SWAMPSCOTT — The Swampscott Select Board is taking steps to eliminate blighted properties around town, including the former General Glover Restaurant building on Humphrey Street.
“A number of properties in town continue to reflect a deteriorating condition,” said Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald. “They detract from the overall quality of the town, but also the property values in and around Swampscott, and ultimately, that costs everybody.”
At the board’s meeting Wednesday night, members met with Building Commissioner Rich Baldacci, who explained that the Glover property, located at 299 Salem St., and which also extends into Marblehead and Salem, has been collecting daily fines for blight for approximately 12 months.
“The property is falling apart,” Baldacci said. “There’s no danger of it falling onto the sidewalk and there’s no danger of the height of the building spilling onto the street, but there’s a public nuisance danger.”
The restaurant closed in the 1990s. Other buildings on the property appear to still be in some use by the owner, the Athanas family, which also owns Hawthorne by the Sea, the only one of four restaurants the family once owned that is still operating.
Baldacci explained that Sunbeam Development Ltd., a defunct corporation through which the Athanas family owns the property, have been sent monthly letters since Swampscott enacted its blighted property bylaw in 2019. The owners are fined $300 each day the blight is not corrected.
While the Athanas family has yet to pay the fines, Tax Collector Ronald Mendes said that they will be added on to the property tax bill, which they have a history of paying in order to renew the liquor license for Hawthorne by the Sea.
Baldacci visited the property earlier in the day on Wednesday with a board of surveyors including Fire Chief Graham Archer in order to assess the state of the property. He said that much of the structure is rotten, windows are missing and it would be fairly easy for someone to enter the building if they wanted to.
Baldacci said he is drafting a letter requesting that the owners put up a fence around the property, but noted he has also heard from the public works department that they have been contacted by a demolition company. While there has been no demolition application, this indicates that steps may be being taken to remove the structure.
The board also discussed the old Sunoco gas station at 182 Paradise Road, which has an active demolition permit, but so far National Grid has been unable to open the street to cut gas service. Baldacci said that the fire department and public works department plan to allow National Grid to cut the service at the sidewalk, allowing demolition to proceed.
The gas station property includes a large asphalt slab, which after demolition will remain until the plot is sold and redeveloped. Select Board Chair Peter Spellios requested that the town ensure that the property isn’t only left as a slab, which could just become overgrown and still exist as a blight on the town.
“I think the resulting condition of the property matters,” Spellios said. “Our goal is to get rid of blight and get rid of unsafe conditions.”
