Town Issues Cushing Sq. Starbucks Occupancy Permit

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Photo: The location of the new Starbucks in town.

The Belmont Office of Community Development issued a certificate of occupancy to Starbucks Coffee Company on Tuesday, June 19, to allow its cafe at 110 Trapelo Rd. to open for business, said Glenn Clancy, the town’s director of community development.

“It will be opening up any day now,” Clancy told the Belmontonian at the School Committee meeting at the Chenery Middle School.

The cafe is located on the ground floor of the Winslow building in the Bradford development which occupies the block surrounding Common Street, Trapelo Road, Belmont Street, and Williston Road. The apartment/retail/parking project is being built by Toll Brothers Apartment Living.

The 42 seat store staffed with 25 to 35 employees will have approximately 20 off-street parking spaces adjacent to the location.

While the store will be open daily from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m., the company will likely ask the town to approve a closing time of 10 p.m. which was permitted in the special permit approved by the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Bradford [Ex-Cushing Village] Update: Purple Water? That’s OK; Starbucks Winding Down

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Photo: A big purple hole in the ground.

As the digging on the future home of Cushing Vill … sorry, The Bradford is speeding along on schedule, more than one resident who spied into what will become the foundations of the three buildings making up the 164,000 sq.-ft. complex of apartments, stores, and parking in Cushing Square was taken aback by the rather strange purplish hue to the ground water and soil in the pit.

Did the contractor Nauset Construction find something no one was expecting to discover?

One person who did take notice was the Otto Weiss, the project manager for Toll Brothers Apartment Living, the Bradford’s owner/developer.

“[Y]ou may notice that the color of the treated soil and any surrounding water is clearly purple,” said Otto Weiss, the project manager for Toll Brothers Apartment Living, the Bradford’s owner/developer.

What nearby neighbors had noticed was just what the team was expecting to find.

“This is a normal reaction of the treatment process and is not a cause for alarm,” noted Weiss in an email project update.  

“I realize you may have questions and as always I will do my best to answer,” said Weiss, who can be contacted at oweiss@tollbrothers.com

Weiss said the treatment process that was approved earlier this year by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection will take about one more week to complete, at which time the site will undergo several weeks of testing and approvals before the removal of the soil.  

Ongoing air testing and monitoring continues uninterrupted, “and to date we have not seen any results that cause concern,” said Weiss.

The signs the popular Starbucks cafe, located on Trapelo Road in the middle of the active construction site, is winding down operations is literally on its doors. A pair of notices referred customers to big changes to the hours of operations – the store will close at 5 p.m. starting May 22 and at noon a week later on May 29 – and a “thank you” note to customers are located at both entrances and inside the not so busy store.

“Thank you for your patience and understanding as we prepare for this store to close,” said Store Manager Matthew Thompson.

No closing date has been provided. Toll Brothers said a new Starbucks will be opening in the early fall of 2018 in the “Winslow” building which is located on the former municipal parking lot.

Starbucks Temporary Relocation On Zoning Board Agenda Tonight

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The Belmont Zoning Board of Appeals tonight, Monday, June 16 will reconvene its hearing from last month on the temporary relocation of the Cushing Square Starbucks Coffee Cafe to the intersection of Belmont Street and Trapelo Road, a meeting that brought out nearly 40 residents voicing concern on the possible increase in traffic and parking as well as questioned trash migrating into the abutting neighborhoods.

The meeting will take place at 7 p.m. in the Belmont Gallery of Art, on the third floor of the Homer Building, located in the Town Hall complex in Belmont Center.

The original meeting, held on Monday, May 19, brought out residents who heard the popular Cushing Square Starbucks would temporarily move for about a year from its present location at 112 Trapelo Road up the road to 6-8 Trapelo which is less than a block from the intersection of Belmont and Pine streets. 

The move is necessary due to the construction of Cushing Village, the 186,000 sq.-ft. multi-building residential/retail/parking complex being constructed by developer Chris Starr of Smith Legacy Partners. Starr’s company also owns the two storefronts which the cafe would move into.

Smith Legacy is seeking a pair of special permits for the relocation; one to performs renovations to the exterior and the second to run a restaurant at the site.

Residents of the nearby neighborhoods told the board at last month’s meeting of their worries that the cafe, with nearly 50 seats, will aggrandize parking problems facing the adjacent residential streets that are currently being used by commuters. They also voiced worries of greater trash and litter in their community and other nuisances.