Registry, Clark Biscuit Proposals Get OK
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| Katherine Eade holds up a rendering of the Clark Biscuit Apartments. |
The Registry of Motor Vehicles will return to the downtown, a stone's throw from its former home, and the Clark Biscuit development has cleared its final hurdles. Three new food and beverage establishments were also given the go-ahead.
"This is the one I absolutely love because we've been working on it for three years," said City Administrator Katherine Eade as she displayed an artist's rendering of what the old mill will look like.
Arch Street Development LLC of Needham purchased the former biscuit factory from the city earlier for $167,000 in February after more than a year of putting a financing package together that included nearly $10 million in state and federal tax credits. The Needham firm specializes in rehabilitating old buildings and plans to invest $12 million to transform the mill into 43 affordable-housing units.
Operating as Clark Biscuit Apartments LP, Arch Street has already begun clearing the 68,000-square-foot structure in preparation of its renovation. The apartments are expected to be complete beginning in summer of 2009. Colin P. O'Keeffe and Richard C. Relich, partners in Arch Street, attended the hearing to confirm minor details in parking and entrances to the building.
City Councilor Marie Harpin, in the audience, asked if any of the apartments were being constructed with handicapped residents in mind. O'Keeffe and Relich said three apartments on the ground floor would be specifically built along those lines but that all the apartments could be converted.
The huge Tartan sign on the building's roof, leftover from one of the past industrial occupants, will be removed and "Clark Biscuit," in honor of the mill's first owner, will be placed vertically on the old smokestack.
Registry Relocation
While the public hearing for the Clark project moved quickly, the Registry proposal generated a lot of discussion over parking enforcement in the nearby lot.
The Registry office will relocate from its current space on Curran Highway after the building's owner failed to make the deadline last fall for its leasing bid. Scarafoni Associates, operating as North Adams Futures Inc., won the bid to lease space at 33 Main St. to the state.
<L2>That will put the Registry in the former Roberts Co. at the corner of Main and Marshall streets, not far from Berkshire Juvenile Court, where it was once housed. Scarafoni Associates also owns that building.
Planners were concerned over the use of the parking lot on Holden and Center streets that serves that end of Main Street and had requested tougher enforcement, including a two-hour parking limit at the recommendation of the Traffic Commission.
Eade said employees at Juvenile Court were continuing to park in the lot, despite being warned by David Carver, Scarafoni's managing partner. In its conditions, the city also requested that Carver provide Registry employees with parking passes for the Center Street or St. Anthony's municipal lots.
Carver objected, saying he didn't believe that it was up to building owners to pay for parking passes. The court has one dedicated space but the workers are supposed park in the municipal lots with passes provided by the state, he said, and the same should be required for Registry workers.
The lot is private, but its usage mimics the public lots, said Carver. "We're trying to balance the success of the downtown as an easy place to access versus tough enforcement every minute of the day."
The lot has no meters and is used by the public to access stores and services at that end of Main Street, including the China Buffet and Berkshire Bank.
"If those spaces are being taken by employees, if you're not enforcing it, how do you know people aren't pulling in and saying 'I guess I can't go to the Chinese restaurant because there's no parking,'" asked Chairman Michael Leary. "How do you know that?"
Eade said parking and enforcement were issues that concern the city and the Traffic Commission.
The state had committed in writing to enforcing parking rules on its employees, said Carver. Leary asked that the board be given a copy of the letter.
The board agreed to change the wording of the condition to reflect that the state would be responsible for parking passes for Registry worker. Carver said there were no objections to the other conditions, including scheduling driving tests for when the Juvenile Court was not in session.
The board unanimously approved the relocation.
Restaurants: 1,2,3
A Domino's Pizza was given the go-ahead — sans a desired neon sign — at the corner of River and Eagle streets. A Domino's had previously occupied the site some years ago. The Hub, planned at 55 Main St., also received approval for signage and an awning.
The Alley, which is opening in the former Gideon's Nightery on Eagle Street, also had its permits approved but on condition the owners continue to work with the city on its plans for providing entertainment.
Owners Jack and Keith Nogueira are asking that the nightclub/eatery be allowed to stay open until 1 a.m. on weekend nights to catch the crowd leaving events at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Arts.
The board, however, only approved a closing of 11 p.m. for now because the Noguieras did not "have all the pieces in place" for the operation, including a liquor license.<R3>
Eade recommended going ahead with permitting for the restaurant portion to get the business off the ground.
Keith Nogueira said he and his father envision The Alley as a place for a sit-down lunch with a limited pub menu at night. Nogueira is hoping for more flexibility in entertainment, saying he would prefer to be limited by decibel level than instruments.
"We don't want to be stuck in the jazz genre like Gideon's," he said, or with someone just playing an acoustic guitar. "I feel there's more bands, more music out there."
