Council hears introduction of Trailside Business Center PUD with trailhead amenity

The Westfield City Council heard an introduction of Ordinance 25-35 for the Trailside Business Center Planned Unit Development, a proposed roughly 26-acre flex-industrial business park at 947 West State Road 32.

Weston Rogers of the Community Development Department presented the item's overview, saying the ordinance would require the site to be developed in substantial compliance with the concept site plan and architectural elevations and would require a trailhead amenity along the Midland Trace Trail. "A public hearing is scheduled to be held at the June 2 Plan Commission meeting," Rogers said.

Attorney Matt Skelton, representing the petitioner with Church Church Hittle & Antrim, described changes from the site's longstanding open industrial zoning and said the proposed project is designed to limit heavy industrial uses and to orient the more finished building faces and landscaping toward the trail and neighbors. He described a planned trailhead with a 16-by-24 shade structure, tables, benches, bike racks, a repair station and a communal lawn, and said the site includes a pedestrian-focused linear park through the middle of the project.

Council members raised concerns about the location of the trailhead, access from State Road 32 and the potential for increased truck traffic. Skelton and petitioner representatives said deliveries would be internalized where possible and that the project was designed to avoid intense distribution uses; however, they acknowledged some deliveries and truck movements are likely. Skelton stressed the site would be heavily landscaped and that the design was intended to be a neighborhood upgrade from existing allowances.

The item was an introduction; the Plan Commission public hearing is set for June 2 and further review will follow.