By Adam Swift
At its regular meeting last week, the planning board approved the major site plan for a 20,000-square-foot Market Basket Spirits next to the existing Market Basket grocery store on Everett Avenue.
The zoning board previously approved a special permit for the project.
The project also includes transportation updates for the MBTA bus service on site, as well as a dedicated rideshare and taxi area. There will be the loss of a handful of parking spaces as a result of the project, but the 1,504 spaces are still well above what is required under the current zoning.
Jim Lamp of LT Development, which oversees Market Basket development, said construction will begin with the transportation improvements.
Due to challenges with the site, Lamp said the construction of the building itself could take from 12 to 18 months.
“Once the (transportation improvements) are up and operational, then we have to start building the new building,” said Lamp. “Building construction, because it is on an old landfill and all the debris from the Chelsea Fire, is going to have to be on piles and grade beams, so construction of the building is going to be a lot more intensive than typical construction.”
The project engineers addressed several of the questions that were raised at a previous planning board hearing, primarily about a planned new curb cut on Carter Street and how that will affect traffic.
“We went out there and watched how the traffic flowed up and down the street,” said Robert Nagi from VHB Consultants. “One of the challenges there is that there are a lot of commercial vehicles, trucks specifically, that are parking along Carter Street in no parking areas, which creates a little bit of friction for cars that are going to be going up and down there.”
Nagi said the design team will be working with the public works department and the traffic and parking commission on several proposed upgrades to the area, including improved signage and street markings.
Nagi said the consultants also talked to the MBTA, which assured them that there will still be a bus stop at the end of Second Street at Carter Street.
The Chelsea location of MB Spirits would be the sixth in the state, joining other locations in Danvers, Waltham, Hanover, Tewksbury, and Shrewsbury.