500 Blake Approved; Density Trumps Traffic

Ocean Management’s plans to transform a largely vacant riverfront stretch of Westville into 129 market-rate apartments won key approvals as city planners chose increased density over immediate neighbors’ traffic concerns.

That vote took place Wednesday night during the latest regular monthly meeting of the City Plan Commission, which lasted for a marathon six and a half hours.

As City Hall remains indefinitely closed to the public because of the state of emergency around Covid-19, the meeting took place online via the Zoom teleconferencing app.

Over 70 people called in to the two-and-a-half hour stretch public hearing on the large new mixed-use development slated to replace the long-vacant former 500 Blake Street Cafe.

The new project’s official addresses are 476 – 500 Blake St., 881 – 883 Whalley Ave., and 20 – 24 Tour Ave.

The two holding companies undertaking the development, 500 Blake Street LLC and 881 Whalley LLC, are both affiliates of the local large-scale landlord Ocean Management.

Commissioners ultimately voted unanimously in support of the project’s site plan, and 3 – 1 in support of its special permit application. Commission Alternate Elias Estabrook cast the lone dissenting vote out of a concern that part of the development’s design does not mesh aesthetically with the surrounding neighborhood.

New Urbanism

Project manager Melissa Saint (pictured) explained Wednesday night the development would see the demolition of the former Blake Street cafe building and the construction of a new four-story, 129-unit apartment building on an expanse of vacant parking lots bounded by Tour Avenue, Whalley Avenue, Blake Street, and the West River.

The finished complex will include a mix of studio, one-bedroom, ​“one-bedroom-plus,” and two-bedroom apartments. She said the ​“one-bedroom-plus” units are one-bedrooms with additional smaller space designed to be used as an office or guest bedroom. All of the new apartments would be rented at market rates.

The complex would also include over 7,300 square feet of new ground-floor commercial space, including a 3,900-square-foot restaurant space along Blake Street and a roughly 3,400 square-foot retail space closer to the river.

It would have 99 on-site parking spaces and 50 indoor bicycle spaces.

And the developer will also build out and maintain a new, public, eight-food-wide multi-use path adjacent to the current concrete walkway that runs along the river between Tour Avenue and Blake Street. That can happen thanks to a coastal access easement netted by the city after a recent bout of negotiations between the developer and City Plan Department staff,

The expanded path and walkway will culminate at the Blake Street end in a concrete patio designed to support tables and dining, and at the Tour Avenue end in what the project’s engineer David Sacco described as a ​“quieter, passive space” where people can look out on the river and ​“play bocce, or what have you.”

Sacco said the project will lead to an upgraded signalized intersection at Blake Street and Valley Street, as well as the addition of painted crosswalks in all four directions, pedestrian signals, and ADA-compliant ramps at all four corners of that intersection.

Local attorney and Westville native Jim Segaloff (pictured) said that the project has the potential to ​“turn Westville Village into a very vibrant, rejuvenated area for everybody,” not just for people from Westville, but for shoppers and restaurant goers and riverfront strollers from throughout the city and surrounding area.

Segaloff said that the scale and density of the design match almost perfectly with the intentions behind the ​“New Urbanist” zoning district that the commission and the Board of Alders recently applied to this stretch of Westville.

Too Much Traffic?

As was the case when the developer’s representatives pitched the project to the community management team last week, a handful of immediate neighbors turned out to raise concerns. They cited the potential traffic impact on an area already beset with some troubled intersections. 

Patty O’Hanlon (pictured above), the director of the Westville Community Nursery School, said she fears a significant increase in car traffic on Tour Avenue and around that stretch of Westville Village will endanger the 32 young children and families her school serves on a daily basis.

“My biggest concern and first priority is the safety of children,” she said. She called on the developer to include some kind of traffic calming — whether new crosswalks or speed humps or signage — on Tour Avenue near the school.

Thea Buxbaum (pictured) said she too is concerned about this project flooding Tour Avenue and nearby intersections with new car traffic.

“I want to see more traffic calming measures in the ​‘little U,’” said Muffy Pendergast in reference to the curl of Tour Avenue, Valley Street Extension, and West Rock Avenue adjacent to the planned new development site.

Amidst this criticism came praise, as well, for a project slated to bring many more renters, shoppers, pedestrians, and economic activity to Westville Village.

“This project is definitely good for Westville,” said Westville/Amity Alder and Board of Alders Majority Leader Richard Furlow (pictured), even as he urged the commissioners to impose some kind of traffic-calming conditions of approval on the project.

“I think it could be perfect,” said Buxbaum. ​“It’s close to perfect.” But not there yet.

For many who spoke up in favor of the project Wednesday night, the balance tipped overwhelming in favor of approval.

“Traffic Is Traffic”

“This is a precarious situation that we have” right now with so many retail business closed during Covid-19, said Westville Village Renaissance Alliance (WVRA) Executive Director Lizzy Donius.

“If we want to grow and survive and see a walkable, bikable, vital Westville center, we need this density.”

Local gallery owner Gabriel DaSilva agreed.

“Some things we have to deal with. Traffic is traffic,” he said. ​“Having the possibility of somebody actually putting something in this empty parking lot” and bringing hundreds of new people to the neighborhood is worth the tradeoff.

“Density is absolutely crucial to any urban environment,” said local architect Keith Krolak. ​“All indications are that this is going to be an excellent catalyst for the neighborhood.”

Those arguments — for greater density and economic development, especially in a time of harrowing economic recession — were repeated by Commission Chair Ed Mattison (pictured) and Commissioner and Westville Alder Adam Marchand as they explained why they would vote for the project.

“It is essential for Westville’s continued growth and viability that a project like this be done,” said Mattison. ​“Without a higher level of density, I don’t think the commercial life of the area will be able to be maintained.”

“I think supporting development and supporting development soon is absolutely an appropriate policy for our city to pursue when we have an economy that’s in a coma and we’re trying to get that economy launched,” said Marchand.

“There is a trade off,” he recognized. For now, and for this project, that trade off — between leaving a lot empty and undeveloped, and approving an ambitious if not-100-percent-perfect project — appeared worth it.

The final site plan approval granted by the commissioners included a condition that the developer further consult with local residents and stakeholders and submit detailed traffic and sidewalk improvements to be approved by the city’s transportation, traffic and parking and engineering divisions before pulling building permits. The conditions also directed the developer to give special attention to creating safe intersections at Blake and Valley and on Tour Avenue.

Saint said that the developer hoped to pull building permits by August and begin demolition and construction by September. She said the project should take 14 to 16 months to complete, meaning it should open near the beginning of 2022.