Senior housing planned for Swampscott

SWAMPSCOTT – A business plans to develop 84 apartments in Vinnin Square, offering senior assisted – and independent – living and care for patients in the early stages of memory loss.”It’s an amazing site we feel like we’ll be able to improve,” LCB Senior Living spokesman Ted Doyle said Monday on his way to a meeting before the Swampscott Planning Board. “We dream of a town like Swampscott where you have the great resources and a great senior community.”LCB Senior Living develops and manages 11 such facilities in every New England state but Maine. Locally, there are facilities in Ipswich, Watertown, Dedham and Wayland. The company has submitted a proposal to tear down two homes and construct a two- to three-story building with 84 studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments on a 3.1-acre site at 224 Salem St. The building will be primarily accessed from Salem Street, but a service entrance will have access via Sunbeam Lane, the road that connects Salem Street to Marshalls.Doyle said each unit will be a full apartment with a kitchenette, although there will be a full restaurant for residents, along with common areas including media and recreation rooms and a library. There will be assisted living services for residents, and the independent-living clients will not be “the-typical-over-55-on-a-golf-course independent-living clients,” said Doyle – although the property appears to abut Tedesco Country Club on one corner.”The typical resident is about 85 years old, and they tend not to drive,” Doyle said. “The buildings themselves tend to be relatively low impact. We’re not taxing the school systems.”There are also apartment units dedicated for clients in the early stages of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.Doyle said the company expects to create approximately 75 full- and part-time jobs (the equivalent of 52 full-time jobs) providing about $1.8 million in annual salaries.The proposal was first presented to the Planning Board Monday night and will apply for a special permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals at its March 26 meeting.Doyle said there is no construction timeline, as the company has just submitted its proposal and typically works with the community to design the building’s architectural look.”The people who will be living in the building are living here now, they are used to the community’s standards,” Doyle said. “We have to build something that’s commensurate to where we are, because we want its people to come here.”Town Administrator Tom Younger said the building would be taxed at the residential rate and the zoning and planning board processes would require a traffic analysis and the standard neighborhood analysis.But Younger said that such projects, in general, can help contribute to a community need.”Generally when we can do something to assist our senior population, it’s good,” Younger said.