Downtown Saline's Kelly's restaurant space gets new life

Wednesday, April 21, 2010 | Source: Concentrate

The former Kelly's restaurant in downtown Saline has been vacant for five years and four months. The 10,000 square feet above it have been unoccupied even longer, maybe since a fire ravaged the space in the 1970s. But there is hope that all of that will change soon.

Peter Toarmina of Mickey's Dairy Twist fame and some members of his extended family have acquired the 16,000 square feet of long-empty space on West Michigan Avenue. They plan to rehab the building and turn the ground floor into an Italian restaurant and refurbish the space above into either office space or loft apartments.

"We intend to change the interior and redo some of the details so it's more of a family Italian-American place," says Toarmina, adding he plans to respect the historical character of the building.

These sorts of rehabs of century-old buildings are fairly common in Michigan's small cities. The Cleary family did a similar rehab project in downtown Howell, creating a destination in Cleary's Irish Pub and a number of excellent loft apartments above. Similar work has been done in Ypsilanti's downtown and Depot Town (courtesy Maurer family development) and is happening in downtown Wyandotte.

The former Kelly's restaurant is actually a combination of two 100-year-old structures that originally served as dry goods stores. Traces of the sign for the original store are still visible on the exterior of the building. It goes well with the exposed brick and plaster walls and other preserved historical aspects that Toarmina plans to keep.

"Some of the timber construction in the basement is still holding things up," Toarmina says, adding there are modern steel beams where necessary in the structure now, too. "Part of the basement is still your 100-year-old Michigan basement dirt floor."

Toarmina, who is the brother of Louis Toarmina who owns the Toarmina's Pizza chain, is tackling the project with the help of his extended family. His wife Laurie and sisters and their husbands (Dr. Rose and Ron Tolson and Mary and Len Sheko) are all pitching in to make the project happen.

They plan on changing the interior and the name to reflect the new Italian restaurant, which does not yet have a name. They are also looking at turning the wide-open spaces of the second and third floors into either loft apartments or loft office space, both of which have been in high demand in Michigan's reinvigorated downtowns.

Toarmina says they thought of keeping the Kelly's name and the look of the interior, which he describes as comfortable in a "Cheers" sort of way, because it is so well known and respected in downtown Saline. They decided against it because it wouldn't gel as well with their plans for an Italian eatery, which are still in their infancy with no firm construction timeline.

"We have nothing but respect for the people who used to run Kelly's," Toarmina says.

Source: Pete Toarmina, co-owner of the old Kelly's building
Writer: Jon Zemke