After multiple design changes and years of debate, a Newark developer Monday night received approval to build a five-story apartment building at the heart of the city’s Main Street.
George Danneman plans to demolish the decades-old building at 132 E. Main St. that is home to Playa Bowls, Tasty Wok and the former Margherita’s Pizza and construct a 31-unit apartment building with ground-floor retail.
The building will wrap around the back of the neighboring Chipotle on a portion of a parking lot Danneman owns and allows the city to use. Its red brick styling and setback are modeled after the Newark Opera House, the developer’s attorney John Tracey said.
The apartment building will consist of four one-bedroom units, 26 two-bedroom units and a single three-bedroom unit on the top floor. It will have two storefronts on Main Street and a commercial or office space behind Chipotle accessible from the parking lot. Newark City Council approved the project and a 29-space parking waiver Monday night in a unanimous vote.
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It’s one of several projects in the development pipeline seeking to replace older Main Street spaces with apartments geared toward University of Delaware students. They often follow the “mixed-use” style of development promoted by the city with retail spaces along the bottom floor.
Council approved a six-story building with apartments, retail and a public parking garage in June to be built across the street from the Danneman property. Work has not yet begun on the building, which if constructed will be the tallest on Main Street at 78 feet.
Further down, a seven-story hotel and an apartment building are under construction at the site of the Green Mansion. There are multiple apartment projects proposed at the east end of Main Street near where last year a three-story building with retail and 30 apartments opened in place of Fulton Bank.
The city has also received a proposal to build a new structure in place of Center Square, which currently houses Walgreens and the restaurant Homegrown next to the Danneman property at Main and Center streets.
The project approved Monday for 132 E. Main St. evolved significantly since it was first proposed in 2018. At first, Danneman wanted to build a 10-story building with a five-story hotel on top of a five-story parking garage.
After that proposal failed to gain hold, Danneman switched to a “path of least resistance” and asked for a 47-unit apartment building. He eventually reduced the project to 28 units, a mix of two-, four- and six-bedroom apartments.
City Council denied that project in February 2021 over parking concerns. The development provided 67 spaces fewer than required by city code and therefore needed a parking waiver. The planning commission approved the waiver, but council overturned the decision.
“If we think that cars are going to evaporate, I think we’re really deceiving ourselves,” then-Mayor Jerry Clifton said at the time.
Under city code, the developer would have to wait two years after the parking waiver rejection to submit a new project. In October, however, council voted to make an exception for Danneman.
The latest and final plan reduced the scale of the project again by switching to primarily two-bedroom units. It went from 90 total bedrooms to 59. That change helped reduce the size of the parking waiver to 29 spaces.
Members of council on Monday said they preferred the smaller plan and felt it represented a fair compromise.
“I think the refinements have ultimately helped it,” Councilman Jay Bancroft said.
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Contact Brandon Holveck at bholveck@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter @holveck_brandon.
