Planners seek changes for Riverplace

By RYAN J. HALLIDAY, Telegraph Staff

Published: Saturday, Apr. 28, 2007

HUDSON – The planning board wants the developer looking to build a massive open-air shopping center on the Green Meadow Golf Club site to make changes to the proposed roadway layout to ensure better traffic flow and minimize wetlands impact.

W/S Development Inc. has entered into an agreement to buy the Green Meadow Golf Club, with an eye toward turning the sprawling 375-acre parcel overlooking the Merrimack River into New England’s largest retail center.

Plans call for the center to include an interchange system to and from the Sagamore Bridge, with access to the site from Sagamore Bridge Road, River Road and Vectron Drive.

At a meeting Wednesday, the planning board directed the developer to explore designing an improved roadway plan where Dracut Road merges with River and Lowell roads to ensure a “better flow of traffic onto the site,” Town Planner John Cashell said.

Members also directed the developer to investigate further widening Vectron Drive to accommodate the traffic the proposed development likely would draw, Cashell said.

The board is concerned if those roads cannot handle the throng of traffic to and from the center, drivers will begin cutting through narrower residential streets between Dracut and River roads.

The board also asked the developer to consider redesigning the roadway plan to lessen the impact on the site’s wetlands.

About seven of the nearly 30 acres of wetlands on the site would be impacted by the current roadway plan.

Two to three acres are man-made water hazards created for the golf course, Cashell said.

The board scheduled another meeting with W/S for May 23 at the Community Center to start reviewing other roads and intersections Riverplace traffic is expected to impact.

W/S is seeking input from the advisory conservation commission and planning board before seeking a wetlands exemption for its road design from the zoning board of adjustment.

W/S can’t file its project plan with the town until it receives the wetlands exemption.

Review of the project will remain in the “conceptual” phase until the developer re-files its definitive plans.

W/S submitted a definitive subdivision plan to the town in January for the construction of a 1.1-million-square-foot open-air shopping bazaar, the first phase of its mixed-use development.

Weeks later, the planning board unanimously voted to send those plans back because W/S had not first received a special wetlands exemption from the zoning board of adjustment.

The first phase of Riverplace, a so-called “lifestyle center,” would be modeled after a town square, with wide, pedestrian-friendly sidewalks, shops, a public ice-skating rink and an entertainment district featuring a 16-screen movie theater.

Future plans include a hotel and conference center, office buildings, a river walk trail, parks, an outdoor amphitheater and 600 units of age-restricted housing for residents 55 and older.

Riverplace could broaden Hudson residential and commercial tax base and bring in much-needed revenue to the town’s coffers.

Developers claim the project, once fully constructed, would generate $5.6 million per year in net revenue for the town, as well as more than $12 million in one-time fees.

Residents worry development is overrunning the town and that Riverplace would inundate the town with traffic.

The project, which requires a slew of permits from federal, state and local agencies, likely will be under review for the next year.