Republican photog Mike Gordon snaps a shot of Peter Pappas and Michael Spagnoli at the Hall of Fame yesterday.
At an announcement yesterday morning at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, developers Peter Pappas and Michael Spagnoli rolled out their plan for River’s Landing. The plan is to build "an integrated sports, health and restaurant complex" seated at the former Hall of Fame site to the north and west of the new one, nestled between train tracks, I-91, and a huge parking lot. The mission: rescue this spot from the urban version of gangrene, and bring it back to life.
The main occupant of the new complex, taking up three floors of a bright orange addition and over 60,000 square feet in both the addition and the existing building, will be LA Fitness, based in Irvine, California. The company already has 190 locations across the country, including several in Connecticut, but none yet in Massachusetts. (At left: level one; below, left: level two; below, right: level three.)
The fitness center will feature a full basketball court for individual or league play, studios for group exercise and various forms of wellness and training, "luxurious spa-style" locker rooms, child care, and an indoor, four-lane, full-size, heated lap pool with spa.
Pappas noted that there will be a nice view of the river from LA Fitness, which appears to be designed to be parallel with the river rather than I-91, a smart move on the part of Amherst-based architects Kuhn Riddle to accommodate the squeezed space, while also giving a nod to the body of water we have tended to shun rather than welcome in our design practice of recent decades.
The northern end of the building will be home to a health facility, Trillium Sports Medicine. Oozing California-style appeal, the facility will have a "synergistic relationship" with LA Fitness, offering strengthening, therapeutic and training programs together, as well as the range of services you might associate more with a doctor or chiropractor. But Trillim adds a few flourishes into the mix, like dermatology (Botox, laser therapy) and plastic surgery. (There’s so much more to "fitness" than we’ve yet to realize in greater Springfield!)
The southern end of the existing building, which faces the new Hoop Hall and will connect to a long-planned "walk of fame," will feature a 12,000 square foot restaurant, spanning three stories, called the Hollywood Barn.
The River’s Landing Web site provides some explanation for the name, and the interesting history behind it: a blend of Chicopee’s Red Barn and Springfield South End’s Hollywood Cafe/a>, both family establishments with a charming direct link to the developers.
The restaurant will include a private function room with in-house event planning staff, as well as a bar and lounge area and a two-story waterfall and "wine wall." A large video screen will be up behind the bar along with with a "catwalk stage for entertainment." It’s not clear to me yet whether this is a family friendly establishment given that it sounds like the dining room will be dominated by the giant video screen. What will be playing on the screen? Football games, CNN, Dora the Explorer?
No ordinary sports bar, the Hollywood Barn will also serve customers at a sushi and raw bar and will offer up smoothies and cappuccinos. Promotional material says that these will be "the perfect way to invigorate and refresh after exercising at the adjacent LA Fitness health club."
Standing around looking at the pictures prior to the public talks, I overheard one of the men involved in the project explaining to a small group that River’s Landing is going to be a huge success. He talked about how the fitness center, at all times of day, will attract different segments of the population: in the early morning, it will be the office workers coming in; in mid-morning, the "housewives," with some possibly quiet moments in the afternoon when people are at a trickle based on their working hours. Evening would pick up a lot with younger people, he said, with the hours between nine and midnight being more of a big social scene. (At left, Spignoli talks to a reporter.)
Certainly the vision for this is not necessarily to integrate immediately with the downtown area, or even with the much closer South End business district for that matter, because the built environment simply doesn’t allow for that to happen easily right now. (Maybe it can later, but several elements would likely have to contribute to that change.) It is better, in my opinion, to design a complex that can be fairly self-sufficient in terms of services and which kinds of activities flow naturally into others. This is a project like that, and it’s oriented toward the highway. Passers-by will not mistake the bright orange building for anything blending in with its surroundings of brown, grey and green, especially during the winter months.
City-dweller doubt about the project is understandable at this stage, but what was evident at the announcement was the outright positivity of the developers in trying something new here. Both Springfield Mayor Charles Ryan and Chief Development Officer David Panagore endorsed it with emphasis, and not in ways that simply gave lip service. They’re behind this in no small part because it does not require any public funding. The developers and investors alone are taking the risk with the project, and they seem pumped up about it in more ways than one.
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