Ambrosino: Shops at Suffolk consider expanding

REVERE – The city’s success in working with a developer to replace nine oil tanks with a shopping center may lead to additional expansion near Suffolk Downs, Mayor Thomas Ambrosino said Thursday.Ambrosino told Revere Chamber of Commerce members the city must tough its way through reduced state funding and other financial hurdles and keep its sights set on development opportunities.”We have to ensure we have in place a program and a strategy so that when the economy rebounds we have some decent development in the city.”He said the successful development that turned Diner Road off Lee Burbank Highway into the Shops at Suffolk could lead to additional construction on land opposite Wendy’s.Zoning changes, streamlined permitting and close work with the state and Revere’s legislators have sowed the seeds for economic success on Revere Beach and other sites across the city, the mayor said.Ambrosino said zoning changes aimed at assisting construction of the Overlook Ridge housing in North Revere could lead to commercial construction near the residences off Salem Street.He plans to ask the City Council “relatively soon” to consider additional North Revere zoning changes aimed at accommodating commercial development.He said BJ’s Wholesale Club pulled building permits and paid the city $125,000 in fees this week in preparation for construction near Route 107.”We haven’t yet been successful in Northgate,” he said, adding Northgate manager Allen Associates plans to do landscaping and parking lot resurfacing work at the Squire Road shopping center this summer.