OGDENSBURG — The Planning and Development Board approved plans for three apartments in a storefront building on Ford Street on Tuesday.

The board voted 7-0 in favor of both preliminary and final site-plan approval for Brian J. Morley, Ogdensburg, to put in three 760-square-foot apartments in a residential/business-zoned one-story storefront building he owns at 938-944 Ford St.

Two of the apartments will have one bedroom. The third will have two bedrooms.

One of the apartments will occupy a space where there was a small-engine repair shop Mr. Morley owned. The sluggish economy makes a small businesses like that a risk to succeed, he said.

Not so for apartments, Mr. Morley is hoping.

“There is need for it, actually,” he said.

There are small businesses at each end of the building: Ford Street Laundromat at 938 Ford St. and DP Computers at 944 Ford St.

Mr. Morley will have to meet city requirements by providing two parking spaces for each apartment. All six spaces will be in a lighted gravel lot behind the building. The board granted him a waiver on a paving requirement. Sewer and water lines from adjacent properties run under the lot, he said. The need to break through expensive asphalt pavement to make repairs and then patch it up again would be costly.

Instead, Mr. Morley will distinguish each parking space with a concrete buffer and a number.

Conversion of the vacant space to the three apartments will take three to four months.

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