The Select Board voted to offer a lease for a Swampscott Center for the Performing Arts at the former Hawthorne-by-the-Sea restaurant.

The Request for Proposal (RFP) for a lessee for the former  Hawthorne-by-the-Sea restaurant property was originally posted to the town’s website in December, following a Town Meeting vote, which approved the Select Board’s plan to lease the property while broader redevelopment discussions continue. The Athanas family announced the restaurant’s closure in November. The short-term lease is intended to prevent the building from sitting vacant as long-range plans take shape.

Town Meeting approved an RFP allowing for a lease of up to 30 months from the vote, or until June 2028. At the town-wide meeting, Town Administrator Nick Connors said the additional time will help offset costs for utilities, insurance, and debt, adding that no town capital would be spent.

A five-member evaluator committee was formed, including Select Board Member David Grishman, Connors, Building Commissioner Richard Baldacci, Facilities Director Max Kasper, and Director of Community and Economic Development Marzie Galazka. The group met with representatives from the team proposing a Swampscott Center for the Performing Arts as well as Limited Time Only to review and discuss their presentations.

The Select Board had discussed the RFP at its last meeting but postponed a decisionto allow for residents to provide their feedback.

Brian Watson, the chair of the Hawthorne Reuse Advisory Committee, spoke during public comment. He clarified that while $2 million is allocated in the capital improvement plan to demolish the former Hawthorne-by-the-Sea restaurant, “it’s roughly, conservatively $500,000.”

“That includes about $100,000 for hazardous material abatement,” Watson said. “It’s a pretty real number you can use.”

Watson also said he reacted “with some degree of horror” to the two RFP responses.

“The Center for the Performing Arts proposal is really alarming because there’s no resemblance to what the RFP requested. It makes 11 mentions of long-term sustainability of this proposal. It talks over and over again about how this will be a decades-long project,” Watson said. “So this Center for the Performing Arts makes no sense. It makes no alignment with the town’s RFP. I think if the town were to select it, we would be subject to a 30-month long lobbying effort by the people behind it to make it permanent.”

The performing arts proposal envisions multiple uses for the space, including live music in the dining room, a kitchen, Mariah’s Cafe and Grab the Bagel in the former fish market area, and an exhibit on Swampscott’s history.

Johnny Ray, on behalf of the Center for Performing Arts, also spoke during the public comment section of the Select Board meeting to “clear up some of the misconceptions that have been said about the effort in regard to the Hawthorne reuse project.”

“The association has no intention of investing $1 million into the property,” Ray said. “We’re sorry if that was a misconception that was mentioned in public and online. The second is we’re very much aware that it’s a 30-month lease. That’s not a problem with the plans that we have.”

Ray said the group would not invest beyond “what is needed to open the facility and get it operational.”

“Future investment depends on the performance of those entities within the property,” Ray said, noting the project would have a cafe, space for children’s parties and a gift shop area.

During the Select Board’s discussion, Member Danielle Leonard asked where the $1 million suggestion had come from, to which Chair Katie Phelan clarified it came from the “business model that they submitted.” The proposal stated that the capital expenditure for managed entities is $600,000.

Grishman noted “in fairness” that a letter response dated January 26 stated that the Center for Performing Arts group “secured $1 million from a local financial institution to support the redevelopment and activation of the Swampscott Center for Performing Arts.”

“That’s where that $1 million came from,” Grishman said. “The revised information does say $600,000, but Danielle is not pulling $1 million out of the air.”

Phelan noted the wording could suggest the group can spend “up to $1 million but that doesn’t mean they will spend $1 million.”

“My concern is that the initial proposal said $1 million. When we asked for clarification, it’s down to $600,000,” Leonard said. “Would we have ever found that out if we didn’t ask for that additional information or would we have been led to believe they were putting in $1 million?…I want to make sure we’re getting the true story and that we’re making our determination based on fact and what we can reasonably expect to see.”

Leonard pointed to Monday night’s discussion about condensing the capital plan, saying the figures should not “be based on fictitious dollars.”

The Center for Performing Arts could also serve as a “gateway to the North Shore, which is what Swampscott really is,” Ray said. 

“We know that the board will do what’s best for the town. We have every faith in that,” Ray said. 

Lilly Tapper, the owner of Three Hundred Fifty bakery, spoke at the meeting as well. She said she had talked with other Humphrey Street business owners, and they had concerns around the RFPs. 

“Right now Humphrey Street already has limited parking capacity, and the winter conditions have proved a further decrease in parking. It has taken several days or several weeks to clear out the parking spaces on Humphrey Street, and it’s significantly impacting my business,” Tapper said. “I was pretty disappointed when I came to work one day and there were no parking spaces for customers. They voiced to me that they did not come that day because of parking. We rely on a very small number of parking spots on Humphrey Street, so bringing in more businesses in the Hawthorne-by-the-Sea space would further be detrimental to that. Without any infrastructure improvements, adding to the supply does not grow with the demand in the area. It would just redistribute it and negatively affect the existing businesses there.”

Tapper also mentioned that new food businesses would “divert the revenue rather than expand the customer base.”

Mike Kelleher, however, responded to the concerns during the public comment section in favor of the Limited Time Only proposal. 

“My proposal will actually incorporate local businesses because we’re going to be outsourcing food to open fast and try to partner with other businesses,” Kelleher said. “I think the proposal we created would actually drive more business to your bakery and to other businesses in town.”

Limited Time Only’s plan was described by Connors in February as “most akin to the setup of a beer hall.”  The proposal “would serve food from food trucks or mobile concessions in the parking lot initially, with limited interior improvements to allow operations to start quickly.”

Limited Time Only proposed a $200,000 investment and $30,000 in rent over the lease term, with an unspecified percentage supporting local causes.

Grishman agreed during the Select Board meeting that the Limited Time Only plan will “benefit local businesses by bringing them in and having that synergy between what is going to happen at the Hawthorne site.”

“I like the ability for us to try a number of things that maybe will work, maybe won’t,” Grishman said. “I like that this activates the space for as many of our 15,000 residents and the region as possible. We’re going to be able to draw in folks from all walks of life.”

While representatives from both proposals spoke during the public comment section of the meeting, Town Administrator Nick Connors recommended that the Select Board members “stay within the four corners of the page that they submitted for both proposals and the follow up information.”

The short-term lease will run alongside ongoing redevelopment planning. The Advisory Committee finalized its recommendation for a mixed-use and half-parkland concept. The plan envisions two rows of buildings totaling about 25,000 square feet if built at two stories, positioned perpendicular to the road with a 40-foot opening to preserve views into the courtyard and open space. The model includes roughly 28 parking spaces.

The additional time also allows the town to continue negotiations with the Archdiocese of Boston about potentially purchasing the adjacent parking lot owned by St. John’s Church.

“We are coming up with a plan, and we are moving on from this,” Phelan said. 

The Select Board also agreed that “as soon as the ink is dried on this lease,” an RFP should be issued for the potential demolition of the restaurant so plans can move forward. Select Board Member Mary Ellen Fletcher said the short-term plan allows the town to bring in some revenue “while we get shovel ready.”

“To me that long term plan is taking down that building and getting an RFP out and getting this done because I don’t think we can afford to just sit on it and wait any longer than we already have,” Leonard said.