New Condos in Salisbury, Huge Impact on the Town

Town Planner of Salisbury, Lisa Pearson, gives input on the new condominiums in Salisbury Center, replacing part of what is currently “Broadway”; a huge tourist attraction in the town.

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Maia Perry, Staff Writer

The great amount of debate going around Salisbury for the new codos that are being planned to be placed in the biggest attraction of Salisbury, Broadway, or the center of the beach, is overwhelming.

Whether this new building will completely ruin or benefit the beach is the big question that the residents of Salisbury are talking about. Lisa Pearson, though, thinks that this building will be a huge benefit.

 

;zAQ@Could you give a brief summary of the plan for these new condominiums?

 

Yes, so, these condos aren’t approved yet. They still need to go through a couple different votes through the planning board members. It also is going through the Conservation Commission, who looks at the Mass Department of Environmental Protection regulations to make sure that these condos won’t get flooded easily and other regulations. These condos are planned to be a height of 62 feet, compared to the 89 foot rule that is allowed by Zoning regulations. They are planned to be 240 residential units and 6,500 square feet of commercial space.

 

Where are these condos exactly going in “Broadway”?

 

Well they aren’t exactly going in the middle of Broadway and just taking down a bunch of popular shops and food places, they are planned to go on part of Ocean Front South where The Dolphin is, the tee-shirt place, Uncle Eddie’s, the Carefree Arcade, the Carousel Lounge and then the Upper Deck as well as those upper buildings.

 

Do you see the visitation population declining because of all of these local bars and shops being taken away?

 

No, absolutely not. So, actually, I expect it will increase. Essentially, these are dilapidated buildings that are not being utilized to the best of their ability. There’s a couple of even burned down buildings in between these places where there’s absolutely nothing there. There’s a lot more potential that could happen here. Your also potentially adding about 240 new families that would be utilizing the area, especially if they bring guests. The goal is to increase the amount of people that are using the commercial spaces. Hopefully this can go from a community of three months of really busy times, to 6-9 months.

 

Do you think it will be approved? Do you personally think it’s a good idea?

 

So, they still have to answer a lot more questions before the planning board has the information to approve it. But, yeah, I think something needs to be done to attract more people year round. Town meeting has approved the zoning, so it is a positive move in the right direction. It’ll hopefully keep the beach busy year around, instead of just a couple months.

 

How long do you think the whole process will take if it is approved?

 

The planning board is supposed to have a decision of approval or denial by the beginning of February or March. There are two “phases” to the building process and their construction schedule says that they should have the demillation on phase one started by Labor Day. They could technically have their permaning done by the spring. It’s a long, complicated process. We had a project in the past that was actually approved 10 years before it was actually built, so it really depends on the owners of the space to actually put the money into actually starting the project. It could all vary. In this case, the owner’s say they are moving forward with the construction, but we will see what happens.