$2.5 m. to remove all asbestos from MSH in 1998

At the State Hospital Advisory Committee committee meeting last Thursday, John Thompson, chair of both the State Hospital Environmental Review Committee (SHERC) and the MSH Environmental Cleanup Mediation Committee, reported on a 1998 study done for the state on asbestos at the Medfield State Hospital  site.  He indicated that the study was performed by an exceedingly reputable company, and that it had concluded that it would cost $2.5 m. to remove all the asbestos from all the buildings at the MSH.  John provided the SHAC the two notebook binders that contained the survey materials.

Since that survey had been done,

• the state did remove all asbestos from the R Building at the rear of the site and the building also renovated at that same time directly in front of the R Building.
• the state demolished three or more of the buildings

In order to reuse the site, the building will most likely have to be removed, due to the advanced state of deterioration to which they have sunk, and at that time any asbestos would have to be removed.

DCAMM has supplied to SHAC what it has to pay, using the prevailing wages the state must pay, to demolish buildings similar to those at the Medfield State Hospital, and that figure was $11 to $14 per sq. ft.  DCAMM also says that if the demolition is done by a private party, as the town envisions would happen at the MSH redevelopment, that in DCAMM’s experience the cost is $6 per sq. ft.   Those DCAMM figures are “all in” figures, which include the cost to abate things such as asbestos and/or lead paint in the buildings.

Any deteriorated building can be saved, but those at the MSH site can probably only be saved by the expenditure of such large sums of monies that most observers suggest that it is economically not feasible to save them.  The economics derive from the fact that someone must pay the extra costs required to rehab such deteriorated building, and that extra cost must either come out of and redevelopment or from the town’s residents’ property taxes.  That decision of whether to pay the larger amounts required to save the buildings, or not, will ultimately be another of the town’s decisions, if the town first opts to purchase the property.

My guess is that the town will opt to save only a very few buildings, perhaps the iconic Lee chapel and two to three more that are in good shape, and to demolish the rest.  I am also guessing that most of us are not going to be willing to pay more in property taxes to save the rest of the MSH buildings and will prefer any redevelopment to have less density than might be required to create the extra monies to rehab any more of the buildings.