Plans for old Mercedes site won't get Montvale's OK until design matches DePieros shops

MONTVALE — The campus on Mercedes Drive that once was a hub for Mercedes-Benz corporate employees could become a hub of a different kind, with more than 300 apartments, shops, offices, a pharmacy, a plaza and a hotel.  

A Vienna, Virginia-based architect unveiled a plan during a Planning Board hearing on Monday that if approved would transform the campus into a center to live, work and shop.

The complex, which would be called Triboro Square, would also include 44 affordable housing units to help the borough meet its affordable housing obligation set forth by the state.

But Montvale Planning Board members are saying not so fast. They want the plan revised because they say the design for the proposed residential, office and retail buildings doesn't conform with the aesthetics of The Shoppes at DePiero Farm, a shopping center across the street.

According to borough officials, the developer has agreed to design its buildings to look similar to The Shoppes.

Architect Jerry Simon for applicant SHG Montvale testified about three buildings proposed for the site at 1 and 3 Mercedes Drive: two residential and one for office and retail space.

Simon said that in addition to using different materials such as the stone, the buildings will be different colors because, "We find that breaking the buildings up reduces their mass."

Montvale Mayor Michael Ghassali disagrees.

"The design doesn't match anything DePiero looks like," Ghassali said about the four-story buildings that are proposed with different style roofs, Masonite, stone materials, and a corrugated mill finish on some of the buildings and roofs.

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"I don't see the correlations, the designs, the colors. There is no tie-in between this and the DePiero," said Ghassali.

One of the residential buildings would include three floors with 156 units and retail space at the ground level. Thirty-four of the units would be market rate and 22 will be for affordable housing.

There would be 4 one-, 13 two-, and 5 three-bedroom affordable units. The market rate units would have one- and two-bedroom apartments, with some of the apartments including dens.

A second residential building would have 152 units with 130 being market rate and 22 for affordable housing. The breakdown of the number of bedrooms in the building is the same as in the first building, according to the applicant.

"We took a lot of the inspiration from the farm across the street, which would be the color and materials. Basically we took forms from across the street and applied that to [the application]. That was our main focus, especially with the residential buildings," said Simon.

The residential buildings would have below-ground parking.

The retail and office building includes three floors with 39,000 square feet of office space, 11,000 square feet of retail, 2,000 square feet for a lobby and cabinet space, and a basement for the retail stores to use for storage.

A plaza will be located in between the three buildings.

Planning Board member Annmarie Russo also said the design for the residential buildings doesn't match the DePiero site.

"We were kind of hoping it would match DePiero but not in a farm sense," said Russo. "Maybe make it look more country-ish.

"It doesn't really fit," she noted.

The applicant is also proposing to put a hotel on the site and included two other "preliminary buildings" in the architectural drawings. The applicant plans to come before the board in the future with an application for the hotel and these other buildings.

The Mercedes headquarters in Montvale shut in March when the company relocated to Sandy Springs, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.