Lincoln to consider 4-store minimall proposal

LINCOLN – The planning board next month will review a four-store minimall that, if approved, would be built on a small parcel on West Broadway adjacent to a Hannaford supermarket and a McDonald’s restaurant, town officials said Thursday.

The board will review the 4,620-square-foot mall proposal on June 15, Ruth Birtz, the town’s zoning enforcement officer, said.

The proposal calls for four 1,155-square-foot stores, which are a good size for small retail outlets or small offices, plus a parking of lot about 20 spaces, Birtz said.

“Just about any kind of use could go in there,” the city official said Thursday.

Lincoln suffers from a lack of commercial space suitable for small businesses, Birtz said.

“People who want to start businesses here are in a really hard place,” she said. “They need to do everything they can when starting a business to limit their risk, and renting is an ideal way to do that.”

In other town and development news:

. Two new business applications for permits were approved during a board meeting May 15. The Treasure Chest, a 1,200-square-foot retail novelty store at 925 West Broadway, and Sweet Creations By Roxanne, which sells chocolates and other sweets, are the new stores.

. Evergreen Enterprises, a property management firm, has begun managing a two-story Cape house on West Broadway for the town and rented the property to a tenant for $575 a month, town officials said.

Using a private endowment fund, the town bought the Corro property for about $85,000 last month to add the house and land to the adjoining Lincoln Memorial Library. The Corro house is a 11/2-story Cape that sits on a half-acre lot.

The town plans to deposit the rental fees, less Evergreen’s expenses, back into the library’s private endowment, the MacGregor Fund, to eventually cover the cost of the purchase and future library expansions.

Mr. and Mrs. Roderick J. MacGregor of Lincoln established the fund in the 1940s to help the library. The fund paid for the library’s last expansion in 1966.