The Planning Board and the Brewery

Last evening, the Planning Board held a special meeting to discuss hiring consultants to assist in the review of the amended site plan for 708 North Seventh and the site plan for the hotel proposed for the corner of Warren and Fourth streets--both projects of the Galvan Foundation. 

Last week, Gossips reported that approval of the amended site plan for 708 North Seventh Street, which includes both the proposed apartment building and the restored and repurposed train station, was a necessary prerequisite for issuing a certificate of occupancy for the depot building. It appeared that the Planning Board's decision to have a consulting engineer review the amended site plan was unnecessarily delaying the issuance of the certificate of occupancy and the opening of the brewery. 

At yesterday's meeting, Larry Bowne, the member of the Planning Board who brought up the need for a review by a consulting engineer, explained that the Planning Board approved the plan for the adaptive reuse of the depot building as a craft brewery in the fall of 2019. The site plan for the mixed-use building proposed for 708 State Street, which was first presented to the Planning Board early in 2021, included revisions to the site plan for the depot building. When they approved the site plan for 708 State Street, they also approved changes to the brewery--a situation that he believed the board did not fully understand because the applicant did not properly explain it. For this reason, he believed a close side-by-side review of the previously approved site plans and the current amended site plan was essential.

The Planning Board agreed last night to approve a proposal to hire Verity Engineering to carry out the review for a fee of $1,800. Bowne concluded, "This should get us started on the phasing plan so that the brewery can be vetted, discussed, and hopefully voted on at our May 10 meeting."

The Planning Board also recommended hiring Verity Engineering to do a combined traffic and general engineering review of the hotel proposed for Warren and Fourth streets. The proposed fees are $2,100 for the traffic and parking review and $3,500 for the general engineering review. Fees for consultants hired to assist the Planning Board are charged to the applicant, in this case the Galvan Foundation.

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