SWAMPSCOTT — The owners of a planned recreational marijuana dispensary on New Ocean Street have gotten the go-ahead on their site plan.
At Wednesday night’s Select Board meeting, the board approved the draft plan presented by Calyx Peak, with the stipulation that any last changes to the details of the plan be approved by the next-door VFW post.
“We recognize that all the details and issues with the stakeholders of the veterans’ center are ongoing and generally in a productive way,” said Select Board Chair Peter Spellios during the meeting. “We’re going to make sure they’re all codified in writing as soon as they’re finalized.”
The town entered into a host-community agreement with Calyx Peak in 2020. When the Select Board approved the company’s lease for the property at 16 New Ocean St. — the former location of C&L Package Store — it required that the site plan be submitted for approval to the board before the company moved forward with construction.
The most recent version of the plan, which includes changes from past iterations, removed a sitting area and included ways to improve the intersection of Pine and New Ocean Streets where it is located.
“If you’ve traveled it once, you’ve traveled it probably one too many times,” Spellios said about the intersection. “The way in which Pine Street and New Ocean Street come together is more of a 45-degree angle than a 90-degree angle, causing high-speed turns off of New Ocean Street onto Pine Street.”
The Calyx Peak plan would alter the entrance of Pine Street to make it closer to a 90-degree angle in order to slow down cars and move the curb cut at the entrance to the VFW parking lot, creating a shared curb cut for both lots as far away from the intersection as possible.
In addition to these changes, the plan has made space to have all deliveries to the business be made in its parking lot in front of the building, rather than on nearby Curry Circle. It also provides for 18 parking spaces each for the dispensary and the VFW post, divided so that customers do not take up parking at the VFW.
Other details still to be ironed out include the location of the VFW’s flagpoles, how snow-removal operations will be conducted and how the two parking lots will be physically separated. However, many representatives from the organizations housed in the VFW expressed optimism at the collaboration so far with Calyx Peak.
The plan will also have to be approved by the town’s Planning Department and Zoning Board before the company can move forward.
Swampscott has also established an agreement with another cannabis company, Terpene Journey, for a location on Paradise Road.
