Old Cape code: New bylaws give shops charm

MARION -- It had been a nothing-special lot at the corner of Point Road and Route 6, dotted with brush and an unsightly billboard. Now the property boasts the first commercial development in town built under design bylaws devised to give new retail structures a Cape Cod residential-style charm.

Marion Marketplace is a shingled building with gables, seven large white columns at the front, a wide white-concrete sidewalk separating it from busy Route 6, and shrubs, mulch, crushed stone, and other landscaping.

The stylish, two-story building will house seven retail businesses on the 7,000-square-foot first floor, and six apartments on the second that qualify as affordable-housing units.

Overall, the structure looks like anything but a strip mall -- which is exactly what the Planning Board had in mind when it came up with the bylaws.

"It's aesthetically more pleasing," said Peter Winters, Planning Board cochairman. "We'd much rather line [that area of] Route 6 with trees and have a green strip between the building and the road than asphalt."

There is no parking in the front of the building. Parking is confined to the rear and side.

"We wanted it to have that Marion Village look and feel," said Winters of the town's classic New England village near Tabor Academy.

The Planning Board passed a new special permit process last year under the new design bylaws that mandate creating commercial development closer to the street instead of under the former 50-foot setback, a move that forces parking out of sight to the rear.

John D'Italia, developer of Marion Marketplace, said putting up a stylish building rather than a nondescript strip mall added to his expense, but "it's the type of building I wanted to build anyway; it's the type of building that rents itself."

Curves, an exercise facility for women, was the first business to open in Marion Marketplace. A karate studio is set to open later this spring along with an H&R Block office and a Subway franchise. Only one food entity will be allowed in the building, D'Italia said.

The affordable housing units on the top floor are the first built in Marion since 1982, when the 28-unit Marconi Village apartment complex was built, said James Grady, chair man of the Marion Affordable Housing Trust. Grady, a former Bourne selectman, said the Cape Cod Commission pioneered bylaws that mandate New England-style retail developments such as the popular Mashpee Commons. He got a copy of those bylaws for Marion to use as a model in creating its own, he said.

"The new building has that Cape Cod look, wood -frame windows, lots of glass, trees in front, parking in back," Grady said. "For example, it's one thing to have a McDonald's" -- none are proposed in town -- "but you don't want a cheap-looking McDonald's, you want one that blends in."

Marion Marketplace has opened the door for other similarly designed commercial developments in town. A Dunkin' Donuts has been proposed for the site of the long-closed L'Auberge Restaurant on Route 6. And at the corner of Spring Street and Route 6, architect Dan Gifford of Gifford Coastal Architecture is designing a structure similar to the Marion Marketplace, which he also designed.

"The concept is you take a common building and introduce design elements that are more residential and in keeping with the look of a village," Gifford said. "You make it look like a typical New England shingle-style structure."