SOUTH PORTLAND – Otto Pizza is looking to take a bite out of South Portland – literally.
The popular Portland-based pizzeria, scheduled to open at 159 Cottage Road sometime in August, is hoping to buy a 1,500-square-foot, triangular lot belonging to the South Portland Public Library so it can expand parking next to the former Getty gas station it will call home.
The South Portland Planning Board, which has been asked to weigh in with a land use recommendation, are scheduled to hold a public hearing on the purchase request Tuesday. Notices were sent to 103 property owners located within 500 feet of the project site.
In a memo to the Planning Board dated June 11, Community Planner Steve Puleo said city staff favors the sale, provided flowering trees along Cottage Road are preserved and a 6-foot-high vegetated buffer is planted between the new parking lot and the library.
“I fully support the idea,” wrote City Manager Jim Gailey in his own memo to the Planning Board, in which he noted that the concept “was staff generated” and proposed to the property owner.
“The former Getty parcel has seen a number of unsuccessful businesses come and go since the gas station closed a number of years ago,” wrote Gailey. “Now, with a very successful business coming to town, staff have a concerns of parking availability on the small parcel.”
Otto has submitted a parking plan that meets city ordinances. However, Gailey wrote, “Staff has fears that parking could spill over to the library parking lot.” Given that former tenants of the Getty building often parked vehicles over the property line, Gailey suggested formalizing what had been practice anyway, allowing the new property owner to build an actual, paved parking lot.
“While adding more parking to 159 Cottage Road would reduce some of the green space associated with the main library, it is not actively used park land,” wrote City Planner Tex Haeuser. “More than half of the open space along Cottage Road would remain and it would improve economic viability of the business use. It may also improve traffic circulation and safety by providing more room from customers to maneuver and park.”
Library Director Kevin Davis also supported the sale, writing in his memo to the Planning Board, “With the steady growth of the library’s business, library users are more and more often competing with non-library users of the library parking lot, from nearby residences, schools and churchgoers.
“With the addition of a new customer traffic driven business in the area, we have concerns about the impact this traffic will have on user access to the library facility,” wrote Davis, adding that while he supports the sale, it is “extremely important” that a visual buffer be created between the library and the Otto parking lot.
Gailey’s said Tuesday a “back-of-the-napkin” estimate showed Otto could fit six parking spaces in the 1,500-square-foot area proposed for sale. A final price for the parcel is subject to further negotiation, he said.
Founded in Portland in 2009 by longtime restaurateurs Mike Keon and Anthony Allen, OTTO Pizza has since grown to five locations, two in Portland and three in Massachusetts.
The owners declined to talk about their new South Portland location following issuance of their restaurant license at the May 20 City Council meeting.
“We’d prefer to wait until we are a little closer, just in case something happens,” said Allen.
Plans submitted with the license application call for a 30-seat dining room in the old Getty garage bays, while a kitchen will be built into the former office of the 792-square-foot building.
The old Getty station went up for public auction last August at which time Davis suggested South Portland buy and raze it to clear a view of the library from the intersection of Cottage Road and Highland Avenue, by Red’s Dairy Freeze.
Although underground gas tanks were removed form the quarter-acre lot in 2006, the City Council declined to place a bid, in part because Maine Department of Environmental Protection reports from as recently as February 2011 found the site “not clean to MDEP satisfaction.”
The property eventually sold to 159 Cottage Road LLC for $148,500. Keon said Otto will lease the site from the property owner, whom he declined to name.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
