Developers pitch new warehouse design at Westfield site Target once explored for facility

A panoramic view along Rte. 202 in Westfield showing land where Target wanted to build a warehouse in 2021. This is opposite Jaeger Drive and the property runs from New Apremont Way (Rte. 202) to Falcon Drive. Developers have proposed a new warehouse design for the site. (Don Treeger / The Republican) (12/29/2021)

WESTFIELD — After Target abandoned its plans to construct a warehouse at a site near the Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport, a pair of developers are proposing a new warehouse design for the property.

Winstanley Enterprises and NorthPoint Development of Kansas City, Missouri, call their proposal a scaled-down plan from the one Target proposed in 2021 and withdrew a year later in the face of neighborhood opposition and doubts that the city planning board would approve its plans.

“That feedback largely helped to shape the current proposal,” project spokesman Matt Watkins said. “We look forward to continuing the dialogue with the community as this process progresses.”

Winstanley and NorthPoint are marketing the proposed 524,000 square-foot warehouse, dubbed Falcon Landing after its location on Falcon Drive, to potential tenants and plan to build on spec, Watkins said. The new warehouse will not be used for e-commerce deliveries (Amazon has a facility nearby in Holyoke) and it won’t be for Target, which plans to sell the 126-acre property to the two developers.

Target is constructing a regional warehouse in Windsor, Connecticut.

Ion this preliminary proposed site plan, Winstanley Enterprises and Northpoint Development want to build a 524,000-square-foot warehouse between North Road and Falcon Drive.

That 2021 Target proposal was the retailer’s second try. In 2005, Target proposed a distribution center for the state that would have been more than twice as large at 1.66 million square feet. Target told the state it abandoned the project in the face of the 2008 economic recession.

Now in Westfield, the new plans from Winstanley and NorthPoint Development eliminate all access from North Road in favor of one driveway from Falcon Drive to the south, said Watkins.

Winstanley and NorthPoint said they will not build the cold-storage that Target previously wanted. They will reduce parking by 30% and not build a transportation office building and trailer maintenance facility, which will cut the facility’s water consumption by 67%.

Plans call for 362 parking spaces to accommodate two shifts and 322 tractor-trailer spaces of which 88 will be land banked for future use if needed.

The new proposal keeps all the vegetation on North Road.

Watkins said the number of truck trips will fall 15%, from the 200 separate trips a day Target predicted, to 170. Watkins said the truck trip estimates are based on studies of warehouses of this size and are not dependent on the tenant.

Winstanley and NorthPoint plan to submit updated paperwork Thursday to the state Department of Environmental Protection. Watkins said the new project also needs a special use permit and site plan approval and stormwater management plan approval from the city in order to move forward. Watkins said he expects the first meetings for that process in December.

Concerned neighbors also plan to meet with Winstanley and NorthPoint Development Thursday.

“Our concerns about the site are the same as they were before: tractor trailer and general traffic along a corridor that runs through Hampden Ponds,” said Susan McFarlin, president of the Hampton Ponds Association whose members, made up of nearby residents voted to oppose the Target proposal in 2021.

They worry about the aquifer and the danger of water pollution.

Her husband, Rick Epstein, said residents on the north side of town think the city has too many businesses dependent on tractor-trailer traffic and Route 10 — called Southampton Road — is too congested.

Westfield Mayor Michael A. McCabe praised the developers behind Falcon Landing for reaching out to the community.

“It’s a little different than how Target rolled out their situation,” McCabe said.

He pointed to the switch from Target’s proposed employee driveway from North Road to Falcon Landing’s one proposed driveway on Falcon Drive.

“It’s a much easier traffic situation,” he said, especially with the state’s plan to improve intersections, including the busy one at Southampton Road and North Road where Route 202 branches off to the east.

And the state and federal governments are building a new gate for the 104th Fighter Wing at Barnes Air National Guard base. The new, more secure, entrance will be on Southampton Road and not on Falcon Drive anymore.

Winstanley Enterprises owns 111 Southampton Road, the former Digital Equipment Corp. factory that employed 445 people before closing in 1993. Today it is leased out as warehouse and logistics space.

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