Gym bid at vacant site is denied

"We get more complaints about that building than any other building in the city," said Nicholas R. Catinazzo, Revere's public health and municipal inspections director.

Despite its strip mall location on traffic-heavy Squire Road, the building, boarded up and sporting a few graffiti tags, has been vacant for eight years, according to Mayor Thomas G. Ambrosino.

"We have tried to pressure the owners of Northgate to do something, but that parcel is separately owned by a New York company," Ambrosino said. "Stop & Shop has a long-term lease there, with at least another 15 years or so left."

Now concerns are brewing over how much longer the site will remain vacant after the City Council's opposition to Ambrosino's request for a zoning change that would have allowed a health club to take over the building. Some councilors argue that a health club is not the best use for the site, particularly in an area that already has two gyms.

After checking zoning laws to determine whether the site can be used for a health club, city officials realized there is no zoning language in place to allow for health clubs anywhere in Revere. Ambrosino said he couldn't explain how previous building inspectors interpreted the zoning that allowed Bally Total Fitness on Wesley Road and East Shore Athletic Club on Charger Street to open.

Health clubs, Ambrosino said, should be an allowable use in the city. Existing clubs would be grandfathered in and new ones, like the one proposed, would be allowed with a simple change to the zoning ordinance.

But the City Council's Zoning Subcommittee disagreed with the mayor's recommendation, not just because members prefer a different use, such as retail, for the site, but also because of the site's proximity to East Shore Athletic Club. The move squandered an opportunity to finally do something about the blighted building, Ambrosino said.

"They were persuaded by a guy with a nearby club that didn't want competition," Ambrosino said of the council. "It's an eyesore. Conceivably, it could be vacant for 15 years. It's a tough parcel to deal with and Stop & Shop is not going to be keen on giving it up without assurances that a new lease won't impact them as far as competition from another grocery store. We had a rare situation that we had an entity that wanted to go there and it got denied."

Under a new vacant building ordinance, the city issued Stop & Shop a $3,000 maximum fee based on the number of years the site has been vacant, Catinazzo said, adding that a company as large as Stop & Shop, which already paid the fee and is current on its taxes, will not be persuaded by the measure to expedite efforts to get a new tenant. A company lawyer sent a check for the fee to the city along with a thank-you note, Catinazzo said.

Councilor George Rotondo said it is hard to believe that there is no other demand for that site, which he estimates has traffic volume of almost 260,000 people a week, and blames Northgate managers, Allen Associates Properties Inc., for not trying to persuade the lease holders to fill the site. Rotondo said he has spoken with "local businessmen who have an interest in building a five-story building there."

"I think the mayor is not being completely insightful on this issue," Rotondo said. "My issue is about what's going to be prosperous. . . . For some reason the mayor feels a gym is a productive development for that site. It's beyond comprehension."

Stop & Shop spokesman Robert Keane said the search for a new tenant is ongoing, but added that the landlord, Benenson Capital Co., is in charge of finding one. Keane would not confirm the terms of the lease. Douglas and Matthew Allen of Allen Associates did not return phone calls requesting comment. Benenson Capital Co. of New York also did not return calls.

Councilor Robert Haas, who chairs the Zoning Subcommittee, said Revere has been "very friendly to Stop & Shop," which has supermarkets in three other areas of the city, with only one direct competitor, a Shaw's on Revere Beach Parkway.

He is urging Ambrosino to sit down with Stop & Shop executives to continue to assure them that the city won't allow another supermarket to take over the Northgate site, and to urge leasing it as soon as possible.

"They're trying to protect their current businesses probably, but they're just letting it sit there," Haas said of the Northgate property.

"Doug Allen says he has had no other offers, that this is the only one. . . . No one can believe that in an area with this traffic count, that no one would want to lease that site."