Former base an economic bright spot
Businesses navigate slowdown with expansions, new strategies
The national economy might be melting, but businesses at Devens are drafting expansion plans.
The owner of Devens Commons is planning to build a hotel and retail shops on the former Army base. And the Devens Recycling Center is seeking to increase the amount of materials it can process. Both developments are in addition to other expansions currently underway.
Developer Robert Walker of Westford recently said he would submit plans to officials for a 120-room Hilton Garden Inn hotel near the Devens Commons Center. He also wants to begin preliminary work to expand retail businesses that would cater to hotel guests and others.
Walker already owns the Marriott SpringHill Suites at Devens Commons. He said the success of that hotel convinced him that he should build another one. "We have situations out there where we can't accommodate some of the demand at times," he said.
Walker subscribed to the view that the Wall Street crisis is an opportunity for buyers. He has already secured financing for the $18 million project, he said.
"The glass is half-full as far as I'm concerned," said Walker. "What better time to do it [expand] now than when construction costs are coming down and interest rates are coming down? It's a great opportunity, and it's a great time to invest."
If the Devens Enterprise Commission, the local permitting board, approves the project, Walker said, he hopes to begin construction in the spring and open the hotel in early 2010.
Kurt Macnamara, co-owner of the Devens Recycling Center, was also optimistic. But he was seeking to expand to make up for a slow market in construction and demolition materials, like wood and sheetrock. The firm has been exclusively recycling that kind of waste since opening the business in September 2007, he said.
"We take wood out; some goes to Canada, where it is pressed into particleboard; some goes to Maine and burned as energy; some stays here and becomes fuel pellets," he said.
But while it might seem like there are plenty of destinations for recyclable wood, said Macnamara, burning wood on an industrial scale for energy has not taken off in New England as many in the recycling industry foresaw a few years ago. That has curtailed demand, he said.
At the same time, the collapse of the housing market has removed a source of tons of wood byproducts used in home building, so officials don't need to find ways to dispose of the material, said Macnamara. "The bottom has fallen out of the wood market, no question about it," he said.
The company's 90,000-square-foot facility on Independence Drive now recycles about 400 tons a day, but has the capacity to handle 1,500 tons daily, said Macnamara. He is now hoping to accept as much as 400 tons a day of waste from homes, such as metal cans and plastic.
In July, the state approved Macnamara's plans, said a spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. Now he needs to obtain approval for the change from the Devens Enterprise Commission.
"We clearly have the capacity to do both and feel it would be a benefit with the cost of fuel rising to surrounding towns to have a state-of-the-art recycling facility such as ours," said Macnamara.
Devens Recycling currently has 25 employees and would probably hire another 10 if the expansion plans are approved, Macnamara said. He hopes to begin accepting more waste by spring next year.
The announcements by Walker and Macnamara come on the heels of other firms' expansion plans.
Last summer, Acton-based MagneMotion, which constructs electromagnetic devices for a range of industries, announced it would relocate its headquarters to Devens next month.
Around 1,000 construction workers are now building a Bristol-Meyers Squibb factory, which is expected to employ about 400 people, Lowitt added.
An $81 million training complex for Army and Marine reservists and Army National Guard members is also expected to open in 2011, the Army Corps of Engineers announced last summer.
Not all the news about Devens is rosy, however.
In August, Gillette's parent company,
P&G closed Gillette's other factory in Devens in 2006.
And firms at Devens haven't been entirely insulated from Wall Street's troubles.
In September, when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, Evergreen Solar lost control of about 30 million shares of its stock held by Lehman as part of a financing deal. The Marlborough-based solar panel manufacturer is now suing Lehman and Barclay's Capital, the failed investment bank's new owner.
Evergreen executives have said the company has sufficient funds to complete the Devens plant, but controlling those millions of shares is crucial for the business to move forward on other plans.
Still, Lowitt said, Devens had set a precedent that he believes will continue despite the country's economic woes.
About 55 percent of the 1,800 acres of Devens' developable land is now occupied, Lowitt said, and around 4,500 employees now work at 90 businesses on the former base. Lowitt noted that 3,000 civilian employees worked on the base before it was decommissioned in 1996.
"Devens is considered a poster child for the Department of Defense as a success story in terms of how to redevelop an Army base," he said.
John Dyer can be reached at johnjdyerjr@gmail.com. 