Update: "Final" Decision on Cushing Village Developed Pushed Back a Week

After nearly 80 weeks in the pipeline, what's another week wait.

That's the perception as the Belmont Planning Board made a late-day announcement that it was delaying by a week its "final" consideration on the proposed Cushing Village development, the 185,000 sq.-ft. retail, residential and parking complex situated in three buildings in the heart of Belmont's Cushing Square. 

The vote, set for tonight at 7 p.m. in the Board of Selectmen's room at Belmont Town Hall, is now scheduled for Tuesday, July 16, at 7 p.m. in Town Hall. 

The development, submitted to the town in January 2012, has undergone a year-and-a-half long approval process before the Planning Board which has the authority through the Town Meeting to issue a special permit after reviewing the site plan and design.

After more than a year of give and take, the board this Spring gave tacit approval of the development's mass and size, the most important component of the projects site plan. 

Acton-based developer Smith Legacy Partners, headed by Chris Starr, said it was prepared to break ground on the project – which will have 114 units of one- and two-bedroom apartments, nearly 35,000 of retail space and 224 residential and municipal parking spaces – by the end of the summer if it was granted the special permit in June.