City Manager Tom Ambrosino said a comprehensive zoning package now at the City Council would help the City to be able to keep up with Everett’s booming Commercial Triangle area – an industrial area abutting the Chelsea line that has seen multiple, large redevelopment projects in the last six months.
Everett re-zoned its side of the industrial area in 2019, and in the last year has seen a plethora of large projects come through – including a huge redevelopment of the Stop & Shop on the Parkway that lies in both Chelsea and Everett.
Now, changes in zoning proposed by Ambrosino and his Planning Department would mimic what Everett has already done and perhaps spread the wealth to some of the underutilized industrial buildings on the Chelsea side.
“We have proposed to re-zone all of that area that is on the north side of the railroad tracks for mixed use so we could create the ability to bring some development on underutilized lots there,” he said. “On the other side, our goal is to keep that commercial/industrial. The Produce Center is important for us and all the northeast US. We have no desire to re-zone that. On that other side, though, is a lot of underutilized parcels and we’d like to see some of them developed.”
Right now, residential development in that area is prohibited, and that is primarily what is being proposed in Everett – large apartment buildings with retail components. The only residential project in that area for Chelsea now is the soon-to-be finished Fairfield project across from the Chelsea High School. That project has more than 700 units in the queue.
Ambrosino said a vote on the re-zone of the area could come as soon as the March 8 Council meeting.