Size Of Table Talk Pies Store Apartment Project Changes Again

WORCESTER, MA — An apartment development planned for the vestige of the former Kelley Square Table Talk Pies headquarters is getting bigger.

Plans to redevelop the 153 Green St. building that once housed a Table Talk Pies store have been in the works for since a limited liability company tied to developer Anthony Rossi purchased it in April 2023. An initial plan showed 15 loft-style units in the building, but that grew to as many as 58 units by May 2023.

The Worcester Planning Board on May 17 gave the project approval for about 53 units, but that dropped to 43 units in October. In March, an attorney representing the LLC added 10 apartments back, according to documents submitted recently to the city.

“My client proposes to revise the previously approved site plan to add ten additional apartments, bringing the total unit count to 53, by reconfiguring and repurposing the rear section of the ground floor of the building to create nine additional units while maintaining three commercial retail spaces along Green Street and by adding an additional unit to the second floor,” attorney Donald O’Neil wrote in a March 26 letter to the planning board.

The project is at the center of several developments in various states, and sits inside a special taxing zone designed to repay loans the city took out to build Polar Park.

An affordable housing project behind 153 Green St. is nearing completion, as is The Cove project near the corner of Gold and Green streets. A planned 375-unit development at 139 Green St., however, has stalled due to financing issues. That building would rise on the site of the former Urban Smokestack BBQ restaurant building, which is still standing.

Rossi is one of the most prolific developers in Worcester at the moment, and is also behind the 109-unit redevelopment of the former state Department of Children and Family Services office (also the former home of Commerce High School) along Sudbury Street. One of his companies is also redeveloping a former factory in the vicinity of 33 Hermon Street into 57 residential units. Rossi in 2022 completed the redevelopment of the former Walker Shoe Factory near the corner of Water and Winter street with 62 units.