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Applicant seeks waiver as 281 Main Street design boosts ground-floor commercial, adds basement and family-oriented units
Summary
Attorney Jesse Schoemer and the design team outlined a revised four-story mixed-use proposal for 281 Main Street: 24 apartments (75% two‑bedroom), three affordable units, expanded ground-floor commercial (~3,749 sq ft), a basement for mechanicals/storage, and a requested waiver to the 25% commercial frontage requirement.
At the Aug. 10 CPDC meeting, attorney Jesse Schoemer presented updated plans for 281 Main Street on behalf of 281 Redding LLC, highlighting a redesigned four-story mixed-use building that would provide 24 apartments and expanded commercial frontage at street level. "We're proposing 24 apartments above, commercial space on the ground floor," Schoemer said while describing changes from the earlier filing.
Schoemer and the design team said the project adds a basement to relocate mechanicals and a substantial amount of commercial storage, increases commercial square footage from roughly 2,400 to 3,749 square feet, and satisfies parking requirements with 42 spaces. The team requested a single waiver from the zoning bylaw's 25% commercial-percentage requirement, arguing site constraints (riverfront buffers and need for a fire-truck turnaround) and market demand justify a different mix. "The 1 waiver that we're requesting is on that commercial percentage," Schoemer told commissioners.
The applicant supplied market-inquiry data showing 43 inquiries for the local corridor, with 93% of inquiries seeking spaces under 2,400 sq ft, which the team used to support a more flexible, smaller-tenant commercial model. Commissioners signaled they were inclined to consider a waiver in principle but tied any approval to final engineering, conservation commission sign-off of stormwater mitigation, and decision language limiting basement uses to storage.
