Tweeter Etc. will also be given a slight architectural facelift by restoring the original wood siding and dropping the first floor by about three feet in order to better link it to the new building behind.

"The Tweeter building looks happier than it has in a long time," Jo Solet, a member of the Commission, told the developers.

But the plans to save the Tweeter Etc. building were greeted with skepticism by the employees who work there.

"If any of the members of the Historical Commission had to work in this building, they wouldn't want to save it," says Jeff Chasin, a salesperson at Tweeter Etc. for the past three years. "We don't think the building is worth saving, much less moving and saving."

"If we still get stuck in the same building, what's that going to do?" asks Sheldon Cooperman, the assistant manager.

An Arduous Process

For months, Eliot Sq. Development Corp. has been pushing the commission for permission to demolish several structures in the block bounded by JFK, Mt. Auburn and Winthop Streets, but has had to meet Cambridge's strict guidelines on alterations to buildings more than 50 years old, which in this case apply to both Grendel's and Tweeter Etc.

A moratorium of one year is automatically placed on demolition of such a building until approved by the commission, but the commission may instead choose to place the buildings under "historically significant" status, declaring the buildings to be landmarks and thus preventing the property owners from making any changes to the architecture.

At last month's meeting, the commission decided to recommend landmark status for Tweeter Etc. and was expected to do so for Grendel's, but agreed to withhold official communication of this decision to the City Council for final action until after the developers had one more chance to present a plan.

Status as a city landmark can present an obstacle to developers trying to improve the profitability of tenants like Tweeter Etc. which occupy older buildings that may not have been designed for modern retailers.

"There is always the ongoing difficulty of parking," explains Cooperman, pointing out that the cramped location of his business on the corner of Mt. Auburn and Brattle leaves no room for customers to pick up their purchases in their cars. "We've even had our stock truck ticketed."