Residents alarmed by Pike complex
Developer pursues long-stalled plan
The trees. The birds. The office towers?
Barbara Safran moved to Framingham from Atlanta in August, thrilled to have found a home in an oasis of serenity right off the Massachusetts Turnpike.
But then, after she and her husband moved into their new four-bedroom home, she learned about plans by developer
"My tranquillity -- my bubble was burst," said Safran, 57. "I bought here having no idea this was happening. I'm devastated."
Now she and her husband are putting off building a screened-in porch in their back yard, and are even considering selling, while they fight the development.
But the developer and town officials say the long-stalled project is still on. Boston Properties, which gained the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority's blessing for the project about a decade ago, plans to go before the Framingham Planning Board to request a one-year extension on its special permit and approvals for the project. Construction has been put off until tenants are lined up.
"Boston Properties has spent a very substantial amount of money on the project since the Planning Board issued the initial special permit and site plan," said Paul V. Galvani, the developer's Framingham-based attorney on the project. Galvani said the company has been actively marketing the office complex. "It's just that they don't want to build a project like this on speculation."
The hearing before the Planning Board was set for 7:30 this evening, but it will be put off if Town Meeting is still in session, said Jay Grande, the Planning Board's administrator.
The 26-acre property, shaped like a kidney bean and about a third of a mile long, on the south side of the highway is owned by the Turnpike Authority, which has granted Boston Properties a 99-year lease.
Safran said she is not the only resident of the area shell-shocked by the scale of the proposed complex and concerned about its impact on traffic and residential property values.
"People who have lived on this street for a long time knew nothing about it," she said.
Kathleen Bartolini, Framingham's director of planning and economic development, said that the developer's plans for the property were well publicized when the special permit was issued in 2002, and that the concerns are coming from people who have built homes nearby in the years that followed.
"We would very much like that tax revenue," Bartolini said of the estimated $1.5 million the development is projected to generate for town coffers. She said she's optimistic the developer will find tenants, because the market for office space has improved in Boston's western suburbs.
"There's been a significant reduction in office vacancies and thus an increase in office rent," she said. "The office market has been pretty dead for quite a while, and it's starting to come back."
Over the last few months, other activity around the Exit 12 interchange, where Route 9 meets the Pike, has added to neighbors' confusion.
Framingham officials have signaled interest in taking by eminent domain a parcel at 1672 Worcester Road, which is in the cloverleaf across the Pike from the Boston Properties development and includes the historic Rugg-Gates House.
The town's interest has Safran and other neighbors worried that it may be connected to Boston Properties' plans, and they have created a website, stopexit12.info, where they document their suspicions.
However, Galvani said Boston Properties had no role in the town's proposed taking of the site.
According to planning director Bartolini, Framingham's Economic Development and Industrial Corporation is interested in seizing the property as a way to counter Turnpike Authority plans to sell it for residential development.
The town would prefer a use that would bring in more tax revenues, she said, and officials have not committed to give the land to any particular developer.
Bartolini also said the Economic Development and Industrial Corporation never intended to include the authority's adjacent Park & Ride lot in the seizure, despite its inclusion on a recent Town Meeting warrant article.
The eminent domain proposal, which went before Town Meeting last week, was tabled after selectmen determined the proposal needed more work, said the assistant town manager, Tim Goddard.
Bartolini said that whatever happens at 1672 Worcester Road would not affect plans for an access ramp that would run from Route 9 through the property and over the Pike to the Boston Properties development.
Boston Properties recently paid to have the Rugg-Gates House moved a few hundred feet to allow for construction of the ramp. The Planning Board had required the developer to pay for the house relocation, Bartolini said.
Safran said that while she deals with her real estate attorney, who she says should have warned her about the planned complex, she'll continue trying to fight the development.
"I came here to enjoy the rest of my life," she said. "We have a pond with a waterfall. We have a fire pit. We love being out here . . . . This is very, very, very upsetting."
John C. Drake can be reached at 508-820-4229 or jdrake@ globe.com. 
