Looking back: Army closes Fort Devens in 1996

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This year, the Worcester Business Journal marks its 25th anniversary. In each print edition, we will highlight a major event that took place within the Central Massachusetts business community between 1990 and 2014 and how that event impacts today's business scene.

Later this year, on Oct. 13, we will publish a special 25th Anniversary commemorative edition in which we will look at the companies and business leaders who made a difference in the region, and we'll look ahead to what the coming years could bring.

EVENT: Fort Devens closes, and transitions into the Devens Commerce Center.

RECAP: Originally created to prepare soldiers from New England for combat
in World War I, Fort Devens closed in April 1996 as part of U.S. Army cutbacks,
just a few short years after the end of the Cold War. (Part of it remains a reservist center today.) But with the approval of the state, and voters in the towns in which Devens is located — Ayer, Harvard and Shirley — a quasipublic economic development and real estate agency, MassDevelopment, took over to lead Devens toward a goal of transitioning into a diverse residential and business community.

FAST FORWARD: Devens has successfully re-emerged as a haven for business
development in Central Massachusetts. In 2010, just 14 years after the fort’s closure, Devens-based companies employed more than 3,200 and supported an additional 2,600 jobs through secondary spending, according to the UMass Donahue Institute. All told, the businesses contributed close to $1.5 billion to the state’s economy.

More recently, Devens became home to New England Studios, which is hoping
to draw more television and film production to the Bay State. And longtime
area manufacturers Nypro and Saint-Gobain recently expanded there.