives the town's approval, "we would be looking to break ground in the early fall," said Ted Doyle, LIG's chief operating officer. The outdoor fields could be completed by the end of the year, with the entire complex ready for use by mid-April, he said.
In addition to serving as the home of athletic leagues hosted by the facility's operators, the space could be rented out to municipal users and other entities, Doyle said.
"It's no secret that towns have less and less money to devote to the creation and upkeep of sports fields," Doyle said. "We believe that we'll be a viable alternative for municipalities wanting to unload fields and basketball courts to facilities like ours, allowing them to save money and still have a local home for sports."
The firm has similar proposals under review in Watertown and Bridgewater as well, he said.
Bellingham's zoning board held several hearings to go over the developer's plans. Board members and neighbors alike raised concerns about project, including questions about light from its 18 90-foot-tall outdoor towers leaking into the neighborhood. To assuage concerns, LIG took members of the appeals board to Stonehill College, which has similar lights, to demonstrate that there would be little spillage, Doyle said.
As part of the approval process, LIG agreed to shut the lights off at 10 p.m., and also to change the design to a barrel roof for aesthetic reasons, Doyle said.
"I feel like we've got a good rapport" with the project's neighbors, Doyle said. "By the end of the process, they were satisfied that what we were going to do was less intensive than they thought, and preferable to what could be there."
Maple Street resident Normand Bell agrees. "I don't really see anything wrong with it," he said. "It's probably better than having an asphalt plant in front of my house."
However, Bell said, he still plans to attend Thursday's hearing. "I'm not one to do a lot of squeaking, but, if I feel something isn't right, this is when I'm going to say something," he said.
In particular, Bell wants to ensure that parking will not spill over into the surrounding neighborhoods. "I'm sure they've done their homework, but if no one else says anything . . . you could have a 654-spot parking lot in front of the house lit up until 10 at night."
Planning Board chairwoman Patricia Buckley said that her board had not heard from neighbors concerned about the project, but its members are looking forward to reviewing the information.
So far, however, "honestly, I can't imagine people are going to squawk too much," Buckley said.
"This is something that Bellingham likes - a place for our kids to play in a great location for it."
