Deli, office space planned for Old South Road development
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
Holding 1.5 acres across from the airport, developer John Keane is doing what former Wampanoag Way owner Great Point Partners could not at 128 Old South Road: develop the property.

PETER B. BRACE/The Independent Kitty Murtagh's owner John Keane's development of 1.5 acres on Hanabea Lane in the former Wampanoag Way development will contain 10, three-story buildings with commercial uses on the ground floors and residential space on the upper two stories. Five of the buildings will be ready for tenants by the summer..

Keane, owner of Kitty Murtagh's, Queequeg's, 6 and 8 West Creek Road, and numerous residential holdings, is building 10 commercial/residential units on 10 lots on the south side of Hanabea Lane in the Wampanoag Way development off Old South Road. His plan is to have half of them completed and ready for tenants by the summer.

"It's going well," said Keane. "There's four of them up and there's another going up in another week. The two at the front are about 80 percent and the two at the back are at about 60 percent."

In the three-story buildings that will sit six in a row along Old South Road, with four side-by-side behind them on Hanabea Lane, Keane said he plans living space on the second and third floors and commercial uses on the ground floors. The May 14, 2007 Planning Board approval of the Major Commercial Development special permit dictates retail/office use in the six front buildings, with commercial/light industrial and tenant lease space in the four buildings behind them.

Keane already has several businesses signed up to move in when their buildings are ready.

"We have a high-end deli and sandwich shop, we're negotiating with a chiropractor and with another group that will take a building, [and] they have bookkeeping, lawyers, accountants and insurance representatives all in one building. [Also], a surveyor's office."

After purchasing the land as two lots from Great Harbor Yacht Club developer Great Point Partners of Rowayton, Conn. for $5 million on Aug. 14, 2006, Keane subdivided the property into 10 lots, all located in the RC-2 zoning district where the minimum lot size is 5,000 square feet.

Great Point Partners originally purchased 3.6 acres at 124 Old South Rd. next to A.K. Diamond's and the Tile Room in 2004. The developers received unanimous Planning Board approval in June of that year to turn the property into what they intended to be a mix of commercial and residential uses. The primary motivation was to swap six of the 10 lots for Arrowhead Nursery's lot at 13 Arrowhead Drive. Great Harbor Yacht Club needed an off-site boat storage and repair location for Grey Lady Marine, which it owns, because of its demolition of Grey Lady's buildings at 96 Washington St. Ext.

The land swap worked well for both entities - the new yacht club needed land outside the aquifer protection zone to store and repair boats, while Arrowhead Nursery owner Mark Lombardi needed a commercially zoned location for his business. As planned at the time, the development was to feature two 5,000-square-foot commercial buildings with shops, offices, and other commercial uses including a restaurant, coffee shop, and health spa.

Instead, Keane is well on his way toward maximizing the development potential of the property, something Great Point Partners had wanted to do before the Great Harbor Yacht Club consumed all its energies.

"We're actually going to have seven buildings up by the summer," said Keane. "Five of them will be ready for occupancy, two of them will be ready for interior work. We will start the other three in the fall and have them ready for the following season."