Mixed-use building with 99 apartments proposed for Marlborough funeral home site

MARLBOROUGH — A Boston real estate company is proposing to build a 99-unit, mixed-use building at the site of the former Rowe Funeral Home on Main Street, adjacent to Union Common. 

The proposal was submitted for site plan review with the city, and on Monday was referred by the City Council to the council's Urban Affairs Committee.

The building would be constructed at 57 Main St., within the Marlborough Village District, and would not require a special permit to go forward. The proposal features a five-story, mixed-use building that will contain 5,047 square feet of retail on the ground floor and 99 apartments over four stories above it. Seventy-two one-bedroom apartments are planned, along with 27 two-bedroom units. 

More:A 276-unit, mixed-use development has won a special permit in Marlborough

On the site is a vacant building that formerly housed the Rowe Funeral Home, which merged with the Short Funeral Home at 95 West Main St. a little more than three years ago. 

The property was previously expected to be the site of another mixed-use project, which was approved by the city in 2019. But according to Mark O'Hagan of MCO & Associates Inc., which owns the property, those plans fell through due to the pandemic. 

"We've been working with another developer who is now working with the city on a new project at the same location," O'Hagan told the Daily News.

The new group is JW Capital Partners, a Boston company that manages more than $100 million in real estate assets, according to its website. 

Earlier: Downtown Marlborough funeral homes announce plans to merge

The proposed building is larger than the one approved in 2019. That one, called Tavern on the Green, totaled 87,000 square feet and contained 55 apartments. According to blueprints submitted as part of the site plan review project, the new proposal would cover about 110,000 square feet. 

The proposal includes a 25-space parking lot, as well as a courtyard that will directly abut Union Common. 

The proposal will be reviewed by the Site Plan Review Committee, which can make suggestions to the City Council on certain aspects to the proposal, which the council can then review and approve.

"This project is a little bit different from the previous project," City Councilor Kathleen Robey, who chairs the Urban Affairs Committee, told the Daily News. "This one is a little bit bigger, and it has more apartments and less commercial space than the previous project."