Beverly forum lays out competing ideas for city-owned former Family Dollar building

Mayor Cahill and city planners on Wednesday evening outlined the city’s rationale for buying the parcel that includes the former Family Dollar at 222 Cabot Street and asked residents for priorities as officials plan a request-for-proposals (RFP) to sell or redevelop it.

The building, historically called the Rogers Building and commonly referred to in downtown conversation as the Family Dollar building, sits on about a 1.23-acre lot and contains roughly 35,000 gross square feet of building area, officials said. The city bought the parcel to protect long‑standing public parking behind the building; Mayor Cahill said “the first and top priority with all of that was to protect the Hundred 8 parking spaces that we all have thought for decades.”

The meeting drew artists, business owners and downtown advocates who urged uses ranging from a walkable grocery or co‑op and year‑round farmers’ market to artist live/work studios, cultural and performance space, a boutique hotel and affordable housing. Beverly Main Streets survey results were cited by Aaron Trucks, executive director of Beverly Main Streets, who said grocery access and social‑service availability were top responses in a recent downtown survey: “Overwhelmingly, downtown shopping grocery stores was 62% of the responses.”

Why it matters: city officials said protecting the parking supply drove the purchase and will shape any sale. Darlene Wynn, the city’s planning director, described zoning constraints and design standards that will affect redevelopment: the parcel sits in the city’s CC2 Central Business (Cabot Street) district, where the maximum building height is 45 feet under current rules and ground‑floor design standards require active commercial frontage and transparency. Wynn summarized…