The Annapolis Planning Commission quickly and unanimously approved a mixed-use building Thursday on the corner of West Street and Colonial Avenue in the city’s arts district. Again.

The planned development, which is a three-story timber building with a restaurant on the ground floor and six apartments on the second and third floors at 161 West St., was first approved in 2023.

That approval expired after development stalled.

Tom Hanna, one of the project’s applicants who spoke at Thursday’s meeting, said the plans are essentially the same as what was approved previously, though the location of a grease trap moved and there are some minor facade changes.

Chris Jakubiak, the city’s planning director, called the presentation “pro forma,” and the city staff once again recommended its approval.

On Friday, Hanna said he and Jody Danek, his partner in West Village LLC, still need to get a building permit for the site now that it’s been approved by the planning commission.

He’s hopeful that approval will come in the new year. The building plans call for it to be constructed from mass timber — a building practice using heavy wood pieces that can move more quickly and be more environmentally sustainable than traditional steel construction.

It’s also more expensive, Hanna said, but it was “important to not have a crane on West Street for six months.”

The development group doesn’t have a concept in mind for the restaurant yet, Hanna said, but it likely will have fewer than 50 seats.

West Village LLC, the development partnership, was co-founded by Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley. Buckley stepped down from the group while serving in office.

The building’s upper floors will have four one-bedroom apartments and two two-bedroom apartments, according to the plan. The development plan doesn’t include any new parking spaces.

Once completed, the building will be slightly taller than the Lemongrass restaurant next door, and slightly shorter than the parking garage behind it and the commercial building across from Colonial Avenue.