The Freemans Journal - Cooperstowns Newspaper Since 1808

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Springfield Planning Board Accepts Formal Application

By JIM KEVLIN

SPRINGFIELD CENTER

The impossible has started seeming slightly less so in recent days, as MSG Entertainment’s plans for a three-day, 75,000-fan music festival in East Springfield has gone from talk, however detailed, to the first hard documents and officials steps.
Before a packed gym in the Community Center last Thursday, Oct. 9, the town Planning Board – three members remained mute – accepted MSG Entertainment’s application for a mega-festival – it has been compared to Austin City Limits in the Texas capital and Bonnaroo, an hour north of Nashville – on 1,000 acres south of Route 20 between Route 31 and Continental Road.
What’s envisioned is a sizeable site, circled by a dirt road that would allow entry from any point by emergency, medical or law-enforcement teams as necessary anytime during the event, according to a point-by-point elucidation by MSG Entertainment Vice President Don Simpson. The road will also allow access for supplies, or for trash removal.
There would be three stages – the festival would include rock, folk, jazz and a range of other genres – at points of a triangle within the property. The stages would be aimed inwards, toward a granite outcropping in the center of the property, minimizing off-site noise.
Permanent buildings would include two barns “that look like barns and are painted like barns” to store equipment, tents, kiosks and so on during the 362 off days a year. Due to input from local emergency officials, there will be a permanent building for a medical clinic in the center of the property, supplemented by tents at the periphery.
Amenities on site will include campgrounds, beer gardens, and a sculpture area and tent for local artists.
Sixty acres have been identified to the north of Route 20 and east of Beckingham Road for 30,000 cars. The planners discovered there once was a culvert under Route 20 to allow cows to to graze on either side; they hope to revive that tunnel so fest-goers won’t have to cross Route 20.
Simpson also revealed plans are to install a helipad for emergency use, something he hadn’t mentioned earlier because, he said, it might have been one more things for opponents to seize upon. “We’ve always had it; we will have it,” he said.
At the start of his presentation, Simpson stood before an easel bearing a vacant map, and pulled an overlay down onto it that showed where the prospective activities and buildings would be. When he was done, he flipped the overlay back. Presto, a vacant map again.
His point: When the revellers go home, the result will be “the green and beautiful vista you have now.”
The presentation over, Planning Board member Bill Harmon asked whether MSG Entertainment had considered placing conservation easements on the property so the public can be assured this isn’t just the beginning of something bigger.
“People need to be assured we’re going to be consistently pressured to increase the size of the venue,” he said. (Harman, Bill Staley and Elizabeth Salerno didn’t vote to accept the plan, but didn’t vote “nay” either.”
The Planning Board’s acceptance of MSG Entertainment’s plans – in effect, it accepted a “draft scoping document” – starts the clock. The plans may be viewed at the town library in the Community Center – Building Official Henry Miller said people who want a copy e-mailed to them should e-mail him at crb@msn.com – and public comment will be received until Oct. 27.
The Planning Board has scheduled a public comment meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 15, at the Community Center, but written testimony may be sent in or dropped off as well.
Mary Clarke, the Planning Board chairman, explained the “draft scoping document,” which must be completed by early December, is a “table of contents” for the material that must be developed and included in the Environmental Impact Statement that must then be prepared.
An EIS is called for in the state Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA, called “seeker”), which is the main vehicle in New York State to regulate environmental and other impacts of large projects.
Meanwhile, Simpson was back in town Tuesday, Oct. 7, to answer the public’s questions, although the meeting was subdued and routine.

Labels: 10-10-08, Front Page, MSG, MSGE, Music Festival, Springfield

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Springfield Board Stalls Moratorium Vote Again

Friday, June 13, 2008

MSG Entertainment’s Music Fest Application Filed

SPRINGFIELD CENTER

MSG Entertainment submitting its application for a 75,000-fan music fest failed to spur the Springfield town board to adopt a proposed nine-month development moratorium. After hearing 90 minutes of evenly divided citizen input, pro and con, Monday, June 9, the board members were unsure whether to take action now, while the town’s comprehensive plan committee is still at work. Town board member Rick Morris suggested it might make more sense to wait until the committee reports back, since the resulting deliberations are likely to be lengthy as the town board debates what new regulations may be required. If the moratorium were approved now, he asked, “have we shot Barney’s bullet?” The vote in favor of waiting a month to study the matter further was a unanimous 5-0. The previous Thursday, the corporation that owns MadisonSquare Garden submitted itsapplication to build a venue forthe music fest – classic rock, C&W, jazz, blues. The company hopes to holdthe first event in the summer of 2010 on 1,000 acres south of Route 20 between Route 30 and the Continental Road. For years, regulating devel-opment has been a hot local is-sue, but it has heated up furtherlately due to three large projects that have surfaced. In addition to the music fest, two partners from the Chicago suburbs are proposing to build a Dreams-Park like facility nearRichfield Springs that would be party in Springfield. Further, a businessmen’s motorcycle club from Westchester County has been seeking per-mission to built a race track off the Chyle Road, although it isalready being slowed down bythe state Environmental Quality Review Act process. Monday’s meeting began with Paul Leentjes, a local real-tor, reading a petition signed by 189 people supporting themusic fest. Several supporters of the pe-tition then read a couple dozenof names apiece,.“I love farming, I love theland,” said Barry Griffis. “To me, what better way to keep it open, to keep it green?”But opponents immediatelycriticized the petition, saying numerous signatures were from18-year-olds who don’t pay taxes in the town. “We haven’t done enough research on these people down in New York,” said Harry Clark, referring to negative pressabout James Dolan, president ofthe company.“I see nothing wrong withholding off,” Clark continuied. “If these people want to comehere that bad, they’ll wait for us.” Rosemary Harrison, another opponent, feared MSG would incrementally expand the operation. “Then they want a springfestival,” she said. “Then a fall festival. They might even want a winter festival.”

