The representatives from the state’s A&F and DCAM had no particular stated use or uses in mind for the Medfield State Hospital site when they met with the Town of Medfield representatives and suggested we all, together, take a fresh look at alternatives.
The only use specifically mentioned by them was a college, and that one only because Secretary Gonzalez seemed to suddenly recall having spoken to the Oleana person but had no real information about him and/or his concept. Secretary Gonzalez asked if we had spoken with him too, and I shared my limited one contact, and my thoughts that his concept seemed to me to be pie in the sky due to the small sizes of both the proposed college and the adjoining housing component, both of which need efficiencies of scale in my experiences to succeed, after seeing Lasell College from its board of directors for twenty years and watching Lasell Village get built, operate, and grow. Both Lasell College and Lasell Village purposely got larger to take advantage of those economies of scale that larger entities possess. Oleana’s proposal strikes me that it has little real financial viability. In any event, while colleges may look nice, they do not make the greatest of neighbors due to weekend parties that now start on Thursday evenings, and they pay no property taxes.
The state government officials offered up no ideas for specific potential uses. Secretary Gonzalez suggested that the Town of Medfield should think of the possibilities as an “opportunity.”
I asked why they put the brakes on the housing proposal, and Carole Cornelison said she wanted to take a fresh look at all options. I understood her to be saying that with a new commissioner comes a new look at what DCAM is and should be doing.
Link to the DCAM Agenda and Fact Sheet from the meeting yesterday – http://ping.fm/t4mBc
Medfield02052's Blog 