Developer Eyeing Former Trapelo Road Garage

With businesses and developers setting their sights on Belmont Center, it shouldn't come as a surprise that other business areas in town would attract development interest.

As he was addressing the Board of Selectmen today, Sept. 10, Jay Szklut, Belmont's Planning and Economic Development Manager, said a developer was expressing great interest in building on a site "across from the Belmont Studio Cinema and Angelato)." 

While he would only speak in broad terms, Szklut said representatives of the developer had met with town representatives to discuss building on the site. 

The empty lot, at 395 Trapelo Road, is the former site of Gullotti's Auto Repair. In addition, the space was home to Silk Road bbq, a roadside food stand serving central Asian barbeque. 

The location is being brokered by John J McLaughlin III of McLaughlin Investments of Burlington. His company's website describes the location as 10,000 square feet that can accommodate a retail store or an investment redevelopment. 

A call to McLaughlin was not returned by 4:30 p.m., Friday.

The possible Trapelo Road development comes on the heels of a new business – a crafts beer store – winning Board approval, a yet-to-be-revealed restaurant seeking to be placed in the former location of Charlesbank Bookseller and Chris Starr's  ongoing Cushing Square mixed-use project coming to Belmont.

Szklut said he does not know when the group will take out a building permit for the site but that it could "in a month or in several months."