MassDevelopment breaks ground on $21M public safety building in Devens

October 13, 2023 : Worcester Business Journal, Timothy Doyle

MassDevelopment, the state’s development finance agency and land bank, broke ground on a new 30,745-square-foot public safety center in Devens. The facility will house the Devens Fire Department, Massachusetts State Police, which serves Devens, and the Nashoba Valley Regional Dispatch District.

The $20.8-million project at 270 Barnum Road is expected to be complete in summer 2025, according to a Thursday press release from MassDevelopment.

MassDevelopment has partnered with Winter Street Architects of Salem and construction firm D.A. Sullivan & Sons of Northampton on the project.

Situated among the towns of Ayer, Shirley, and Harvard, Devens is the 4,400-acre site of a former U.S. Army installation. In 1996, Fort Devens closed and MassDevelopment has redeveloped the area into a mixed-use community with an emphasis on technology companies like Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Electric Hydrogen, and soon, Ascend Elements, which announced it will move its headquarters from Westborough to Devens in September 2024.

“MassDevelopment’s stewardship of Devens has transformed a former U.S. Army base into a thriving mixed-use community with hundreds of residents, millions of square feet of commercial development, and thousands of federal, state, and private employees,” Massachusetts Economic Development Secretary Yvonne Hao, who serves as chair of MassDevelopment’s board of directors, said in the press release. “Investing in a new, larger state-of-the-art public safety building reflects Devens’ role as a growing, 21st-century community and strengthens the capacity of its first responders.”