A good fit: Old shoe store faces wrecking, new homes, stores spur Buzzards Bay redevelopment

Paul Gately
·6 min read

BUZZARDS BAY — The village business community is thrilled the redevelopment continues on "middle Main Street" as a wrecking ball will take down an old building to make way for new commercial and residential space.

The Cape Cod Commission more than a decade ago designated Main Street as a growth incentive zone and envisioned it as the town’s central commercial base. The designation allowed for a more streamlined permitting process.

Developer Keith Galizio received a special permit and site plan approval from the Bourne Planning Board to demolish the former Asacks Footwear store at 140 Main St., and before that the location to the late Charlie Wallace’s auto repair garage, to make way for a new mixed-use development.

Thursday morning traffic is framed up in the old Asacks Footwear store along Main Street in Buzzards Bay. The building is to be demolished and a new building with commercial and residental space will be built in its place.
Thursday morning traffic is framed up in the old Asacks Footwear store along Main Street in Buzzards Bay. The building is to be demolished and a new building with commercial and residental space will be built in its place.

The new building at 140 Main St. will feature commercial space on the first floor and 6 residential units above; across from the Rod & Rail restaurant and next to The Liquor Barn. The new commercial space will feature 12,000 square feet.

The plans — and existing new development to the stretch of Main Street — offer another step toward the long-sought redevelopment of the area.

When the Route 25 bypass opened in 1987 Cape-bound traffic was diverted away from Main Street. Within a few years, the once-busy street was transformed into a landscape of abandoned buildings, empty facades, and barren lots. The west end of the street,near Massachusetts Maritime Academy, hardly had any open stores at all.

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The Bourne Planning Board now sees plans for the old Asacks building as the next link in returning Main Street to its heyday.

“This is a great plan,” board member Chris Farrell said earlier this month. “It’s exactly what we designed in the beginning for the downtown district zoning. This building has seen a lot of use. It’s a tired building.”

Canal Region Chamber of Commerce President Marie Oliva was like-minded and welcoming.

“This is exactly the right type of business for downtown Buzzards Bay,” she told the board earlier this month.

The long-vacant building on a 13,000-square-foot lot was constructed in 1927. The new structure will be situated closer to Main Street and will include18 parking spaces, elimination of two curb cuts and will help resolve some housing needs.

Board member David O’Connor said tenants “will add to the street life and provide customers for downtown business."

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The west end of Main Street was once a rail hub. Over the past decade, it has dominated headlines about improvements, change and a general overall business turnaround. It boasts two marinas, a new park/playground, new stores and an Army Corps of Engineers parking lot at the canal as well as Mass. Maritime Academy parking lots.

Canal Day held in the park on Sept. 17 was filled with kinetic intensity. Food trucks, live entertainment, children's activities, a 5K race and more drew crowds to the area.

The east end of the street has been busier with Ocean State Job Lot, Scenic Park, five restaurants, numerous coffee shops, convenience stores and gas stations with a new gas/convenience outlet being constructed next to the Bourne Bridge abutment. There is additional sewage capacity as well.

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The canal-side area off Main Street and Perry Avenue features a new Hampton Inn, the still unfinished Calamar Apartments complex and the Keystone Place assisted living complex; with plans approved for more apartments at the west end of Kendall Rae Place.

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The middle of the street, meanwhile, has retained its yesteryear relevance but has not changed that much. The Rod & Rail has replaced the Buzzards Bay Tavern next to St. Margaret of Scotland Church.

The auto-centric street is a place with little mid-day foot traffic, suggesting a wrenchingly slow transformation in a wider sense of community; elimination of fire hazards, reconstruction, streetscape planning and improved canal access aside.

Municipal efforts to revitalize Main Street have been long-term, ambitious, aggressive and expensive and now coordinated. Sometimes joint enterprise, but not always perfectly calibrated.

The old Asacks Footwear store building at 140 Main St. in Buzzards Bay, shown her on Tuesday, is to be demolished to make way for a new mixed-use building.
The old Asacks Footwear store building at 140 Main St. in Buzzards Bay, shown her on Tuesday, is to be demolished to make way for a new mixed-use building.

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They extend, however, to the time when Bourne did not employ a town planner. Select Board candidates, going back to the mid-1970s, have espoused a “we need to revitalize Buzzards Bay” position.

The Route 25 bypass in 1987, which created a direct connection between I-495 and the Bourne Bridge, killed many businesses that depended on tourism. Prior to the bypass Cape-bound travelers who were headed to the Bourne Bridge traveled along the Cranberry Highway (Route 6/28) bringing tourists and others to Buzzards Bay.

Over the years, there were many attempts to revitalize the area including the opening of the National Marine Life Center in 1995, zoning changes in 2008, joining the MBTA in 2015 in an effort to bring commuter rail to town and improvements to Buzzards Bay Park in 2018.

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Irene Carbone, owner of the Buzzards Bay Motor Lodge, said her family has watched Main Street evolve, decline and attempt a comeback over 50 years. She remembers when half the business buildings along the mile-long stretch from Belmont Circle to Veterans Memorial rotary were empty.

Those efforts seem to have paid off as the renaissance is well underway. The political topics of choice today pivot on commercial sewage allocations and whether there is enough easily available downtown parking.

140 Main St. plan to go before Bourne Historical Commission

The demolition and planned construction at 140 Main still face an official demolition-delay bylaw hearing with the Bourne Historical Commission as well as Design Board review.

Prior to Galizio’s plan, a former owner contemplated a hybrid beer brewery in the old shoe store. But that plan moved to the Cranberry Highway in neighboring Wareham. And Buzzards Bay Brewing recently abandoned its spot at Main Street’s west end across from the new canal-side park citing a lack of business.

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Main Street with its flow-through traffic and its pit-stop economy will soon feature its eighth gas station and sixth coffee shop. There are also eight restaurants. A 30-seat pizza place is set to open at 89 Main St.

Carbone sees good times ahead for Main Street but with a caveat.

“We badly need additional housing,” she said.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Redevelopment along Main Street Buzzards Bay in Bourne continues