10-gallon disappointment at Spag's
Business owners balk at Building 19 buyout offers as project stalls
Property owners along Boston Turnpike say they're willing to sell their lots to the group that wants to include them in the commercial/residential redevelopment of the former Spag's site, but only if they get a fair price.
But like shoppers at the old Spag's, the developers, SREV LLC, I.J. Barkan Inc. and the Kimco Realty Corp., are looking for a steal, say those property owners.
"I'm willing if they want to dig, but I can't let them steal my property," said Thomas Garganigo, owner of Lovey's Garage, the property at 161 Boston Turnpike. He said the project proposed by the development team is a good one, and negotiations had been "making headway."
But Garganigo wants the developers to pay to move Lovey's from its present location, and the negotiations are "stuck in neutral," just like the project itself.
Highway robbery
SREV, the Hingham-based owner of the Spag's Building 19 site, Barkan, a Waitsfield, Vt. real estate developer and Kimco, a New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based real estate investment trust, said they couldn't get their plans together by the town's deadline. SREV's Norman Greenberg, "The [parcels] we would want to acquire are commercially zoned along Route 9," the state route number for Boston Turnpike. "We've talked to all their owners, but we haven't been able to strike a deal at this point."
So, the developers "are going back a little bit to the drawing boards, and looking at this a little differently," Greenberg said. He said they're considering making the commercial aspect of the property a priority.
That's fine with Garganigo. "They've got a good plan," he said. "All they've got to do is dig a little, they've got to untie those pockets a little."
Garganigo wouldn't say what he considered a fair price for the Lovey's property. The property is assessed at $673,600 by the town. Properties commonly sell for about twice their assessed value.
A change, of course
"Assembling land is a very delicate process," said Iriwn Barkan, president of I.J. Barkan Inc. He said the Spag's/Building 19 development team might be willing to incorporate commercial properties into their project without buying them outright.
"You want to have the frontage, but you don't have to have all the frontage," Barkan said. "There are all kinds of ways to integrate properties into the project without owning them."
Next door to Lovey's is Mattress Discounters. The 163 Boston Turnpike property is assessed at $716,200, and is owned by Harry Leiser of New London, Conn.
Leiser said, "They haven't even come up with a number for me yet."
"I have a very successful tenant there, and I don't want to make trouble for them," Leiser said.
White elephant
"We don't have to buy" all the properties that abut the Building 19 site, said Building 19 owner Gerald Elovitz, who goes by Jerry Ellis. "But it would be a better project if we did."
Elovitz said he didn't expect any movement on the project in the next two months. "I hope I'm still patient. I would like to do something that makes sense and that I can be proud of, but there is no urgency. What we had lined up was very nice, but that didn't work."
Nearby businesses say Building 19 itself isn't working at the beloved old Spag's store, which Building 19 bought in 2002, and they hope whatever Elovitz and his development team do, it will be better than the massive, empty parking lot and the three unkempt buildings there now.
Garganigo said he didn't have any worries at all about traffic drawn to a new development at the old Spag's. "Whatever they do, it'll never be the same traffic that came to Spag's," he said.
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