More Store-To-Apartment Conversions OK’d

A New Jersey-based landlord won permission to convert two vacant Congress Avenue storefronts into two two-bedroom apartments, in the latest example of property owners around the city seeking to change empty groundfloor places to shop into occupied groundfloor places to live.

The landlord — a holding company called 846 – 850 Congress LLC, which is controlled by a New Jersey-based investor named Myer Kahan — received that permission at the most recently regular monthly meeting of the City Plan Commission. 

The virtual meeting took place online last week via Zoom.

Kahan’s company, represented by local attorney Ben Trachten, had two special permit applications on the agenda before the local land-use commission.

One sought permission for residential use on the ground floor of the two-story, four-unit mixed-use building at 846 Congress Ave. The other sought permission for residential use on the ground floor of the adjacent three-story, six-unit mixed-use building at 848 Congress Ave.

Both buildings currently have apartments on their upper levels, and vacant commercial storefronts on their respective ground floors.

In both cases, Trachten explained to the commissioners, his client hopes to convert a vacant retail space — one formerly occupied by ​“California Grocery” at 846 Congress, the other formerly occupied by ​“California Laundromat” at 848 Congress — into a new two-bedroom apartment.

“The property is in a neighborhood that is predominantly residential,” Trachten said about the 846 Congress special permit application. 

That building ​“at some point” housed a ​“neighborhood grocery,” he said. ​“The owner’s finding it incredibly difficult to rent to a responsible tenant. This conversion can always be undone in the future if neighborhood demand returns.”

But, Trachten continued, ​“economic viability [for another groundfloor store] is just not possible at this location.”

Thus the landlord’s request to convert the space into a new two-bedroom apartment. Trachten made a similar pitch for the vacant groundfloor space at 848 Congress, which used to house a laundromat.

City Plan Commission Chair Leslie Radcliffe threw her support behind the applications — both in her capacity as the chair of the commission, and as a long-time resident of the Hill neighborhood.

“We do have a sufficient amount of convenience stores,” she said when deliberating on the 846 Congress special permit application. ​“That’s not going to have a negative impact by not having one more. To be able to provide more housing, and hopefully very nice housing, in this neighborhood is going to be a plus.”

Radcliffe also supported the 848 Congress application, even though, she recognized, ​“the laundromat was needed” in the neighborhood. But since it has closed and doesn’t appear to be coming back anytime soon, she supported the proposed residential conversion.

Reflecting on the architectural detail of the upper levels of the 848 Congress Ave. façade, Racliffe urged Trachten and his client to ​“make [the downstairs converted apartment] look nice.” She recognized that the City Plan Commission has virtually no purview over design and aesthetics during the special permit review process.

Nevertheless, she issued her plea.

Please don’t just ​“shrink a window and throw up something so it could be closed off and be called an apartment,” she said. Instead, please do ​“something that would make the building look better.”

Trachten promised to relay that message to his client. ​“This relatively hideous façade will be made prettier and more appropriate for a residential use on a corner lot,” he said.

Before the commissioners unanimously voted in support of both special permit applications, Westville Alder and City Plan Commissioner Adam Marchand noted that ​“this commission has been generally positive towards the conversion of” first-floor commercial spaces into residential uses.

Indeed, over the past few years, the local land-use commission has approved such applications again and again and again and again, as landlords have explained the difficulties of finding commercial tenants to occupy long-empty groundfloor spaces, as well as the ever-growing demand for places to live.