For eight years, Amherst leaders, owners of the former Westwood Country Club and neighbors on surrounding properties have wrangled over how much development – if any – is suitable for the 170-acre site in the center of town.
Now, with the Town Board ready to vote Monday on several key pieces of an agreement with the developers, officials are revealing new details of the vision to overhaul a sprawling section of Amherst that includes the Westwood property, the public Audubon Golf Course and the Northtown Center recreation complex.
Westwood would return to a natural state as a public park with a venue for arts and theater productions. Audubon would host a virtual reality golf center and 9-hole golf course, while a portion of the existing course would give way to softball and baseball fields, tennis and pickleball courts and a cricket pitch.
Representatives from the town and the Westwood development team also envision a major new medical and surgery center and related hotel, a large field house for indoor youth sports, housing for seniors and other residents, and retail and other commercial space running along a central green.
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"I believe that the majority of the town will support the project because we're getting an opportunity to unlock a resource in the middle of the town that the town's never dreamt of having," Amherst Supervisor Brian J. Kulpa said.
Kulpa and businessman Mark E. Hamister, managing partner of the group that owns the Westwood site, say they have reached the framework of a compromise that satisfies the interests of all parties, including, they believe, people who want to limit development at the former country club.
But with a deadline to reach an agreement looming, important questions remain over whether the town should give up parkland to make way for dense development and – if it does – how much it should get in return.
Some longstanding development critics aren't happy with the timing of Monday's vote, coming during a pandemic and at the end of a holiday weekend.
"I have no idea why we have to rush," said Judith Ferraro, a veteran of the "Keep Westwood Green" movement.
Persistent disagreement
The standoff over the future of the Westwood site – between Maple Road and Sheridan Drive, just west of North Forest Road – began when a group of investors bought the property in 2012.
Mensch Capital Partners floated a series of development plans that included, at one point, a combination of housing for 1,700 people, retail and commercial space and parkland with a price tag of $250 million.
By late 2017, the project had stalled over neighbors' fierce objections and fears the area's roads and sanitary sewers couldn't support a project of that scope. The dispute carried over into court before the town and Mensch agreed to stand down.
"It was a stalemated situation," Kulpa said.
The latest vision
By 2018, Kulpa had succeeded Barry Weinstein as Amherst supervisor and Hamister had replaced Andrew Shaevel as Mensch's managing partner.
In one significant change, Kulpa began to focus on how the reuse of the Westwood site fit into his larger idea for an Amherst Central Park stretching from the former country club across Maple Road to the town's recreational venues and out to the University at Buffalo's North Campus.
By January 2019, town and Mensch representatives had largely agreed to shift nearly all of the development off the Westwood site and closer to the Northtown Center ice rink and sports complex near UB North.
The town, in exchange, would receive the former country club site and convert it to parkland.
This is reminiscent of a land swap proposed by the Mensch partners shortly after they purchased the Westwood site that went nowhere because the town and the developers couldn't agree on the value of the country club compared to the town's Audubon course.Â
In contrast today, Hamister said, "I would say I feel as optimistic as I've ever felt in eight years."
Plans in some flux
The developers and the town haven't completed their plans, but documents filed in advance of the Monday Town Board meeting and a report from a consultant retained by the town outline what is on tap for the properties on either side of Maple Road.
The town would transform the former 170-acre country club property into a public park built in the tradition of Frederick Law Olmsted, according to a presentation from Dover, Kohl and Partners, the architectural and planning consultants. It envisions, for example, a network of walking trails using the current golf cart paths and building off from there.
The town would plant more trees and add landscaping and other natural elements to the club. It also is considering damming Ellicott Creek at one point to create a lake on the site. The Westwood clubhouse would remain and the town is considering building an arts and theater center nearby.
Any roads entering the park would be constructed in a winding way to discourage cut-through traffic between Sheridan and Maple, said Victor Dover, a founder of the consulting firm.
Looking ahead, the town is considering building an elongated traffic roundabout, known as an ellipse, on Maple at what would be the northern entry to the Westwood park and the southern entry to the new-look Audubon golf venue and sports facilities, Dover said.
This would link the Westwood park to the recreational programs at what is now Audubon Golf Course, which has its dedicated users but is in need of an overhaul.
"It really is one big project," Dover said.
The Dover, Kohl concept shows the town carving out nine holes for golf on the eastern side of the Audubon course, wrapping around what could be a virtual reality Top Golf center. The town is looking to find another site for a municipal 18-hole course, possibly as a partner with a current course.
