North End restaurant owners win approval for new eatery focused on seafood, topped by four studio apartments

The Zoning Board of Appeal today approved plans by Richard and Adriana Travaglione to turn a small vacant building at 204 Hanover St., near Cross Street, in the North End into a new seafood restaurant and four studio apartments.

Their proposed North End Lobster Co. would serve both lobster and other types of seafood, their attorney, Dennis Quilty, told the zoning board. They own Giacomo's down the street. In April, the Boston Licensing Board gave them permission to buy the beer and wine license from Pomodoro, also on Hanover Street.

Quilty added that two vacant apartments in the building would be converted into four studios.

The project needed zoning approval because of the change of use from general commercial space to a restaurant - and also because the new residential units would have no parking and not enough "open space."

Quilty said a previous owner of the building actually won approval to do that seven or eight years ago, then never followed through on the changeover.