NEWBURYPORT – For decades, residents here shopped at Kmart in Port Plaza for everything from furniture to toys. In coming years, they may live in new apartments that could be built where the vacant store now stands.
Closed for seven years, the site of the almost 51,000 square-foot store may become an apartment building that could house more than 200 apartments, including more than 50 affordable ones.
In what City Councilor Jim McCauley described as “the end of chapter two in a 10-chapter book,” Mayor Sean Reardon announced last week that he has signed an agreement with Port Plaza owner Richard Kaplan to begin searching for a developer.
“This project will activate a space that has been dormant for seven years and bring much needed affordable rentals to the city,” Reardon wrote to the council. “It will also allow the city to achieve safe harbor status and protects us from future 40B developments.”
The city council voted last week to create an overlay district for the Kmart site that is similar to the zoning district created for the Boston Way units next to the MBTA station and Rte. 1 Rotary.
The apartment building will be four floors, with a maximum height of 120 feet tall. According to the plans approved by the council, the building on the Low Street side would be stepped back in height to 95 feet to keep it from being an imposing structure.
The council voted for the building to have retail space to include shops and restaurants on the ground level. It will likely have green space and patios for residents and visitors to enjoy a coffee or lunch. Residents of the new apartment would also have easy access to two grocery stores and other shops, including Marshall’s.
The guidelines approved by the council will limit the developer to no more than 60 units per acre. But the state Department of Housing and Community Development and the Newburyport Zoning Board of Appeals will have the final say on the approved design.
The agreement Reardon reached with Kaplan, according to the city press release, calls for the construction of 212 rental units, with 25 percent being affordable. To qualify for an affordable unit, renters must have an income less than 80 percent of the region’s average median income of $127,306. The guidelines vary for families of different sizes.
Because Reardon and Kaplan came to an agreement, the project will be considered a “friendly 40B” one.
Like most towns and cities in the Commonwealth, Newburyport does not have enough available and even less affordable housing. A municipality must have 10 percent of its total housing stock be affordable to qualify for being in what is called a safe harbor.
If a municipality is not in safe harbor status, a real estate developer can force it to accept a ‘hostile’ 40B project, which means it has few controls over the project.
The 40B program, which was approved in the 1960s, is the state’s primary program to increase less expensive housing. It gives the state, not local planning boards and city councils, the authority over new housing.
“We are acutely aware of the major housing challenges in the city, region and state,” Reardon wrote in a press release. “Inventory is low and costs continue to rise. Through our housing production plan, we’re committed to looking at a number of other initiatives to create even more housing options.”
According to the mayor, the city lost more than 300 rental units from 2010 to 2020, which has driven rental costs high.
The project, according to the city’s press release, would significantly increase the city’s affordable housing stock above the 10 percent threshold.
The next step is for the mayor to sign a local initiative project application, which Kaplan can forward to the state before it visits the site. ♦
