By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
A property owner on Witherspoon Street said Monday that he would file paperwork with the town seeking permission to put a grocery into a building across the street from the AvalonBay residential development.
“It’s a natural,” said Bill Bunting, a long-time lawyer, from his office, of putting a grocery into a roughly 4,000- square-foot-building so close to AvalonBay. “I think it has tremendous potential.”
He said he sees the grocery serving not only the future tenants of AvalonBay but the broader neighborhood that does not have a food store within close walking distance.
“Having another small grocery would be great, but I haven’t seen (a) specific proposal and don’t want to comment on specifics before it goes through (the) approval process,” Mayor Liz Lempert said Monday in a text message.
Mr. Bunting said he would file paperwork with the town this week.
Mr. Bunting already has one tenant in the building, the Molisana Deli, that has been in that location since the mid-1980s. He said the deli would remain, with the grocery occupying about 1,300 square feet of the building.
The building has a long history in the community, having once been home to Rockwood Dairy and Colonial Printers among other tenants, he said.
