Planning board recommends Turnpike Commerce Park with variances and fenestration conditions

The Town of Oakland Planning and Zoning Board voted to recommend the Turnpike Commerce Park design review to the Town Commission, approving several variances while attaching conditions on building fenestration.

Taylor Hague, a contracted town planner with the project staff, described the 13.8‑acre site as zoned industrial and said the proposal replaces a 2021 approval for a self‑storage development. The proposal calls for four single‑story industrial flex buildings, each 40,040 square feet, for a total of roughly 160,160 square feet. "Staff finds the proposed Turnpike Commerce Park, including the requested deviations, fulfills the purpose and intent of the design district," Hague said during the presentation.

Developer Drew Thickman of Greenbird Havens Properties said the company plans a single‑phase, 12‑month build and has secured project financing. "We anticipate it'll take us $34,000,000 to deliver this project in its entirety," Thickman said, and added, "we estimate ... this will generate upwards of $800,000 annually in new tax revenue." He described the product as a shallow‑bay industrial flex type that combines showroom/office frontage with warehouse space and said his company builds speculatively to serve a range of small and mid‑sized tenants.

The developer requested several deviations from the town's code: to replace a required brick screen wall with a 15‑foot opaque landscape buffer along a narrow property edge abutting residential, to reduce required parking from a code estimate of roughly 1,600+ spaces to the 216 proposed using ITE industrial trip‑generation standards, to permit a larger building floor plate (40,040 sq ft versus the 32,000 sq ft code maximum), and to allow the proposed north–south orientation rather than primary facades facing the right of way.

Board members focused extensive questioning on circulation and public‑safety issues. Several members asked whether 18‑wheel trucks would need to make awkward U‑turns to reach westbound routes; Thickman said the project's turning‑radius exhibits could be provided and that typical tenants generate mostly box‑truck and van traffic, not daily tractor‑trailers. Members also raised concerns about dead‑end drive aisles, truck circulation in the outer buildings, fire access and long‑term solid‑waste collection plans; staff emphasized that final engineering and county fire‑safety review would occur at the permitting stage.

A central point of debate was facade fenestration. The Appearance Review Board recommended that end caps visible from public rights‑of‑way meet the code's 30% fenestration standard; developer renderings initially showed roughly 8% glazing on some visible faces. Board members and the applicant negotiated a compromise requiring 30% fenestration on the north‑facing end caps along Colonial/Highway 50 and the addition of upper‑level windows on the turnpike‑facing (south) end caps. "Better than zero is possible," one member said during deliberations; the board made that compromise a condition of its recommendation.

After discussion, the board moved and approved each variance (landscape buffering, parking reduction, floor plate increase and orientation) and then voted to forward a recommendation of the overall project to the Town Commission subject to the variance approvals and the fenestration conditions.

Public comment included a nearby property owner who said the project would improve the appearance of the corridor and urged support. The board noted that final design details — including window placement, dumpster locations and final circulation engineering — will be addressed in subsequent permitting steps.

The Planning and Zoning Board's recommendation does not itself approve construction; the project will next be considered by the Town Commission with the board's variance approvals and fenestration conditions noted.