(This story was updated Dec. 6, 2017, at 5:30 p.m.)
[B]URLINGTON — The former home of the venerable Bove’s Italian restaurant on Pearl Street may be torn down and a hotel and affordable housing built under a proposal from owner Richard Bove Jr.
His plan is to make space for a roughly 76-room brand-name hotel and 20-unit apartment building by demolishing the restaurant and two nearby rental houses. Bove’s restaurant closed in 2015 but started a manufacturing facility in Milton that produces its pasta sauces and meatballs.
The city would sell Bove a 30-spot metered parking lot behind the restaurant for its market value of $500,000, according to a memo from Burlington’s Community and Economic Development Director Noelle MacKay. Bove would keep 30 parking spots for public use in the daytime, according to the memo.
The parking lot is one of a handful of underused city-owned properties, according to MacKay.
“Utilization of this surface lot continues to decline,” MacKay wrote, explaining that on average, 18 percent of the spaces are used, according to a tally by Burlington’s Department of Power and Water conducted during June and July.
Although the lot is profitable — it made about $23,000 and cost the city just over $8,000 to maintain last year — MacKay wrote that the lot would take well over 30 years to recoup the proposed sale price, if all factors stayed the same through that time.
The planned new apartments will qualify as affordable. A number of units have to be rented below market rates under Burlington’s inclusionary zoning ordinance, but the remainder will be affordable for people relying on Housing Choice vouchers, also known as Section 8 vouchers, according to MacKay’s memo.
The hotel will be of similar quality to a Microtel Inn & Suites by Wyndham Hotel Group, according to the memo, and will be owned and operated by Bove.
As part of the deal, Bove would renovate the historic General Stannard House on the corner of Pearl and George streets. It would continue to serve as housing.
The sale and development received the recommendation of the city’s Board of Finance and will go before the full City Council soon.
