Springfield Residents Fight Proposed Mountainside Sports Complex

Tonight, Mountainside officials are expected to make a final decision on a proposal for a new sports facility in their township. Springfield residents with homes near the border are urging them to vote no.

Opponents to the facility have objected to the project on a number of grounds, but chiefly because they fear it will bring more traffic to and increase the likelihood of accidents in their neighborhood. The developers, meanwhile, contend the residents are overestimating the facility's impact. 

The proposal by Triboro Sports, LLC calls for a new indoor 80,645 square foot sports center to be built at 270 Sheffield Street in Mountainside. The sports center would include fields for soccer and lacrosse as well as space designated for retail sales and a café. The developers are before the board because Mountainside’s zoning ordinance does not specifically permit the construction of this kind of facility.

In addition to the lawn signs dotting numerous properties in the neighborhood that would be impacted, several residents have written to the Mountainside planning board to protest the facility. Springfield resident Richard Blecker’s property adjoins the site of the proposed sports center. In a letter to Mountainside officials and his neighbors, he outlines his objections to the project. He called the proposed 31-foot building a “monstrosity” and said the footprint of the new construction would be unreasonably close to his property.

Blecker also warned about the implications the project would have for the neighborhood. He believes the facility would attract as many as 1,600 cars per day to the neighborhood on peak weekend days. He worries also that the new drivers attracted to the site would be unfamiliar with the local traffic ordinances and create accidents.

“The games who are traveling from Mountainside or Summit or down Summit Avenue will make a left turn on Charles Street, a right at Possum Pass and a right on Briar Hills Circle to Mountain Avenue,” Blecker writes. “All cars traveling east on Route 22 will exit on Mountain Avenue and then have to make a U-turn onto that little strip of road leading to Sheffield Street. All cars traveling West on Route 22 will have to exit at Mountain Avenue and also make that u-turn onto that little strip of road leading to Sheffield Street.

Summing up, he said: “In other words that strip of road from the bottom of Mountain Avenue to Sheffield Street will become a traffic nightmare.”

In documents filed with Mountainside’s Planning office, consulting engineers Dolan & Dean, hired by Triboro, conducting a traffic study estimating that 50 drivers would go in and 50 drivers would go out from the facility at peak hours of operation. They said that while drivers approaching the facility from the North East on Summit and Mountain Aves. during weekday evening peak hours may use residential streets to access Sheffield, it would add about 20 to 25 more vehicles per hour to the area, and would therefore “not have a perceptible impact on Charles Street, Possum Pass or Briar Hills Circle.”

The facility will be before the Mountainside Planning Board for the fourth and likely final time tonight at 7:30 p.m. The board meets at the Mountainside Municipal building on Route 22.