MaxPak site on hold

by Ayana Meade

[Ward 5 Alderman Sean O'Donovan was contacted for this story and chose not to participate. He offered this statement: "I have had to recuse myself as an alderman from this project as I moved into the immediate neighborhood. I suggest you call at-large Alderman Sullivan as he was very much involved with the neighborhood issues."--Editor]

The Max Pak Site, which abuts the Lowell Street bridge continues to lie in wait for a plan of action.

“The expectation was that when the developers got the zoning change that they would clean up the site, but it does not look like that’s going to happen in the time frame wanted,” said Joseph Lynch, who is running for Ward 5 Alderman. Lynch sat on The Maxpak Design and Development Review Committee.

The five plus acre former industrial site in Magoun Square has been re-zoned to allow for the construction of a 199-unit condominium, he said.

It is unlikely that any construction will take place in conjunction with the extension of the community path and addition of an MBTA green line stop, as was originally hoped by the community and city officials, he said.

“The zoning’s been approved for 199 units. There’s gonna be access to the bike path at three locations---one on Warwick, one on Lowell, one in the middle of the site. I don’t have the exact dollar figure, but there’s been some money set aside from the developer to the city for beautification and projects in and around Ward 5, ” said Alderman-at-large Dennis M. Sullivan.

Sullivan said he was familiar with what they voted on, but that he did not have any exact dates for when they would break ground. “I’ve been involved with the community meetings, a number of groups were formed. Basically they asked the community what they would like to see and a number of what people wanted to see was incorporated in the development.”

Ralph Russo, one of the more active neighbors on the issue, said he is confident the city and the developer will not move forward without making the neighbors part of the decision.

Lynch said the development of the area should be a carefully coordinated effort between the KSS development company, who owns the site and the community.

“I would continue working with the developer and try to get a finite set of plans so that even if the site does not develop in conjunction with the extension of the path and the extension of the Green Line MBTA system that we can work around it without significantly hindering those other two developments,” he said.

“Ideally what you’d want to do is you’d want all three to be coordinated and all three to be able to be built without hindering any of the other two. So if you take a piece of the puzzle out of the middle you don’t have a complete picture, so as alderman what I’d like to do is make sure that all three are very well tightly coordinated,” he said.

Lynch said the city should not let the development company’s delay to begin contamination clean up and construction, dictate the progress of the community’s initiatives.

“I don’t believe the developer is ready to move ahead at this point, and that’s the unfortunate part, but working with the developer we can lay out our future plans to work around him,” he said.

“We’d rather work with him for the development of the site but we cannot delay the extension of the community path nor the siting of the T stop because of the inability to do the development. It’s on to November, and let's see who’s got the best laid plan for those three projects,” he said.

“It’s gonna accomplish a couple of things. Right now it’s a blighted area. It needs some clean up. The development of this site which had a lot of community input,” Sullivan said.

“We’ve had a number of meetings with the community, what they like to see, so it was a process that was community driven,” he said. “It’s 199-units and I think it’s gonna be good for the neighborhood, it’s gonna clean it up and it’s gonna remove a blighted area.”