Labels: 06-13-08, Front Page, MSG

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Music Fest Will Feature Rock, C&W, Blues, Jazz

Thursday, June 5, 2008

By JIM KEVLIN

SPRINGFIELD CENTER

It’s going to be like you inviting 250 people to Thanksgiving dinner, times 300.
The difference is, Madison Square Garden Entertainment knows how to prepare, Don Simpson, MSG Entertainment’s vice president, development, told 250 people packed into the Community Center gym here Wednesday, June 4, thirsting for details about the three-day music festival the industry powerhouse is planning in town, beginning in the summer of 2010.
To cut to the chase: There will be two main stages and five tents. Entertainment will be major acts – The Rolling Stones, for instance, if they happen to be touring in summer 2010 – country, classic rock, jazz, blues – maybe even a collaboration with Glimmerglass Opera.
“It’s not going to be heavy metal hard rock,” Simpson said. He likened the variety to what a typical teenager can get on an iPod, except the other way around: Real virtuality, if you will.
“Will it be rap?” someone called out.
“It will NOT be rap,” he replied.
And just like Thanksgiving, Simpson said of the 75,000 people MSG Entertainment plans to bring to 1,000 acres southwest of East Springfield, when the weekend’s over the guests will be gone.
“It’s going to look like it does now a week after the festival,” said Simpson, whose long Canadian vowels – “a-BOOT” for “about” and the like – and folksy storytelling loosened up the crowd considerably by the end of his hour-long presentation.
“Does that sound like a way to solve a water shortage?” he asked, after recounting the horror stories surrounding Woodstock ‘99 in Rome, where promoters charged parched concertgoers $10 a bottle for water, provoking the fans to violence.
“No!” called out a little girl in the third row, prompting the crowd to break into laughter.
The sizeable project – and a Dreams-Park-like undertaking near Richfield Springs (and partly in Springfied) – surfaced as the Town of Springfield is debating whether to impose a nine-month development moratorium while its first Comprehensive Master Plan is completed.
Supervisor Tom Armstrong has said MSG Entertainment planned to present its application to the town Planning Board at the monthly meeting Thursday, June 5, and it was unclear if that would allow it to slip in before the moratorium can be enacted when the town board meets Monday, June 9.
Simpson, in blue jeans and an open shirt – no Armani suit here – played out the Thanksgiving metaphor to illuminate the company’s planning process.
First challenge: Where are your guests going to park?
Simpson said MSG Entertainment is planning large parking lots outside the town’s three population centers – East Springfield, Springfield Center and plain Springfield – to avoid congestion and will be busing people onto the concert venue, which is bounded by Route 20, Continental Road and Route 33 (the East Lake Road extension).
The bulk of the concertgoers will arrive on Friday afternoon and evening, and leave Sunday evening and Monday morning.
Second: Where are they going to sleep?
Most will be camping on-site, he said, and food, drink, water and showers will be available on-site, so no one has to leave.
Unlike what happened at Woodstock ‘99, which packed 10,000 people in each acre of campground, this venue will have 350 campers per acre, and the campground will be mapped out in sections, lanes and sites.
At check-in, campers will be equipped with wristbands listing where their tent will be, so they can find there ways back to their sleeping bags.
Third: Food.
Three meals a day will be provided at “reasonable, fair prices,” so the fans won’t be tempted to go off-site. Beer will be dispensed in beer tents, so people won’t be wandering the countryside, imbibing all day long.
Fourth: Entertainment.
While giving the details listed above, he couldn’t get specific, saying no one knows yet what top bands may be touring the summer after next.
Fifth: The clean-up after the guests are gone.
Simpson said the organizers plan to get ahead of this by having clean-up crews emptying trash cans and Porta-Potties every hour from dawn to the wee hours of the morning.
There will be few permanent buildings, he said, mostly tents. The permanent buildings that are built will be designed to look like barns and farmhouses in the neighborhood, so as to be unobtrusive. The idea is to design the water tanks to look like silos.
There may be a helipad in the event someone needs to be Life-Flighted to Bassett or one of the other regional hospitals.
A professed tree-lover, Simpson – a long-time concert organizer hired by MSG Entertainment just last December to move this project ahead – said he would like to see mature fruit trees planted in the center of the site, creating an orchard where concert-goers can take refuge on hot and sunny days.
And he ticked off benefits to the town: state taxes, some of which may revert locally; considerable temporary jobs and some permanent ones; and MSG would be paying property taxes.
The evening had begun with remarks by Mikyl Cordoba, MSG spokesperson, and Tony Casale, the former assemblyman who now lives in Cooperstown, whose lobbying firm has been hired to help advise the developers on Upstate ways.
Cordoba detailed the parent company’s many first-rate ventures and venues, from Radio City Music Hall and The Garden, to ownership of the New York Knicks and other pro ball teams.
“They do things right,” Simpson said of his new employer. “The way they do things is top drawer.”
The evening ended with 90 minutes of questions, some hostile but many not.
Sara Sumner, who has a home at the north end of Otsego Lake, asked, “How far around does the music sound?”
Simpson said the stages are pointing north, so the sound two miles to the south should be “no louder than you’d hear mosquitoes in your woods.”
Rosemary Harrison, who lives on Hoyer Road, peppered Simpson with questions and comments, and when he didn’t know the answers, he said so, noting all this is still “preliminary.”
With that many people, said Harrison, “you’re going to need septic fields the size of the City of Binghamton.”

Labels: 06-06-08, Front Page, Headlines, MSG, Springfield

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