Owner of convenience store on Baker Street in West Roxbury wants to replace it with condos and a smaller store

Baker Street Market owner Louis Dakoyannis tonight showed neighbors his proposal to replace the store at the corner of Baker and Vermont streets in West Roxbury with a four-story, 14-unit condo building that would also have ground-floor space for a new convenience store - but one about a third the size of his current market.

In 2020, just as the pandemic was hitting, Dakoyannis, who grew up on Baker Street, had proposed a five-story, 24-unit apartment building at the site. Neighbor concerns - and the pandemic - put the end to that, his attorney, Nick Zozula, said.

On a Zoom call with abutters, Dakoyannis, Zozula and the proposal's architect, Lucio Trabucco, said the new proposal calls for 14 parking spaces for residents and 9 spaces for market customers. The ground-level parking would mostly mirror the current store's parking, with the car entrance remaining on Baker Street.

Most of the units would be roughly 1,100 square feet with two bedrooms, with two of the condos 800-square-foot single-bedroom units.

Two of the condos would be sold as affordable.

Dakoyannis pledged the new store of roughly 1,200 square feet would continue to sell beer and wine. "Plenty of cold beer," he promised.

Residents expressed concern about traffic and parking - in particular, where customers from the hair and nail salon and cleaners across the street would park when they can no long slide into the market's lot. Dakoyannis, who owns that building and the cleaners, said they could park in the street, in particular around the corner on Durant Street, since that little stretch of Baker is a commercial zone, anyway - although he added that if that becomes an issue, maybe it would be time for him to tear that building down as well and make the entire area residential.

Some residents, however, also said they were worried that people moving into the mostly two-bedroom units would have two cars, causing parking congestion on surrounding streets. Zozula said prospective buyers would know coming in they'd only be guaranteed one spot, although he said he and his client could look at a possible arrangement to let owners with more than one car park in spaces meant for the store at night.

Zozula said there would be an in-person West Roxbury Neighborhood Council meeting on the proposal at 7 p.m. on Tuesday at the District E-5 police station on Centre Street.

The project would need several variances from the Zoning Board of Appeal because it would be roughly three feet higher than the allowed 38 feet and because of its side- and rear-yard setbacks and because of potential traffic visibility due to its location on a corner. The project would also need a variance because the site's zoning calls for 21 parking spaces - 1.5 per unit - for the condos.