Business & Tech

Environmental Concerns on Casino Site Lead to Compressed Footprint, 6-Floor Parking Garage

Environmental concerns have prompted Foxwoods Massachusetts officials to move the site, and wrap a 6-story parking garage around three sides of the building.

The proposed design of the Foxwoods Massachusetts casino will feature a six-story parking garage to compress the development footprint, and reduce storm water runoff impacts. 

The garage, wrapped around three sides of the casino, would be the closest structure of the casino complex to the neighborhoods off Route 16 in Milford, and potentially visible to residences in that area.

The neighborhoods, including one as close as 600 feet to the casino, would potentially see the garage structure, said the project architect. A drawing displayed by Foxwoods Massachusetts, at an informational meeting Wednesday, showed the parking garage at a level above the tree line between casino site and Wildwood Drive.

"The view of the casino area is shielded by the garage," said David Hancock, of CBT Architects, the project's lead architect. "Yes, you will be able to see the garage through the trees, perhaps."

The design of the garage could feature a vertical garden element, he said, which would put greenery on the side facing residential homes. Illustrations showed cascading plants down the side of the garage.

The resort development was described by Hancock as low-level, with buildings topped with "green" roofs — or roofs stocked with natural plantings — to help reduce storm water runoff. 

The site also will include rain gardens, a garden space designed to take up water from building runoff, to reduce the storm water. And the garage itself will take the place of a surface parking lot, which would have produced more runoff of oils and other materials.

Foxwoods Massachusetts is committed to reducing the storm water impact of the development, said Sean Reardon, the lead project engineer for TetraTech, the consultant hired by the casino to develop a site plan. One aspect of that involves installation of underground storage basins to hold all of the roof runoff generated by the project, he said. The basins would hold the water before it was slowly filtered into the ground.

Beals & Thomas, of Plymouth, the consultant representing the town, reviewed the site plan and environmental impacts of the proposed development. The consultant described the design as "conceptual" and said additional site analysis will be needed, as part of local, state and federal permitting, to determine if Foxwoods will be able to construct the underground holding tanks for the storm water runoff.

The area is dotted with bedrock, according to Beals & Thomas, in some spaces as close to the surface as two feet. This might prevent the underground basins, or require a storm water retention pond instead, either on site or off-site.


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