Garden City Alliance says proposed entertainment facility near Chapel View would bring extra traffic, as well as light and noise pollution.

CRANSTON — The Garden City Alliance is on a mission to organize robust opposition against a developer’s proposal for a golf-related entertainment facility on the expansive former Citizens’ Bank property along Route 37 and near Chapel View.

Both a planned walk-through of the site at 100 Sockanosset Cross Rd. on Saturday morning and a public hearing before Cranston’s Plan Commission at 7 p.m. on Tuesday night at Cranston High School East are important to the campaign, according to opponents from the Alliance.

In interviews Thursday, critics from the alliance told The Journal that the proposed Topgolf facility would bring unwanted additional traffic to the area as well as light and noise pollution.

“We’re not opposed to a development of Topgolf,” said the Alliance’s founder, Pauline DeRosa. “It is just not appropriate for Chapel View, because it will add another layer of traffic.”

The project site, a 22-acre parcel, is adjacent to Cranston’s central public library and Pawtucket Credit Union and other nearby properties that also buffer the site from the closest neighborhood with single-family homes.

The developer of the project, Carpionato Properties, intends to rent the proposed facility to Topgolf.

The Texas-based company operates facilities that go far beyond the typical driving range: The “sports entertainment complexes” presented on the company’s website are three decks, with bays on each level and amenities for eating, drinking, lounging and watching sports on television.

The project’s application in Cranston proposes a three-story building, a driving range surrounded by poles and netting as high as 190 feet and a four-story parking garage, according to a draft memo by the city’s principal planner, Doug McLean. The application also calls for offices and retail businesses in a portion of the former Citizens building.

For a long time, the site was zoned for industry and “heavy business.” In 2016, the parcel’s zoning was amended to allow for “greater intensity of development on the site,” says McLean’s memo.

The existing zoning for the parcel does not permit "commercial recreational" land use, an allowance that the Topgolf proposal would need to move forward, said the city’s planning director, Jason Pezzullo.

The commission is in the process of reviewing the master plan application. It will also make a recommendation to the City Council on the requested zoning amendment.

The city’s planning staff has already studied the impact of the project.

The developer’s traffic assessment says that the volumes of traffic to and from the site at peak travel times on weekdays would be lower than when Citizens Bank was in operation. The area can accommodate increased traffic volume on Saturdays, it says.

The city has asked its own traffic engineer, Stephen Mulcahy, to study the issue.

Civil engineers at Fuss & O’Neill in Providence are doing a peer review of traffic studies and the director of the state Department of Transportation, Peter Alviti, will provide input as well, said Pezzullo.

If weather allows it, officials will fly balloons at the site on Saturday to get a sense of the height of the proposed poles and nets, Pezzullo said.

A spokeswoman for Topgolf and Kelly M. Coates of the Carpionato Group could not be reached for comment.