Southbridge Puts Politics Aside For Park
Long-stalled project struggles to get back on track
Had the Southbridge Environmental Industrial Park come to be in 1998 as planned, it would've been ahead of its time.
Fittingly, environmental concerns about the construction of an access road connecting the park to Route 169 killed the town's chances to develop the "environmental" industrial park, and the town now finds itself desperate for business, jobs and tax revenue.
After nearly 10 years of delays, the park, with build-out potential of 1.1 million square feet, sits virtually empty, and the opportunity for the town to market and develop the park as "environmental" is not what it used to be. Clayton Carlisle, Southbridge town manager, said the town would "focus on environmental, but not to the exclusion of other development." He said one environmental-type prospective tenant has shown interest in the park recently.
"We need that industrial park very badly," said Cassandra Acly, Southbridge's economic development director. "It's extremely important to the town. We need more companies, we need more good, high-tech, solid, blue-collar and white-collar jobs."
But the town can't plunk down an industrial park just anywhere. Buildable land in Southbridge is scarce. The old factory town is built out almost completely and remaining vacant land is rocky and wet. So, in the late 1990s, the town chose a site off Pleasant Street on a hill near the town landfill and the municipal airport and spent about $1 million securing property rights, rights of way and designing the project.
The property is zoned for heavy industrial use. Combined, the landfill, airport and industrial park total about 400 acres.
Taking Off
Route 20, Interstate 84 and the Massachusetts Turnpike are all relatively close to the park, but access to the park must be improved, Acly said. "We can't ask any more traffic to go up the way they've been going up," she said.
"We expected to get a new road in within a couple of years. But there were environmental concerns with the road and it got political," she added.
So political that Carlisle said to describe it would be to "shorten my tenure here," adding only that Southbridge "councilors that supported it were voted out of office."
Some city councilors still "oppose the landfill" Carlisle said. As a result, businesses in town have accused the government of ignoring the development of anything but downtown Southbridge, and voters seem to agree. Last year, the question of whether the access road for the park should be built was put before voters as a ballot question, and voters supported the road 2-1, Acly said.
"That halted the politics," Acly said. But in the meantime, the 10-year-old plan for the park, and the finance agreement for the development of the access road and management of the landfill between the town and Wood Recycling Inc., the park's only tenant, became obsolete.
Wood Recycling Inc. was bought by Casella Waste Systems Inc. in 2004, and Carlisle said the town struck a management agreement with Casella similar to the one it had with Wood. Casella has agreed to pay for the construction of the access road and for the water and sewer lines to be run up the road to the property, Carlisle said. Casella has already spent $2 million blasting a path for the road, and the road itself should be finished by the end of the month, Carlisle said.
That simple road could open the large tract of town-owned land to a development blitz. Along with the industrial park, Carlisle said the town's 250-acre airport is set for improvements and expansion. The airport is currently home to about 50 light planes, and Carlisle said its runway could soon be lengthened from 3,500 feet to 4,000 feet. Also, there are plans for six new hangars to go along with the 15 currently at the airport and for some of the oldest hangars to be demolished.
"We have interest from time to time," Acly said of the industrial park. "And we have direct phone calls from the types of companies that are moving west of (Interstate) 495." She said the town's plan, once the park is ready, is to help tenants move in as quickly as possible.
"When a business is looking, it'll be a short time for things to be set in motion," she said.
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