Agency wants potential buyers to pitch ideas - including new zoning - for square at former base
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DEVENS - A short drive from a $750 million manufacturing plant being built by
Once home to the base headquarters for Fort Devens, the square's huge historic buildings, zoned for offices or light industry, have been mostly unoccupied since the base closed in 1996, except for a few pigeons and the occasional vandal.
"We've taken dozens of developers through there over the years and never got any offers," said Edmund Starzec, director of land entitlements for MassDevelopment, the agency in charge of redeveloping Devens.
But after two developers expressed interest last summer in rehabilitating the buildings into residential space, MassDevelopment has taken the hint: The agency wants private developers to pitch any workable proposals for Vicksburg Square, including housing. After failing for years to find a plan to fit the zoning, the answer may be to fit the zoning to the plan.
"We haven't had luck trying to market the site for commercial use," said Starzec. "We're asking developers to propose any use that might work there."
MassDevelopment will accept redevelopment proposals until Feb. 24, and hopes to choose a plan by the spring, said Starzec.
Concerns about housing density have dogged Devens redevelopment plans for years, but representatives from the surrounding towns of Harvard, Shirley, and Ayer say the public debate over housing has evolved.
"There's a need for affordable housing in the area," said Leo Blair, a Harvard selectman and chairman of the regional Joint Boards of Selectmen from the three towns, which studies Devens issues. "There's a need for workforce housing for Devens employees."
Shirley Town Administrator Kyle Keady says his town's selectmen "at this time do not envision an issue with making those historical buildings into housing units," though nobody's willing to sign onto any plan before they see it.
The property offered for redevelopment contains seven buildings on about 20 acres of land, sandwiched between recreation parks. The buildings total about 435,000 square feet, most of it within four huge dormitory-like structures, each three stories tall and built in Georgian Revival-style from red brick and limestone. Two of these huge buildings, Revere Hall and Allen Hall, were built as barracks in 1929; a third, Knox Hall, was built in 1929 as a hospital. Hale Hall was completed as a barracks in 1940.
The four brick behemoths, arranged in a rectangle around a vast open square, might remind an optimist of a college campus. The pessimist might imagine a prison yard.
The buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places, which means that proposed alterations to the exteriors would have to be approved by the Massachusetts Historical Commission, said Starzec. MassDevelopment wants any plan for Vicksburg Square to preserve the architecture, and make use of energy-efficient materials and other green development techniques.
Of the four buildings, only Revere Hall was occupied after the base closed in 1996: MassDevelopment maintained an office there until 2006. In a recent tour, Revere Hall seemed weathertight inside, though messy. Vandals had apparently thrown trash around, and had rearranged the letters of a signboard to spell a vulgarity.
The property also includes three smaller buildings: a theater and a firehouse, both vacant since 1996, and a building in use by the State Police, who are planning to move to a new public safety complex.
"Our goal is to get these buildings off of our books, to get them to the private sector and back into use," said Starzec. MassDevelopment has not named an asking price for the buildings, preferring that developers propose the purchase price.
At Vicksburg Square, Blair imagines a "piazza with stores and shops on the ground floor and dwellings above and outdoor restaurant tables with umbrellas. I would see some condos, some rental units, some affordable units, some workforce housing. An idea that has come of this is that people could get on their bicycles and ride to their jobs, or walk to their jobs." This idealized image for empty Vicksburg Square has taken hold among members of the Joint Boards of Selectmen, he said. "I would say we'll actively support it, subject to the approval of our voters."
About 100 homes have already been developed at Devens, according to Starzec. The number of housing units permitted at Devens is capped at 282, a restriction that probably would have to be eased for a residential plan to work at Vicksburg Square, said Blair.
Ayer Town Administrator Shaun Suhoski said the housing cap dates to the base closure in the 1990s, and was intended to prevent a Devens housing boom that might have deflated home values throughout the region. "For that reason, the cap was put very low," he said. "There may be a need for additional housing now at Devens, and I sense more of a willingness to view housing not as a burden but as a means to achieve economic development in a balanced fashion."
Still, it's too early to say whether Ayer would support new housing at Vicksburg Square, he said. "The majority of Vicksburg Square is within Ayer's corporate boundary. What if jurisdiction returned to Ayer and we had to provide services there? That would have to be assessed when we see the actual proposal."
Two points on which most everyone agrees are that the historic buildings should be saved, and that time is running short. "The condition of the buildings is not improving," said Starzec. "There has been some vandalism, peeling paint, pigeon infiltration, some leaks, though we try to stay on top of it."
Added Keady, the Shirley administrator: "Unless something is done with Vicksburg Square, it's going to become a white elephant, and if we don't do something now, those buildings will have to come down eventually."
