MassDevelopment’s Ed Starzec announced at the Jan. 5 meeting of the Joint Boards of Selectmen’s (JBOS) Vicksburg Square subcommittee that MassDev had received proposals from College Street Management (CSM) and Trinity Development for the development of Vicksburg Square. Redacted copies of the confidential proposals were distributed to subcommittee members, with the request that the copies remain confidential.
According to Starzec, CSM, which has worked on projects similar to Vicksburg Square in the Philadelphia area and other locations, is proposing “a mixed-use project including 275 market-rate and affordable units as well as 100,000 square feet of unspecified commercial use on the ground floor of each building,” according to Starzec.
The second proposal under consideration is from Trinity Vicksburg Square Limited Partnership, whose parent company is Trinity Financial, a well-known developer in Boston, according to Starzec. Trinity Financial is involved in the $800 million Hamilton Canal District revitalization project in Lowell.
Devens Enterprise Commission (DEC) Land Use Administrator/Director Peter Lowitt said, “Trinity did a year-long citizen engagement process in Lowell as part of the Hamilton Canal project and was given an award for citizen engagement.”
Trinity’s proposal is for 246 mixed-income units, but “they are flexible and want to hear more from stakeholders,” Starzec said. Both CSM and Trinity will require zoning changes and have addressed that topic in their proposals, Starzec stated. It will be up to the chosen developer to engage the public in Ayer, Harvard, and Shirley to change zoning via a “super town meeting” vote to allow the project to go forward.
Subcommittee members have been invited to attend interviews and site visits to be held with each of the developers. Starzec emphasized that the meetings would be confidential and advised the subcommittee: “You have an advisory role in our decision-making process. Your input could be useful if you said ‘we prefer X over Y and here are some of the reasons why, and here are some of the things we still have concerns about.’”
Harvard Selectman Ron Ricci said he wanted to discuss “whatever I can with my board” and requested a further redacted version of the proposals so that he could share information with the boards and with the public.
At the end of the meeting, Ayer Town Administrator Shaun Suhoski informed the subcommittee that he and former Ayer selectmen Pauline Hamel and Frank Maxant are meeting with the executive vice chancellor and director of real estate for the University of Massachusetts at Lowell to talk about Vicksburg Square and “hopefully, stimulate some interest at UMass Lowell about Devens.”
