Study Pinpointing Hot Growth Areas Wrapping Up
As a major year-long study of development and preservation areas across the MetroWest region nears completion, local and state officials have begun to identify the area's top sites for business and infrastructure expansion as well as state investments.
The 495/MetroWest Development Compact is a study of 37 communities along the Interstate 495 Corridor, stretching from Westford and Littleton in the north to Plainville and Foxborough in the south, continuing as far west as Worcester.
The goal is to identify regionally important areas for development and preservation, which could help state officials guide investment dollars into specific projects.
On Tuesday night in Framingham, officials with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Council, the 495/MetroWest Partnership, among other groups unveiled their initial findings, which include 91 regionally significant priority development areas and close to 192 priority preservation areas.
The committee is expected to release a report by the end of the year, which could lead to targeted investments by state officials.
Telling Trends
Planning officials developed the sites based on mapping data, interviews and meetings with local officials in each of the towns and public forums.
Hudson has seven regionally significant development sites, according to the initial findings, including the town's Route 85 corridor. Ashland and Harvard, and specifically the Devens development, have six regionally significant development sites. Marlborough, Milford, Westborough, Worcester and Littleton each have five regionally significant development sites noted in the study, including the Hewlett Packard and Fidelity campus sites and the Westborough State Hospital site.
The MAPC - which lead the study - found that the region has much more capacity for business development than for housing development.
According to MAPC projections, the region has a capacity for more than 200,000 new jobs, but there is only projected to be 50,000 new jobs in the area during the next two decades.
Meanwhile, on the housing front, the region has a capacity of about 30,000 new homes, meaning sites zoned for residential construction. There could be a need for up to 60,000 new residential units in the region, however.
The meeting at Framingham Town Hall Tuesday night wrapped up with a panel discussion by area developers, consultants, state and local officials.
Scott Weiss, a managing director of commercial development for Burlington-based developer Gutierrez Co., which has almost a dozen holdings in the region, said the entire study process is valuable for identifying the best areas for growth in MetroWest.
"This effort in and of itself ... offers a tremendous benefit," he said. Findings that show the need to produce more housing, and getting various stakeholders in the region including local, state and private officials to agree on where the most logical places for development are will make executing projects that much easier, he suggested.
Weiss believes the best opportunities for growth are where there are already clusters of success, as tenants and businesses enjoy being in dense areas where there are other businesses or amenities.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments