Peabody Buys Building To Make Way For Downtown Park

PEABODY, MA -- Brodie's Pub and the NexMex Thing will move to new locations after the City of Peabody closed on an acquisition of the downtown building the two restaurants occupy. Mayor Ted Bettencourt said the city will tear down the building by this fall and replace it with a park and a statute of George Peabody, who the city is named after. The city paid $425,000 for the property in a deal that closed February 1.

Bettencourt has been driven to remake downtown and said removing the building and replacing it with a park would help alleviate chronic flooding in the area. The city bought and adjacent building three years ago and tore it down to help with the flooding according to the Salem News, which first reported this story.

"To me, it's an ugly building. It doesn’t fit in with the character of the surrounding old brick buildings, which I think have some charm to them," Bettencourt told the newspaper. "To take down the ugly building, continue our beautification efforts, and create more open space, which I like, and do flood mitigation work, adds great value. I think this is a good purchase for our city."

NexMex Thing will move from 10 Lowell Street to a nearby location on Main Street. Brodie's Pub previously announced plans to move to 1 Main Street, which is being redeveloped.

For more on this story, see the Salem News. Subscribe to Peabody Patch for more local news and real-time alerts.

Patch file photo.

Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).