|
MassDevelopment In The News
More Than Half Way Done at Devens
September 28, 2007: Nashoba Publishing, by Nathan Lamb
DEVENS - By all accounts, the announcement in 1991 that the federal government would close Fort Devens caused a great of anxiety about the region's future.
According to the Devens Reuse Plan, closure was expected to cost the region between 7,000 to 9,000 jobs.
Flash forward to 2007 and some 4,200 of those jobs have been replaced by an economic development project that MassDevelopment chief of staff Meg Delorier has termed "groundbreaking" on several levels.
"It's a national model for base redevelopment," she said.
The model features a partnership of state and local government, which has also enjoyed support at the federal level, she explained.
In addition to job loss, closure of Devens created concerns for the host communities of Ayer, Harvard and Shirley. The list included the costs of providing municipal services, environmental contamination, infrastructure upgrades and wholesale demolition that would be needed to convert Fort Devens to civilian use.
It was in that environment that the state and towns produced the Devens Reuse Plan as a road map for redevelopment. The plan, which was approved via town meeting in all three towns, set the zoning at Devens. With that in place, MassDevelopment was given $200 million in bonding authority by the Legislature for infrastructure upgrades and became the municipal authority there during redevelopment. MassDev's job description also includes marketing Devens and working with companies to bring businesses to Devens.
While the story spans 14-plus years and involves a number of chapters, Richard Montouri, MassDevelopment's senior vice president of Devens operations, said the goal remains the same.
"It's always been to create jobs," he said. "To replace the jobs that were lost here and to bring business to Devens that act as an economic engine for the region. We don't think of Devens in terms of just the surrounding communities, but the entire region."
Montouri estimated that 60 percent of the industrial space at Devens has been developed, and that number will go up with work underway on Bristol-Myers Squibb's $660 million production plant and a company known as Evergreen Solar planning a sizable production plant on Barnum Road.
The availability of large industrial parcels, the proximity to Boston and existing infrastructure are all selling points for Devens, but Montouri said the expedited permit process through the Devens Enterprise Commission was the single largest draw. While permitting in Massachusetts can often take months or years, the biggest project at Devens - the Bristol-Myers Squibb plant - took 49 days to permit, even though the application was over an inch think.
By being able to work with companies in such a manner, some 84 business have been brought to Devens since MassDevelopment took over 1996. In that time, just under $300 million of state and federal funding has been leveraged into $460 million in private investment - and that's not counting the Bristol-Myers Squibb project.
Less certain is what will happen to Devens once development is over. The Reuse Plan was deliberately vague on that point and negotiations between the current stakeholders have been inconclusive on key issues. Fort Devens was formed from land once belonging to the towns of Ayer, Harvard and Shirley.
Chief on that list is housing. While the initial reuse plan focused heavily on industrial uses, MassDevelopment has also come to see housing as a major need to boost economic development in the area and has pushed for more at Devens.
Recent negotiations with the towns brought forward a proposal that would have eliminated a housing cap of 282 units and replaced it with zoning that would allow for 1,800 units in the core of Devens.
That was rejected by Ayer and Harvard last fall, and local officials are currently negotiating through the Joint Boards of Selectmen (JBOS). Because a number of officials involved with JBOS vocally accused MassDevelopment and its housing numbers of having undue influence on the process, the agency has not been invited to those meetings thus far. The "disposition" of the Devens property, whether given back to the three stakeholder towns or forming itself into a new town, remains a bone of contention.
Montouri confirmed MassDevelopment has been invited to the next JBOS meeting, though, and said housing will likely remain on the agenda.
"Housing is still a priority," he said. "We have not backed off our position that housing at Devens is an important component of economic development whatever discussions we have about Devens, we will bring housing to the table as a main issue."
"If people want to talk about disposition with us, but do not intend to talk about additional housing at Devens, discussions will have a difficult start," he added.
While it was widely believed MassDevelopment would approach the Legislature to get zoning changes at Devens even if the new-town proposal was rejected, Montouri and Delorier said that hasn't happened yet.
However, Delorier added MassDevelopment has briefed Gov. Patrick's administration on the issue and said the executive branch is forming a housing task force in the near future to evaluate the issue statewide. Devens will likely be on that agenda too, she said.
While the future of Devens remains unclear, Montouri said the measure of success is easy to quantify.
"It's job creation," he reiterated. "The goal was to be an economic engine for the region and I think we've done that."
© Copyright 2007 Nashoba Publishing.
|
|
