By Adam Swift
City Councillors praised a plan to build nine townhouses at the site of the current Sons of Italy club at 8 Revere St. at last week’s meeting.
The project is scheduled to go before the council’s zoning subcommittee on April 8 before coming back to the full council for approval.
“The proposal is to raze the building and construct new townhouses … four on the easterly side of the property and five on the westerly side of the property, with a single curb cut,” said project engineer Rick Salvo.
The townhouse project will increase the amount of greenspace on the property from 775 square feet to over 7,000 square feet, said Salvo. Each of the units will have two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and will be parking compliant with two spaces each. Salvo said the project does need some zoning relief for the front yard setback.
“We think this will create a great transition from the commercial area to the multi-family area to the single-family area,” said Salvo. “The Sons of Italy, while it served the city so well for so long, it has kind of met the end of its useful life. This can provide a much-needed housing option.”
While the units will be market rate, they will be condominiums offered for ownership rather than rental units and will help increase home ownership in the city, said Salvo.
The proposed townhouses are in Council President Anthony Cogliandro’s ward, and he praised the developers for the project.
“We are not going to get another project like this,” said Cogliandro. “Instead of getting 30 units, we are getting nine two-bedroom, two-bathroom, two-parking spot townhouses. This is exactly what we need in this community.”
Cogliandro said he spoke to a number of residents in the area who were thrilled that the developers were proposing townhouses rather than a larger multi-unit apartment complex for the site.
Several other councillors also spoke in support of the proposal, while Councillor-at-Large Juan Pablo Jaramillo said he would like to see the developer consider an additional bedroom in some of the units to make them more attractive to families.
Councillor-at-Large Michelle Kelley said she would like to see more projects in the city like the one on the Sons of Italy property, noting that it was aesthetically pleasing, had the required parking, and increased green space.
