Developmental Disorder
Westborough State Hospital is finally empty and the state’s attention has been turned to what may become of the 125-year-old property.
The site is 180 acres and includes nearly 30 buildings, some in use until earlier this month when the facility’s last remaining patients were moved to the newly renovated Worcester State Hospital, and others long vacant.
A special commission appointed by the state legislature recently held its first meeting, and is tasked with figuring out how the property should be developed.
The Westborough site, however, has been under state control for so long that it is essentially un-zoned.
The commission must resist any temptation to keep the hospital property in state hands. It must be declared “surplus property” by the state, public uses must be kept to a bare minimum, and the vast majority of it offered up for private development.
This is the kind of site that can make a developer’s mouth water, and with proper zoning that allows for a variety of uses, a request for proposals would attract multiple, quality responses.
Physical Condition
What should be done with the property, which began life in the late 1800s as the Westborough Insane Hospital, has been a question since early 2007, when the state announced plans to consolidate its network of mental hospitals to just two in Worcester and Taunton.
Since then, little has been said publicly about the property. Local residents were more upset by the loss of jobs at the hospital than by the mystery surrounding its future.
Because of the economy or the lack of zoning, local media reports have said that developers have not approached the state or the Town of Westborough with ideas for the property’s redevelopment.
It is important that the commission avoid limiting itself or the hospital property. There’s enough space, enough land and sufficient access for a number of uses, and multiple uses should be encouraged.
The property is very near Interstate 495 and Route 9, convenient for almost anything.
It is on the shores of Chauncey Lake and would be a lovely location for residential development, an office park, a school, a mixed use development, or all of the above.
In 2007, the 495/MetroWest Partnership said the hospital property’s location made it ideal for big box retail development, but warned that local residents were likely to resist that idea mightily.
The partnership, which has membership on the commission, essentially took big box development off the table three years ago.
And that’s fine. In many ways, the Westborough State Hospital site is too good for big box development. We would be particularly interested to see a developer brought in that could work with the site's historic buildings, rather than just tearing them down.
We would never advocate for a lack of focus on the government’s part. The danger is in government’s habit of looking for a silver bullet to knock down its challenges swiftly and with a minimum of effort.
Government and elected officials want to wring every drop of uncertainty out of real estate development. But development is inherently unpredictable, and we’ve seen that strategy fail on projects much smaller than Westborough State Hospital. To this day, the Worcester City Council scoffs when Worcester Polytechnic Institute mentions that Gateway Park will include more student housing than originally planned.
The state could spare itself the headaches and recruit more competent, enthusiastic developers for Westborough State Hospital by setting some basic ground rules and regulations and leaving the vision and execution to the professionals.
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