Published in the March 22, 2018 edition

By MAUREEN DOHERTY

NORTH READING — Governor Charlie Baker came to town last Thursday afternoon to share some very exciting news.

North Reading is the recipient of a $3 million MassWorks Infrastructure Program grant award that will enable the town to redevelop about half of the former J.T. Berry State Hospital land into 450 condominium units for homeowners 55 and over.

The grant funds will be used toward upgrading the town’s water system to enable a project of this size to move forward. As Town Administrator Michael Gilleberto explained, “Our water system was already taxed when the opportunity to partner with the state to re-develop the former J.T. Berry property came our way. Without a permanent water solution, the town could have been in a position of potentially having to downsize or decline the pending and future re-development at the J.T. Berry property.”

GOV. CHARLIE BAKER presented a $3M MassWorks Infrastructure Grant to the town March 15 to put toward a permanent water solution with either Andover or the MWRA. Standing, from left: Selectmen Bob Mauceri, Andrew Schultz and Chairman Mike Prisco, T.A. Michael Gilleberto, Gov. Baker, Selectman Steve O’Leary, JT Berry broker Fran DeCoste, TRA; seated, from left: Selectman Kathryn Manupelli, Town Planner Danielle McKnight, Pulte Homes V.P. Reid Blute and CPC Chairman Bill Bellavance. (Maureen Doherty Photo)

Gilleberto explained, “North Reading has been evaluating long-term potable water solutions over the past five years. This effort is aimed at ending the uncertainty of our water supply, which has seen major changes from one generation to the next. Whether it’s the addition of new wells, the contamination of existing wells, or the need to purchase water from out of town, for 60 years we’ve had to adapt our water supply to meet the needs of the community.

“Our current water system relies on wells in the Ipswich River watershed, which draw an average of 1 million gallons of water per day. That amount is supplemented by water purchased from the town of Andover, presently in the average amount of just over 1.5 million gallons per day,” he said.

“Our goal in this evaluation of long-term solutions is to identify a solution that will provide the town the certainty of a reliable, quality water supply for generations to come. We are fortunate that we have two options: purchasing additional water from Andover, or pursuing an interconnection with the MWRA through the town of Reading,” the T.A. added.

Gilleberto said the Baker-Polito administration has been a “champion for good local government at work. His administration has consistently stepped up to assist cities and towns over the past 3 ½ years, be it to modernize state law regulating municipal government, to offer funding to pursue solutions to complex municipal problems, or to offer expertise and advice to local officials.”

Gov. Baker addressed a crowd of townspeople as well as local and state officials and the private developer of the project during a ceremony held in the Dr. David A. Troughton Distance Learning Lab, which is part of the shared space in the NRHS/NRMS.

“I’m really thrilled to be here today for a couple of reasons,” Baker said. “I actually was the Secretary of Health and Human Services when the J.T. Berry facility was open and I remember visiting back in the 1990s. I remember when the state made the decision to phase it down along with a number of the other facilities.”

Baker said during the past 20 years the state has faced a real challenge in coming up with with “creative solutions for how to repurpose those facilities.” In some instances, an opportunity is realized immediately and the property is transformed, but in most instances, he said, especially for large parcels with old infrastructure on it, such as the J.T. Berry Center, coming up with “a solution that would work for the community and work for the commonwealth was a difficult and challenging task.”

The governor called the announcement of the $3 M grant to the town as a “winner” for all of the stakeholders.

“The town and the commonwealth get what I would describe as a good deal on the property. We are then able to turn around and reinvest a piece of that good deal through the MassWorks program into some of the utility infrastructure,” Baker explained, adding that North Reading “gets funding that it can incorporate in a way that makes sense for the town to deal with some of your infrastructure issues, and it’s a great example of an initiative that we started shortly after we took office called ‘Open for Business.’”

Baker said the state is one of the largest landowners in Massachusetts. “A lot of the property we own is not really doing very much. I used to joke with the folks that I work with: ‘I know we call these properties ‘assets’ but most of the time when people think about an asset, it’s doing something. Just because it belongs to you and just because it’s property doesn’t make it an asset.”

That governor said that is especially the case in those instances where these “assets” amount to little more than “a piece of land with a couple of burned out cars on it and a lot of tall grass and a few beer cans.”

“This is a great example of working with local folks and with others to find a collaborative solution that actually puts a property to work and makes it an asset — an asset for the community, an asset to the commonwealth, an asset that generates other opportunities for folks here as well,” he said.

The J.T. Berry real estate transaction between the town and Pulte Homes of New England was completed in two years, on Dec. 1, 2017, for a final purchase price of $30M, after this property had sat idle for over two decades. The other half of the property is occupied by 406 units of rental housing, Edgewood Apartments, 25 percent of which are rented to those with low to moderate incomes developed under a Chapter 40R permit. All 406 of those units count toward the town’s 10 percent quota for providing housing to those with low to moderate incomes.

A small parcel of a couple of acres still remains undeveloped at 102 Lowell Road and the town will be seeking Requests for Proposals for a commercial or retail use on the site, possibly a restaurant. The town-owned playing fields that comprise Rita Mullin Park adjacent to Edgewood Apartments was also once part of the J.T. Berry Center land. 

Sale Partnership Model

This transaction with Pulte Homes was made possible through a new state initiative called the Sale Partnership Model in which the state and the town shared in the proceeds of the state-owned land. After payment costs and obligations were met, the town received $20.116M and the state received $8.997M.

Its completion was also consistent with the strategic plan of the Board of Selectmen, which has an objective to create new housing options for the town’s seniors. The target market of the Pulte Homes project will be empty nesters who are downsizing but who also wish to maintain their ties to the community where they have likely lived for several decades. This is turn frees up the housing stock for young families in a tight real estate market.

Pulte Homes V.P. Reid Blute gave an overview of the project, which will include nine 50-unit four-story buildings, all with underground parking, plus a clubhouse, a village green designed over the package treatment area to serve all 450 units, surface parking and walking trails to the nearby Martins Brooks from which the development gets its name: Martins Landing.

“One of the key criteria that we see as an initial benefit to the town is taking a piece of property that paid no taxes in the past to the town and bringing it on to the town tax rolls,” Blute said, adding they are projecting an economic benefit to the town in the range of $2.5M to $3M annually at full build-out. He predicts that just seven percent of those tax dollars will be returned to the residents of Martins Landing in town services utilized due to the demographics it will attract and the fact that as a condominium the homeowners will be responsible for their trash, plowing and road repairs on-site.

Kudos for McKnight

Before the formal ceremony was over, Gilleberto asked Town Planner Danielle McKnight to stand and be recognized, giving her in credit for the successful  completion of this transaction with Pulte Homes and in applying for the MassWorks grant in addition to all of her other duties as Planning Administrator to the Community Planning Commission.

“Danielle has spent some, or all, of every day for the past three years to make this project happen. She was extremely dedicated in being the primary contact for DCAMM, working on our MassWorks grant application, along with nearly every other application which Selectman (Mike) Prisco” has brought to her attention, he said.

“She has been an integral part of the work that we’ve done here and I just want to thank you,” Gilleberto added.