WESTFIELD – At its Nov. 17 meeting, the Westfield Planning Board hosted a public hearing over a proposed Pride convenience store and gas station, Starbucks and Hot Table on Southampton Road, at the current Friendly’s location directly off of the Massachusetts Turnpike.

To start the hearing, Rob Levesque from R Levesque Associates and representative for Pride, explained the changes to the Starbucks and Hot Table site plan since the last hearing.

“We extended the stacking spaces after questions and concerns raised about that and just operationally with COVID we wanted to extend that as far as we could. We also decided to bump one of the lanes out and have a bypass lane that expands around the queue lane,” he said.

As part of the updated plan, Levesque said the site now included additional measures for pedestrian flow.

“We’re leaving the sidewalk out front; we will have a crosswalk that will then cross the drive through lane and then they’ll have pedestrian connections pretty much all the way around the building. We think this is the safest way to get pedestrians across the site,” he said.

Levesque added that in the future the site could serve as a rest stop with the Mass Pike’s exit three right across the road from the location.

“We would fully expect this to be utilized as a rest area and a nice stop off of exit three. We’re excited for this to be an area when you get off the pike to have something waiting right there for you,” he said.

Planning Board member Richard Salois said one of his concerns was how quickly people would be able to get in and out of the drive through line at the proposed Starbucks during peak coffee times.

“My concern is not as much as the in line but the out line because there is only one exit to this whole complex and it’s exiting out on to a street that is typically backed up in the morning at coffee time and there is no back up plan to that,” he said.

In her experience, Planning Board Member Jane Magarian said, people were typically good about letting people out at the Dunkin’ Donuts just down the street from the proposed Starbucks location.

“I’m very familiar with the Dunkin’ Donuts at the bottom of Clay Hill in the morning during rush hour, it gets way backed up in the morning. When trying to exit the site I found that people are very good about letting you out, people would wave you on and let you out, I’ve never had a problem getting out and I would assume that would be the same here,” she said.

Along with the layout for the Starbucks and Hot Table, Levesque also went over the layout for the Pride gas station and convenience store, which includes a visitor’s center with handicap parking, bike racks, and the convenience store with a patio outside along with the gas pumps.

Jason Adams, a representative with McMahon Associates, said that the representatives for the project were still waiting on other documentation before going forward with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT).

“The access of the entire project is going to be reviewed by MassDOT, I’ve begun that conversation. We have to get a determination through the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act to understand what they’re level of review would be, and once we have that we will be progressing our conversations with MassDOT,” he said.

Levesque added that currently the grating and drainage plans were two of the only remaining pieces in the plan.

“We are in the process of finalizing our grating and drainage plans, which would be the last piece of the puzzle. We expect to have a meeting with the Engineering Department of the city of Westfield as well as MassDOT in the weeks to come,” he said.

Ultimately, the board agreed to continue the hearing to its Dec. 15 meeting.

Along with the hearing, the Planning Board also approved a home bakery special permit and an electronic sign special permit.

The Westfield Planning Board next meets on Dec. 1.