High Hopes Traded For Idle Hands In South County
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Several projects in the southern part of Worcester County have never materialized due to the economy, including this proposed 600,000-square-foot project that was planned in Charlton.
The boom years seemed almost too good to be true for Southern Worcester County. Major commercial developments sprung up in rural towns along Route 20 and Interstate 395 and developers had even bigger plans for the region when the economy collapsed.
Now, as a new decade begins, towns like Charlton, Southbridge and Sturbridge are waiting for the kind of rebound that can restore the aspirations they lost just a couple of years ago.
Plan Withdrawn
Perhaps no single development better illustrates the hopes and frustrations of these small towns like the Charlton Crossing project along Route 20 in Charlton. Konover Development Corp. of Connecticut planned a massive, 600,000-square-foot shopping center for the 120 acres of wooded and residential area but backed out when the economy soured.
Now, the site’s future is uncertain.
Alan I. Gordon, the town’s economic development director, said as the economy turned bad, negotiations between Konover and prospective tenants of the center became difficult and land owners who had agreed to sell their parcels for the development were unwilling to accept sale terms that included lengthened payment schedules.
Still, “they withdrew the project in a very good, positive way” and several tenants that planned to be part of the Charlton Crossing development have maintained contact with local commercial real estate brokers and have indicated that they have an interest in locating in Charlton, Gordon said.
“We’ve not only bottomed out in Charlton, but we’ve seen a slight uptick” in business interest in the town and home purchases.
Most of the business interest is from small retail and office uses. “But the big, regional megaproject like Konover isn’t going to happen even if the tenants would still like to come to town.”
Not far from Charlton, a new Market Basket supermarket recently opened near I-395 in Oxford. Further south, Southbridge is trying to aggressively seek out development opportunities for itself so that major projects, including a major town center redo and the construction of a controversial access road to developable land on the site of a Casella Waste Systems operation, don’t wilt on the vine.
But despite the best efforts, projects come down to financing and Alix McNitt, president of the Central Mass South Chamber of Commerce, said there’s just no financing to be had.
“The Southbridge Town Council is doing field trips to other similar places, and I think that’s a really good idea,” McNitt said. “Everybody’s got their ducks in a row, and they’ve got a couple of things that are maybe closer to reality” because of it.
Still, “there are a lot of discussions and people are just waiting for the money to start flowing, and it really hasn’t been flowing in anybody’s direction lately.”
In Sturbridge, where the Central Mass South chamber is based, the ambitious Tuscan River entertainment complex on Route 15 has been on hold for more than a year because of financing constraints.
In January 2006, Gary E. Galonek of Kelly Farm Limited Partners and Thomas M. Richert, CEO of Tuscan River Corp. of Acton, approached the town with the idea to develop Tuscan River, a family entertainment complex on 58 acres on two parcels Galonek owns at 17 and 26 Kelly Road.
McNitt said even if financing were to materialize for that project, for which area businesses have expressed support, it would still face a challenge from town residents.
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