SWAMPSCOTT — The Select Board Thursday had a new surprise for the town while it was voting to purchase the site of the Hawthorne By the Sea restaurant on the town’s waterfront and two parcels of undeveloped land on Archer Street.
The board also announced at Thursday’s special meeting that it had plans to turn the site of the former General Glover House near Vinnin Square into housing.
The Select Board originally announced the idea to acquire three plots of land to use as public open space at the town meeting on May 16. Another special town meeting will be held on June 14 to receive permission from the Town Meeting members to proceed with the purchases.
“This type of action that we can take is really the result of hard work and good decisions over a long period of time,” said Neal Duffy, vice chair of the Select Board, mentioning the hard work of the Finance Committee and the Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald.
Duffy said that the Select Board has been discussing ways to acquire open space for 18 months, and when they learned that the Athanas family was negotiating selling Hawthorne by the Sea and the site of the former Glover restaurant with a Boston-based developer Leggat McCall Properties, they decided to act.
Hawthorne by the Sea at 149-169 Humphrey Street occupies 1.47 acres, including the parking lot. Peter Spellios, a member of the Select Board, said that the owners – the Athanas family – were true partners, when negotiating the sale of this property.
The two sides agreed on a purchase price of $7 million which is close to the town assessment of the property at $6,958,300, said Spellios. The deal provides for a $100,000 deposit and a 90-day due diligence period after signing a purchase and sale agreement and the closing might take place on or around Oct. 1.
According to the preliminary agreement, the Athanas family can choose to operate the restaurant until Oct. 31, 2023.
The Select Board has already begun reaching out to state and federal representatives about turning the Hawthorne by the Sea property into a seaside park, Spellios said.
General Glover House restaurant has been closed since the late 1990s, Spellios said. It has accumulated more than $230,000 of blighted building fines since 2019.
The plot is 4.6 acres and lies in three municipalities. Almost 50 percent of it is located in Swampscott, 1.48 acres in Marblehead and the rest in Salem.
The parcel is zoned as a least intensive commercial district property.
Spellios said that the Select Board discussed with the Athanas family and the prospective purchaser Leggat McCall Properties what could be done to turn the blighted property into something that would be an appropriate scale project for Swampscott.
“Leggat McCall could not have been a more professional and more willing participant. They saw the importance of this property for the town, not just for them and for development,” said Spellios.
Leggat McCall is interested in developing a multi-family housing project with 96 units in Swampscott and 44 units in Marblehead. The Select Board is proposing to create a multi-family overlay district on the property for that reason, which would create 17 affordable units of housing.
The Town of Swampscott would also receive $279,000 from the developer towards the Affordable Housing Trust in this case.
The Select Board has reached an agreement with the owner of the 5.033 acre parcel of land behind the Clark Street playground and even-numbered houses on Archer Street to purchase it for $400,000, said Spellios.The deal did not require a deposit and should close on or around Sep. 12.
Currently, the access to this land is not easy, but it would make a wonderful forest for trails and hiking opportunities, said Spellios.
“There is a ledge you come out on that is about 20-25 feet higher than the ball field below it, which is Clark playground in Lynn” Spellios said. “You look out at the horizon of Lynn all the way up to the mountains, Lynn woods. And it is really quite remarkable to have just a clear view like that.”
The Select Board is determined to buy the second wooded parcel across Archer Street, Spellios said.
That plot between Eureka Avenue, Archer Street, and Foster Road is owned by P&K Funding Trust, which belongs to Peter Pantazelos and Kostas Pantazelos.
The Pantazelos brothers have been trying to develop the land since 2012. An application for development of a Chapter 40B project there called Atlantic Bay View Residences is currently pending with MassHousing.
“We will be asking Town Meeting on June 14, with or without a purchase and sale agreement, to authorize the Town of Swampscott to acquire this 4.5 acre parcel,” said Spellios.
Spellios said that the Select Board had been interested in the land before they learned about the Chapter 40B application in January.
Both Spellios and Fitzgerald said that the town is financially prepared for these deals and that more financial information would be shared before the Town Meeting. Further conversations will be held with the residents about the possible uses of the Hawthorne by the Sea property.
The Special Town Meeting will take place on Tuesday, June 14, at 7 p.m.
Alena Kuzub can be reached at [email protected].
