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Hundreds of apartments proposed for former Weylu’s site
The 40B development faces an uphill battle as the town pushes for Safe Harbor status, which would give the local zoning board greater control.
Developers are eyeing the long-vacant site of the former Chinese restaurant Weylu’s on Route 1 in Saugus for a 300-unit rental complex, but the proposal may face a significant roadblock.
The town recently surpassed the state threshold of 10% affordable housing, making it eligible for “Safe Harbor” — a status that would give local officials the power to deny or scale back so-called 40B projects that would otherwise bypass zoning rules.
If Saugus secures Safe Harbor, the Zoning Board of Appeals could block the project despite the broad authority of Chapter 40B, a law originally designed to spur affordable housing construction across Massachusetts.
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At the Board of Appeals hearing in late January, the town’s counsel read a letter explaining that Saugus had just 6.8% affordable housing in 2017.
But after several new projects, the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities notified the town that as of Nov. 7, 2025, Saugus now exceeds the state’s 10% threshold, reaching 11.22% affordable housing.
Attorney Paul Haverty of Blatman, Bobrowski, Haverty, and Silverstein LLC, representing the owner at the hearing, noted that they plan to appeal to the EOHLC.
However, if denied, it might not make sense to move forward, Haverty said.
“There’s no sense in the applicant wasting money and the board wasting its time conducting a peer review if this project isn’t going to eventually move forward,” said Haverty.
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The owner is an entity registered to Joseph DiNanno in Malden and Republic Real Estate Advisors in Florida.
The proposal includes four separate buildings, totaling 300 units — 25% of which will be designated as affordable — ranging from 1 to 3 bedrooms. There would be a separate amenity building with a pool and 475 above-ground and garage parking spaces, all on a 7.28-acre site.
At the hearing, residents were vocally opposed to the project, saying it would disrupt a small residential area if the developers built access to a local residential street, and that their historic homes would be affected by blasting at the site.
“There’s going to be countless houses destroyed,” said Tom Whittredge, a nearby resident.
Whittredge said he knew this day was coming when the developers bought the property over 10 years ago.
“They didn’t buy it to be a good neighbor,” Whittredge said. “They bought it to have access to Hood Street.”
The Zoning Board voted unanimously to invoke Safe Harbor and to continue the hearing to March 26, as the state appeal process begins.
An interesting site history
The owners demolished the once opulent 1,500-seat restaurant in September 2015. The Boston Globe previously reported that the restaurant, which thrived in the 1980s and 1990s, featured an indoor waterfall, hand-painted Chinese vases, and an escalator up to the second floor.
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The restaurant went out of business in 1999, when the Bank of China foreclosed on the property, the Globe reported.
While several other businesses opened in the space, they all failed. By 2009, the property had been abandoned and was in disrepair.
The property was bought by the current owners in 2013 for $4 million, according to assessor records.
Weylu’s was one of many famous restaurants on Route 1 to close in the past few decades. The owners of Kowloon, the strip’s other iconic Chinese restaurant, recently announced plans to knock down the structure to make way for apartments and a smaller version of the eatery.
Another is the former Hilltop Steak House, known for its giant cactus sign and herd of plastic cows, which closed in 2013. The Ship Restaurant in Lynnfield, which was a replica clipper ship, was demolished in 2017.
In 2024, the Continental Restaurant, one of the oldest eateries along Route 1 in Saugus, announced its closure.
Note: This story was updated to clarify the exact number and type of units proposed.
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