Thursday, January 8, 2015

'It has Made a Huge Difference' in Emmons Street Discussion

Thank you to all of you who participated in the many meetings and discussions regarding the downtown Emmons Street property. It has made a huge difference.

We were encouraged at last night's Town Council meeting to learn that the community was able to convince the developer to come up with a new plan that did Not include a food drive-through.

Below is a summary of the meeting. Please visit Franklin Matters if you would like to read through the live reporting of this meeting.  

Attached are the new proposed drawings.  The Town Council will have an official vote at the next town council meeting on Wednesday, January 21.

Proposed plan with NO drive-through option

Proposed plan, with bank drive-through option

Artist rendering of proposed building (includes bank drive-through)

Matt Tota of the Milford Daily News published a story about the discussion, and Franklin Matters posted an excerpt of it today: 
Posted: 08 Jan 2015 02:50 AM PST 
Franklin Matters
The local developer seeking to purchase a downtown property has changed his proposal to only include retail space after concerns were raised about the possibility for a drive-through restaurant at the site. 
Roger Calarese, developer of the Franklin Village Mall, submitted a proposal to raze the current building at 150 Emmons St. and replace it with a 5,300-square-foot commercial property. He had considered building a drive-through on the property, but cut it from the proposal in response to complaints from downtown business owners and residents. 
Calarese, who bid $500,000 for the property, has since taken the prospect of a restaurant drive-through off the table. However, he could still have a drive-through business there, such as a bank. His negotiations with a possible bank tenant, though, had fallen through. And it is unclear what type of retail business he now has in mind.
Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here: http://www.milforddailynews.com/article/20150108/NEWS/150107578/1994/NEWS#sthash.lSTkeHrx.dpuf
Note: email subscribers will need to click through to the Franklin Matters webpage to view the embedded content (video,audio and documents) This post originally appeared on Franklin Matters