A proposal for a three-story residential building with one story of parking underneath two floors of 12 two-bedroom apartments was presented to the Planning Board last Thursday.
Developer Joseph Salvaggio is looking to redevelop the lots at 10 and 12 Munroe St., located next to a large apartment building on Hardy Street and smaller homes on Elm Street.
According to the project’s architect, Joe Bettencourt, the development is hoping to assimilate more with the neighborhood scale rather than the larger buildings. To that end, the condominium will be in the 40 to 45-foot range.
In total, the gross area is 28,492 square feet, including the 28 parking spaces on ground level and the two living spaces above that are estimated to hold, at most, 48 people.
“Our primary goal architecturally speaking is to really try to draw from the neighborhood scale, bring some of those characteristics onto our project and make this an extension of the neighborhood,” Bettencourt said. “We also want to improve the landscaping as much as we can. Currently, there really is no landscaping, so any opportunities that we can, we’re going to add landscaping around.”
The team plans to match the textures and scale of the neighborhood homes while adding interest with a special design for the entryway.
The project also proposes to add sidewalks onto Munroe Court and Hardy Street in an effort to accommodate pedestrians coming from Elm Street and past the desired lots to get to Peabody Center.
Open space would increase due to the proposed development, going from 10.7% with the rest of the lots consisting of pavement to 28.7% after the project develops the space.
“All of the opportunities we have to add some scale, texture, interest, and trying to keep it on budget for our client, but we’ll push to do the best that we can,” Bettencourt said.
While no action was taken by the board at last Thursday’s meeting, they will decide at a future time whether to approve a site plan review for the project or not.
