A potential redevelopment plan for five Esterbrook Avenue properties could come together over the next couple of months but any concept is likely to be less dense than what’s been initially floated.

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During the Redevelopment Agency’s Dec. 8 meeting, held via Zoom, Commissioner Tim Nash inquired about the status of several redevelopment projects and concepts. Among them was the Esterbrook Avenue redevelopment area, encompassing five properties between Elm and Central avenues.

An informal proposal by the property owner was some type of residential but it “was a rather dense residential development,” Executive Director Robert Landolfi told commissioners but did not go into more specific detail. “I don’t think the city is going to be inclined to pass a redevelopment plan that would provide for that,” he said. There has been discussion about less dense alternative uses there, he added, but those have been “primarily held on the city side.”

Those preferences will eventually have to be translated to a redevelopment plan, Landolfi said, which he anticipates would come to a head within the next month or two. A redevelopment plan would be put forth by the city, he said, and after that, it would come to the Redevelopment Agency.

Landolfi previously has described the area as a “transitional piece” from the surrounding residential neighborhood to downtown, just a few blocks away, and likely to be multi-family but not as dense as downtown.

City Council in July directed the Planning Board to prepare a redevelopment plan for the five Esterbrook Avenue properties totaling about 1 acre. That came after the Planning Board in May approved a planner’s recommendation that the lots meet the criteria for a non-condemnation area in need of redevelopment under the state’s Local Redevelopment and Housing Law (LRHL).

The report determined that two properties (Block 151, Lot 21 / 1430 Esterbrook Ave. and Lot 22 / 1416 Esterbook Ave) qualified  qualifying for redevelopment because of their poor physical condition. Two adjacent properties (Lot 20 / 1436 Esterbrook Ave. and Lot 23 / 1410 Esterbrook Ave.) qualified because of their proximity within the potential redevelopment area — both have been acquired by an entity named Iconic Development Partners, LLC.

According to property records, Iconic acquired 1436 Esterbrook Ave. on June 28 for $370,000. The property previously sold in 1983 for $68,000. In January, Iconic purchased 1410 Esterbrook Ave. (Block 141, Lot 23) on Jan. 15 for $310,000. It previously sold in September 1990 for $192,000.

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