WESTFIELD — A long-vacated, two-story office building at the intersection of Central and Lenox Avenues will be torn down and rebuilt to make way for new opportunities in the downtown area.
“This is an application to essentially reconstruct the existing building at 201 Central Avenue. This property has not been unoccupied for some time, and we feel that this project will have a positive impact on the area,” attorney Richard Schkolnick, Esq., said Monday, speaking during a regular meeting of the Westfield Planning Board.
Theexistingbuilding,whichhasbeen uninhabitable for more than a decade, will be demolished to make way for a new, two-story, 2,300-square-foot complex that will include street-level retail space and offices on the second floor.
“Our plan is to utilize the property’s existing footprint and foundation,” Mr. Schkolnick said, adding that it would have cost “substantially more” to renovate the existing structure than it would to build something new on the same site.
“The roof on this building collapsed quite some time ago, so at this point, the only option is to bring it down to the foundation and start again,” architect Christopher Juchnik explained.
The new construction, Mr. Schkolnick said, will be fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and will not require the addition of any new parking spaces.
Westfield resident Jennifer Jaruzelski asked whether the property owners would be willing to find a way to increase visibility at the intersection of Central and LenoxAvenues, a highlytrafficked area that sees a lot of pedestrian use.
“You’ve got the UPS Store on one side and the Post Office on the other,” she said. “Anyone who has ever been down there knows that it can get pretty crazy. I was sideswiped coming out of a parking space on Lenox Avenue, and I honestly think it happened because that corner is just too tight.”
Mayor Shelley Brindle, who acts as the council’s liaison to the planning board, suggested that the matter be brought to the town’s Public Safety and Transportation Committee for further consideration.
“I think there is definitely something that we can do here,” the mayor said. “Let’s plan to collaborate on it and come up with a solution together.”
Mayor Brindle commended the property owners for their willingness to invest in the downtown area and thanked them for taking on the project.
“This is long overdue,” she said. “It will be exciting to be able to use that corner again.”
The planning board gave its unanimous support to the project on the condition that the property owners, 201 Central, LLC., install lighting fixtures on the exterior of the building that limit light pollution and comply with certain recommendations from the town planner.
The next meeting of the Westfield Planning Board is scheduled to take place at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, June 2, in the council chambers at town hall.
