Downtown Danvers Apartment Project Gets Underway

DANVERS, MA — People traveling through downtown Danvers may have been surprised Monday morning to see the property at 44 Maple Street had been razed. According to a demolition and building permit issued last August, the property, which previously housed retail and office space, will be replaced with a three-story building that will include 10 apartments on the second and third floors.

The demolition comes on the same day special town meeting will consider new zoning rules for downtown Danvers. The new rules, which require approval by two thirds of town meeting members, are aimed at increasing housing downtown.

When the Pasciuto family, which owns the property, initially proposed the plan in 2018, town officials worried that the overhauled building would be too tall for the downtown business corridor. They also were hesitant to approve the plan because officials were in the early stages of drafting the new regulations which town meeting will consider Monday night.

"After all the hard work that has taken place to develop a vision for future development of our downtown, a project like this could be precedent-setting and have unintended consequences," Town Manager Steve Bartha said in a letter to the Danvers Zoning Board of Appeals at the time.