Center builders offer to alter site
Municipal building space is at issue
Developers of Wayland's Town Center project are offering to change their plans to address concerns about the location of a space for a municipal building.
In a proposal presented to the Planning Board last week, the developers suggested moving the 20,000-square-foot space slightly and placing it next to a small green.
Residents and town leaders had criticized previous plans that would have isolated the building from a two-acre green planned for the project.
The developers are incorporating the space for the building into their ambitious $140 million mixed-use project at the site of the former
In the newest design, the space, which could one day host a library, looks out over a nearly half-acre section of the green, which would be separated from the rest of the parcel by a street.
Most Planning Board members responded favorably to the change. But member Daniel Mesnick said, "I don't think we're quite there yet," and questioned whether the small green space would be big enough for a soccer field.
The board is reviewing a master special permit application for the project, which would include condos, shops, and offices.
William D. Whitney , chairman of the selectmen, said the board should consider reducing the width of the street between the two green spaces and banning street parking there in an effort to make the parcels feel cohesive.
The building, which would sit at the entrance to the project off of Route 20, would also have 100 parking spaces. In the original design, the parking ringed the property on three sides; now it sits off to one side.
Residents raised the concerns that project design is under way, even though the town hasn't decided what kind of facility would be housed in the municipal space.
The town's consultant, Kenneth Buckland, a principal with The Cecil Group Inc. of Boston, suggested that town leaders should start thinking about what kind of municipal building would be built.
The Library Board of Trustees has asked that the town consider building a new library, and it has suggested it could share the building with a compatible tenant.
The latest designs for the project also reconfigured the residential portion of the project after residents complained they wanted condo, rather than rental, units. The architects decreased the number of residential buildings from six to five but increased the heights of the buildings to three stories. Two of the buildings would front on the town green, while the other three would overlook conservation land.
The controversial project, proposed two years ago, would have 155,000 square feet of retail space and 10,000 square feet of offices, plus 100 two-bedroom condos. Tenants would include a supermarket, sporting goods store, drugstore, and a restaurant.
After walking away from the project in January, the developers, KGI Properties and The Congress Group Inc. , both of Boston, returned last month with a new proposal for the Planning Board's consideration.
