Selectmen And Merchants to Meet To Discuss Wellesley Square

The Board of Selectmen will meet Wednesday morning with Central Street area merchants to again discuss ways to revive the business climate in Wellesley Square.

The meeting, scheduled for 8 in , is expected to include discussions on loosening restrictions on liquor licenses for restaurants, signage and parking issues, according to board Chairman Barbara Searle.

Selectmen have discussed the possibility of in town by eliminating the current requirement that establishments have at least 100 seats before being eligible to apply for a license. In addition, Wellesley also now requires that alcohol be sold only with food, meaning a cocktail at the bar of a restaurant such as can only be sold with an appetizer or entree.

The idea behind loosening the seat requirements is that it could attract local chefs to the square where space is available to open smaller restaurants. In addition, smaller restaurants already in town such as or , would be eligible to apply for a license to serve alcohol.

Currently those smaller restaurants allow customers to bring their own bottles of wine to eat with meals, but the establishments see none of the profits that serving alcohol brings.

Restaurants may be a way to fill the several vacancies in the square while attracting people to town to patronize other local businesses. Such a strategy has helped revive several area downtowns, including Needham, where a number of restaurants have opened along Great Plain Avenue and the vicinity in recent years.

Should selectmen decide to move forward with easing the liquor license restrictions, Special Town Meeting in November would have to vote to request that the state allow the changes to be made.

With the , businesses moving from Wellesley Square to Linden Square and some spaces remaining empty for more than two years, selectmen are trying to “ensure the vibrancy and vitality” of the square, Searle said.

And while the selectmen are looking at ways to help attract new businesses to town and to keep those already here from moving out or closing, they are also poised to consider whether to raise property tax rates on commercial and business property.

While that discussion is clearly separate from Wednesday’s meeting, it will involve many of the same parties.

Next Monday selectmen will begin a discussion on whether to again set a single tax rate, as they historically have, or change to a dual tax rate. The single rate means homeowners are taxed at the same rate per thousand dollars in valuation as business and commercial property owners.

The dual rate means homeowners would pay a lower rate than business and commercial property owners, as has been the case in neighboring communities such as Newton and Needham since the early 1980s when Proposition 2 1/2 was first approved by state voters.

Proponents of the dual tax rate say the town could raise an additional $5.8 million dollars without homeowners’ taxes going up at all.

But opponents, mostly business owners and commercial landlords, say the move would cripple a local business climate that is already struggling.

The two sides discussed the issue at a where at least one local merchant said profit margins of many local stores are too low to absorb a spike in property taxes.

Selectmen have not yet weighed in on the issue, but are devoting at least two sessions, rather than the ordinary one, to the topic.