What Is Going in at the Arlington Heights Busway?

By now you probably know, something's going on at the Arlington Heights Busway across from Panera.

Four new windows, a door and another window-sized rectangle have been cut into the depot’s Mass. Ave.-facing mural, “Celebrating Arlington’s Past and Present.”

Paul Revere? Gone. Uncle Sam? Gone. The “Entering Arlington” sign? Gone too, as are a number of Minutemen.

But what exactly is up? What’s moving in?

“The Right Spot Convenience Store,” a store sponsored by the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind Small Business Enterprise Program and the MBTA, according to a sign in one of the building’s newly constructed windows.

The store won’t be any regular ol’ convenience store, it will be “a retail store especially designed to be managed by people with disabilities,” according to its plans (attached) submitted by Della Mora Architecture & Project Management last March.

The plans were presented at a meeting last year, according to MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo, who provided Arlington Patch with a copy earlier this week.

The plans continue, “[The store] will be a place where patrons of the MBTA waiting for the bus and neighbors will avail themselves of food, coffee, newspapers, lottery tickets and other merchandise. The proposed work will transform this building, provide a welcoming establishment at the heart of an important transportation hub for the MBTA along a busy avenue in an important business center for [Arlington].”

The store should be open by late April or early May, Massachusetts Commission for the Blind spokesman Wayne Levy said Wednesday. He didn’t have any other details yet.

The mural was designed and painted by Dearborn Academy students in 2008 with help from artists Tova Speter, Anyahlee Canas and LeeAnn Love Price, as well as the community.

Speter has a webpage dedicated to the mural, which won the 2009 Gold Star Award from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. The mural was funded in part by a grant from the Arlington Cultural Council.

What are your thoughts on the project? Are you happy to see this space utilized? Are you sad to see part of the mural go? Let us know by posting a comment below.