Nicolo's Italian Bakery & Deli has been baking hearth-loaves and stacking legendary sandwiches on Baldwin Street in Montclair since 1967, but the nearly 60-year-old shop's future is now caught in a fight between family members over whether to tear it down. The property's owners want to demolish the bakery building along with a neighboring two-family home to make way for a larger bakery and 18 new apartments. The bakery's own operator says he wants no part of it.
According to NJ.com, Nicholas Zecchino Jr. and Mary Ann Zecchino, who have owned the bakery property since the 1960s, hope to demolish the existing shop and rebuild a larger bakery there. The couple are listed as managers of MDZ Management LLC, the entity seeking approval for the renovations, and Mary Ann Zecchino said the owners want to improve their property while respecting the surrounding neighborhood, per the same report. Their son, Nicholas Zecchino III, represents MDZ Management LLC and defended the redevelopment project, claiming the existing two-family home on the site is beyond repair.
Bakery operator Donato “D.J.” Zecchino sees it very differently. He said the bakery wants to remain in the community and that Nicolo's Bakery opposes the expansion and redevelopment plans completely, according to the NJ.com report. In a separate public statement detailed by The Montclair Girl, D.J. Zecchino clarified that Nicolo's Bakery operates strictly as a tenant on the lot and disputed claims made in the historic preservation application suggesting the bakery had supported the project.
A Two-Phase Plan for Baldwin Street
The site under review at 6-12 Baldwin Street currently includes a three-story building housing Nicolo's Bakery, a freestanding single-family house at 12 Baldwin Street, a rear one-story commercial structure, a concrete garage, and associated parking areas, per The Montclair Girl. Architectural plans drawn up by Studio 2G Architects lay out a two-phase project: first demolishing 12 Baldwin Street to build a three-story, nine-unit residential building, then demolishing 6 Baldwin Street to construct a mixed-use structure with ground-floor bakery space and nine apartments above. Nicholas Zecchino Jr. and Mary Ann Zecchino specifically plan to replace the two-family home with the nine-unit apartment building as part of that first phase, per NJ.com's reporting. Altogether, the plan would add 18 housing units to a block where the bakery has stood for generations.
Any construction is still a long way off. The project requires further planning or zoning board approvals before it can move forward, and the Montclair Historic Preservation Commission must also sign off on demolishing the existing structures. The commission postponed its decision on the application during an Aug. 20 meeting and now plans to revisit it on Oct. 22.
Why the Historic Preservation Commission Has a Say
The properties sit within Montclair's Pine Street Historic District, a neighborhood built primarily between 1880 and 1937, with the current bakery building at 6 Baldwin Street dating to 1930, according to The Montclair Girl. The 26.6-acre district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in March 2000, having developed as Montclair's working-class “Little Italy,” anchored by Italian immigrants and African American residents in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, per Wikipedia.
Because the site falls within that designated district, the Montclair Historic Preservation Commission has jurisdiction over the demolition request. Established by municipal ordinance in 1994, the commission is made up of seven regular members and two alternates appointed by the mayor, tasked with evaluating building modifications, surveying historic assets, and advising municipal boards on demolition applications within historic districts, according to the Township of Montclair. It would not be the district's first fight over demolition: the neighborhood previously endured a 15-year preservation and legal battle with New Jersey Transit over a rail connector project that originally threatened 20 historic structures before mitigation funds were ultimately provided, per Preservation NJ.
More Than a Bakery, More Than a Family Feud
Nicolo's is widely described as an Essex County institution, and its sandwiches are counted among the most beloved in New Jersey, per NJ.com. But the shop's role extends well beyond its own counter. Nicolo's provides bread for many surrounding businesses, supplying daily hearth-baked Italian and semolina bread to local eateries including Leone's, Raymond's, Egan's, Mr. Dino's, and Belgiovine's, according to The Montclair Girl. Any disruption to bakery operations would ripple through Montclair's broader restaurant scene.
The 18-unit scale of the proposal also puts it in the crosshairs of Montclair Township's inclusionary zoning code, which requires multi-family and mixed-use residential developments of five or more units to include mandatory affordable housing set-asides, according to eCode360. According to the Township of Montclair, the Planning Board has adopted a Housing Element and Fair Share Plan pursuant to the Municipal Land Use Law at N.J.S.A. 40:55D-1 et seq. The fight over Nicolo's also lands amid a broader wave of development pressure across Montclair. The Township Council approved a 30-year tax abatement in March for the Lackawanna Plaza project, which includes 300 apartments and a 40,000-square-foot supermarket, as reported by Jersey Digs.
NJ.com reported that multiple requests for comment sent to the Zecchino family were not returned. With the Historic Preservation Commission not expected to revisit the application until Oct. 22, the future of the bakery building — and the family dispute over its fate — remains unresolved for now.