Just west of this new Audubon golf venue, on existing course property, the town would build baseball and softball diamonds, tennis and pickleball courts, a soccer field and a cricket pitch running from north to south.
Some of the fields are new to the town, or new to this section of the town, but others would replace fields at the Northtown Center complex that would be lost to make way for development there.
The project is part of a massive redevelopment project in the town that also involves the former Westwood Country Club.
Medical center part of the mix
Developers would build on as much as 53 acres of what is now parkland and sports fields running between the Audubon Golf Course and the Northtown Center.
The project that is furthest along in planning is a two-story, 195,000-square-foot medical and surgery center that would go up just to the east of the ice rink complex.
A group of doctors and other investors, named Bones and Guts LLC, would build the center for practices connected to UBMD and Kaleida Health, said Dr. Brian McGrath, the lead partner and an orthopedic surgeon.
UBMD Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine is a main tenant for the facility and would move from its current space at 4949 Harlem Road, near Sheridan Drive, in Amherst. Another main feature of the facility would be a center for treating concussions that is now on the UB South Campus.
McGrath said it makes sense to build the medical and surgery center near the planned 278,000-square-foot sports field house.
Bones and Guts is working with Ciminelli Real Estate Corp. on the development and has coordinated with Mensch Capital Partners.
The group behind the medical center also envisions building a four-story, 350,000-square-foot parking ramp in a later stage of development, but that's not certain yet, McGrath said. Also under consideration is a hotel that would cater to out-of-town surgery patients.
"I think we just have an opportunity to build something great there," McGrath added.
Mensch, for its part, would develop the section between the UBMD building and the new sports fields.
This includes 370 rooms of senior housing, all-ages housing, a day-care center, and retail and other commercial space running on the north and south sides of a long central green. The senior housing and child care center would take up a maximum of 337,000 square feet, on about 13 acres, and the additional commercial and residential space would occupy up to 826,000 square feet over about 16 acres of land.
Additional development, including an outdoor ice ribbon for skating in the wintertime, could go around the Northtown Center and the soon-to-open Hampton Inn Buffalo-Amherst hotel on Amherst Manor Drive.
Land swap details unresolved
The town and Mensch still haven't figured out exactly what the town will get in return for the Audubon area parkland. The tentative agreement shows the town would hand over up to 53 acres of land to Mensch and, in return, would get control of the 170-acre Westwood site.
But the town's land is worth more per acre than the former country club site, Kulpa said. The two sides have shared appraisals with each other and say they're optimistic they can settle on a final contract.
"It's a land value question," Kulpa said.
The tentative agreement refers to a value of $200,000 per acre for the 15 acres the UBMD group would take, but both Kulpa and Hamister insisted this does not mean the parties have accepted this as the value of the town's parkland.
No one, it seems, is completely satisfied. Hamister said this week the Mensch group likely won't recoup its investment in the project over the years, including property taxes and other carrying costs, although the final numbers depend on what they end up paying and building.
"We are getting the project that is probably close to the best we're going to be able to achieve, unless we just want to continue to fight each other for the next five or 10 years," Hamister said.
Some residents who have long waged a fight against development on the Westwood site aren't exactly uncorking Champagne over the compromise plan.
Ferraro, for example, said she and her neighbors wanted to see Westwood preserved as green space, but not at the expense of excessive development in the Audubon area. She also questioned a planning process that she said was rushed in recent months at the expense of public input.
In a pre-pandemic era, the Amherst Municipal Building likely would be packed for Monday's meeting. Instead, the session will take place virtually.
"I'm so steamed because the public has been left out of this," Ferraro said.
State deadline looms
A state approval required to move this project forward expires on Monday, town officials said, and that's why Amherst needs to vote on the project by then or essentially start over.
The Town Board is set to vote on a contract with the group behind the medical center that will allow that project to move forward and on a request to rezone the 15-acre site where the complex would be built.
Further approvals are required, but documents filed by Bones and Guts say it is important the group closes on its acquisition of the property by the end of the month and begins construction in time to move in by the end of 2021.
Assuming final agreements and designs are approved in the coming months, work would take place in phases over the next five to 10 years.
The financial effects of the coronavirus outbreak should have passed by then, Hamister said, though the market will determine what is built when.
The supervisor added that housing remains popular in the town and the vacant office and medical space in Amherst isn't comparable to what UBMD plans for its new, upgraded facility. He cautioned, though, that votes on Monday aren't the end of the Westwood saga.
"We're not crossing any finish line at the moment," Kulpa said, "but what we are doing is at least handing off that final baton."
