ARB recommends Turnpike Commerce Park site plan to Planning & Zoning with fenestration, parking and buffer conditions

The Appearance Review Board on March 3 recommended that Planning & Zoning and the Town Commission consider the Turnpike Commerce Park site plan for 16360 West Colonial Drive, approving the concept with conditions on fenestration, parking methodology and landscape buffering.

Sarah Mastison, the town’s contracted planner, summarized the proposal as a roughly 14-acre industrial-flex development that replaces an earlier 2001 approval. "The project is comprised of 4 single story industrial, flex building spaces...approximately 40,040 square feet per building, totaling 160,160 total square feet," Mastison said, and listed five requested deviations including a larger per-building floor plate, a parking methodology change, a different building orientation and reduced fenestration compared with town code.

Developer representative Drew Thigpen said operational needs required the proposed north–south building orientation and that design elements on the end caps would improve the highway-facing appearance. "We have added those to the end caps...if you were to, you know, make those the three pane window storefronts, we've done that to kinda add a little bit of that aesthetic flair," Thigpen said. He and staff explained they revised parking calculations to an ITE industrial-park standard (about 1.01 spaces per 1,000 square feet), arguing it accounts for mixed warehouse/office uses and reduces the risk of overparking while preserving stormwater controls.

Board members pressed the applicant on two issues: maintaining a masonry buffer where the town code requires it between residentially zoned parcels, and meeting the town’s 30% fenestration standard on building faces visible from Highway 50 and the Turnpike. Staff clarified the brick-wall requirement applies only along the property edge adjacent to residential zoning and noted two intervening parcels reduce the visibility from Highway 50. After extended discussion the board voted to recommend approval to Planning & Zoning and the commission with the following conditions: require 30% fenestration on end caps visible from Highway 50/Turnpike, accept the applicant’s ITE parking methodology, and accept the previously approved landscape buffer (without the brick wall) as documented in the 2021 approvals; the board expressed concerns about the requested increase in per-building floor plate and left that determination to Planning & Zoning and the commission.

Mastison reminded the board of the process and next steps: the matter will go to Planning & Zoning on March 17 and then to the Town Commission on March 24 for final consideration.