The town is seeking residents with real estate development expertise, who are willing to assist the town in the process of evaluating whether the Town of Medfield should purchase the former Medfield State Hospital site from the state. Within the past month DCAM made known that it is willing to sell the site to the town, on terms yet to be worked out. Therefore, the town now needs to determine whether it is in the best interest of the town to purchase that site.
To evaluate the possible purchase of the former Medfield State Hospital site, the Board of Selectmen are seeking to recruit residents with real estate development experience to advise the town. If you have skills that can assist the town in this process and if you are willing to volunteer some time, you can let me, Mike Sullivan and/or Kristine Trieweiller know of your interest.
DCAM is proceeding with the feasibility study of uses for the former Medfield State Hospital sits that it commissioned from Jones, Lang, LaSalle. We are told that feasibility study should be finished in 60-90 days.
Medfield02052's Blog 
Pete,
It would seem to me that regardless of whether or not the town would ever retain or develop any portion of the site, it would be in the town’s best interest to pursue acquisition for the sole purppose of being able to control how the site gets used/developed/sold etc… As you know, leaving the site in the hands of the state/DCAM to dispose of as they wish wouldn’t leave the residents with a very confident feeling. In my opinion, the town should acquire the property and explore the best use for it which may mean some mix of sale for private development and retaining for town use.
Just my two cents…
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Mike, It was exactly because of that comfort with controlling the site and its ultimate uses that I especially thought that the town would jump to buy the property. It may ultimately still involve building housing, but the town will control exactly what sort of housing and all the details. Town counsel has argued that we will already have that sort of control via the current legislation and the Memorandum of Understanding that we were in the process of negoitiating with the state when the development process just stopped moving forward, but I think there is nothing like actual ownership to make one feel even more secure.
I would argue that at the very least, we need to learn all the details of the deal, before we just turn away from it as Ann had suggested.
Nice to see you at the Building Committee meeting last night – thanks for doing that work for the town.
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Glad to serve the town, Pete. I look forward to assisting in the upcoming municipal building projects.
Meant to introduce myself to you formally, but you were engaged in conversation and I didn’t want to interrupt, my apologies. Next time…
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Pete,
Regarding Town Counsel’ s comment mentioned in your 4/12/12 posting about the existing Legislation giving the Town a “sort of control” over DCAM’s housing : The actual wording in the Hospital Legislation says “Re-use plan may be amended from time to time by the division[DCAM]..with the consent of the Board of Selectmen”. Also says “The commissioner[DCAM’s]…after receiving consent of the board of selectmen…may amend the reuse plan as the commissioner considers necessary.”
With all due respect to Town Counsel, I would contend that this is “control” by no stretch of the imagination.
Right now DCAM is exploring a different use from the 440 unit residential legislation. What do you imagine will happen if DCAM’s new preferred use makes the property more attractive to a developer and brings them a higher sale price? The old plan is gone in a heartbeat, and the Selectmen’s “consent” better be given or all DCAM has to do is walk away and go out for bids. What is the Town going to do? Sue to force the old agreement, which I have repeatedly shown will cost Medfield taxpayers $1- $3 million annually? At best the Board of Selectmen will again be strong-armed into an agreement just like it was in 2005 when the State gave the Town a choice of entering into the 440 unit re-use plan or face an even larger-scale residential development.
Purchase by the Town is clearly the only way to really “control” what happens at the Hospital site. The questions are whether the Town can swing it financially, and what it would take to manage development. The only way to do this is with a Purchase/Re-use study by residents with the appropriate expertise.
I think that to reject the idea of even investigating our taking control of the Town’s future, or to slow-roll it while the State rushes ahead with their own plans, is indefensible.
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Bill,
I much prefer the Town of Medfield to own the property and to control the ultimate uses by that mechanism, than to try to exercise control over a developer and the state via the legislation and Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). To be fair to the town counsel, I think that he was positing that a lot of the town’s control over DCAM and its developer would be by means of the MOU, which document was never worked out. Drafts were prepared, but never negotiated with the state.
Pete
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