SWAMPSCOTT — The Town has announced that the Hawthorne by the Sea parking lot is open and available for community members to use.
When giving updates to the Select Board at its most recent meeting, Town Administrator Nick Connors emphasized that this was something the Police Department was very on board with.
“The Police Department was actually really excited when we suggested it because it would activate the space, and it wouldn’t be that there’s an empty lot in front of the building that we’re also holding onto right now,” Connors said.
He did ask community members to park within the lined spots but emphasized that utilizing this space will “expand parking availability in the community.” He encourages residents to “please feel free” to use the lot.
After the meeting, Connors noted that people will be able to use the lot at least for the time being. An end date has not yet been discussed, and the ultimate usage of that lot will be determined by what the tenants’ needs are.
He added that cars should only be parked there while shopping in town and not left overnight.
Connors also gave the Board “a little update on the RFP (request for proposal) itself.”
“We’ve had more than a dozen folks that have requested and downloaded it. That being said, some are community members. You put in an email address, or some people have just sort of put gibberish to download it, so there’s community members, there’s interested parties… and we’re actually doing site visits as well for folks that wanted to schedule it,” Connors explained.
He added, “We’ve had a number of interested groups go through, asking good questions and sort of just getting a look at the inside so they can put together a better presentation in their response to our request.”
Board member David Grishman asked when the Board will be able to do a site visit, to which Connors excitedly told the Board that he had actually just gotten a key to the building and would be able to schedule that quickly, depending on Board members’ schedules.
“We can do it together — as long as there’s no deliberation, a site visit is within open meeting laws — or I can take you all individually,” Connors said.
Board member Danielle Leonard asked Connors how residents would be made aware of the new ability to use the parking lot.
“Will we be letting residents know with a newsletter, email, whatever mode that parking at the Hawthorne is an option for them? Is there a sign that we’re going to put up? Anything to let people know that they can park there?” she asked.
Connors replied, “Yes to all of the above. We can do all of them.”
She also asked if the people who did site visits were given an FAQ sheet “with standard questions that prospective tenants or restaurateurs might ask.”
Connors explained that, in short, the answer is no.
“For the procurement, we wait for the questions,” he said. “We have a week to answer them, and then we post the answers. In the course of the discussion during any of the tours, if there’s a question asked, we ask them to put it in writing because the benefit is meant to accrue to anyone who would apply via the procurement.”
Connors continued, “So if folks say, ‘From a building inspector standpoint, what would need to be done?’ That was a question that had been asked, and we asked (it) to be reduced to writing, but I talked to Rich (Baldacci, building commissioner) and said, ‘Can you start working on the answer to this, anticipating that the question is going to be very broad, and (including) the types of things that a potential respondent would need to be thinking about?’ But we don’t hand anything out.”
Connors said questions were due a day or so before Christmas, and the Town’s responses are due a day or so before New Year’s Day. He later added that the next step in this process would be to select finalists out of the RFP submissions to ultimately make a suggestion to the Board.
