DANVERS — The Planning Board approved on Tuesday a developer’s request to convert an extended-stay hotel on Route 1 into 88 apartments.
The Residence Inn by Marriott at 51 Newbury St. near Costco and Route 114 currently includes 96 extended-stay units with kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms and living spaces across nine buildings.
Under the plan approved by the Planning Board this week, workers will knock down the site’s northernmost building and convert the remaining units into 88 studio and one-bedroom apartments, attorney Nancy McCann said during Tuesday’s meeting.
Eleven of the units will be designated as affordable at 50% of the area median income.
McCann is representing the project’s developer PEG Boston Danvers Property LLC. She said construction will be minimal at the site as it’s already designed to accommodate tenants long term.
No work is required on the property’s drainage system and all external lighting systems will stay the same. There will also be no new buildings constructed, she said.
The project secured use and parking variances from the Zoning Board of Appeals in 2023.
The developer will knock down one of the existing hotel buildings and a shed on the property to add parking, bringing the number of spaces up to 123 from 101.
This is still fewer than zoning bylaw would require for the site once it’s converted into a residential parcel, creating the need for the ZBA’s prior parking variance approval, McCann said. Hotels in Danvers are typically required to have one space per unit, while residences need two per unit.
New parking on the site will include some tandem spaces, which are the width of one vehicle but are long enough to accommodate two vehicles.
“(The ZBA) agreed with 123 parking spaces particularly since we’ve got just one bedrooms and studios here,” McCann said.
The property’s buildings were constructed about 35 years ago.
A shift to remote work for many jobs following the COVID-19 pandemic has led to fewer guests at extended-stay hotels, which are often used by people traveling for work, while the need for housing in the area has increased significantly, making this a worthwhile project for Danvers, she said.
The developers planned to convert all 96 units without adding more parking when the project initially appeared before the ZBA in 2022, but the board objected to that plan.
Contact Caroline Enos at CEnos@northofboston.com .