Unicorn rezoning OK'd, hotel in proposal
Published on March 11th, 1998
WOBURN, MA - With little left to discuss or debate, the City Council quickly approved this week a rezoning proposal for Unicorn Park in East Woburn. In exchange for $125,000 in off-site im-provements, the Davis Properties development company was granted the rezoning which could lead way to an 186,000 square-foot office building in the northernmost section of the property.
The land on which the office building could sit was rezoned from residential (R-1) use to office park (OP) must now go before the Planning Board under site plan review for the office building.
An interesting scenario could develop if the Planning Board disagrees with some of the conces-sions agreed to by the council.
Davis Properties is also expected to return to the council next month with a proposal for a Wyndham Gardens hotel at the site.
A special permit is required for the hotel. Ward 5 Alderman Paul Medeiros asked Tuesday night that the off-site improvements be updated to the Planing Board.
"We can recommend on (the basis of the board's) site plan review that all these mitigation items are addressed," said Medeiros. The items to which Medeiros referred include improvements to the traffic signals on Washington Street, at both the Salem Street and Montvale Avenue intersec-tions.
Also included were improvements to sidewalks and drainage in the East Woburn, as well as a $10,000 contribution to the Goodyear Elementary School's "Commitment to Excellence" program, and a $5,000 donation to the Kids' Kingdom playground fund.
Davis Properties also agreed to finance a handicapped accessible street hockey rink at Leland Park. Some members of the council, as well as the executive director of the Woburn Business Association, are alarmed by the breadth of the off-site improvements.
Other aldermen have defended the mitigation measures as a legitimate return for the encroach-ment the project will have on the neighborhood.
The amendment most closely impacting the neighbors of the project is an agreement with Davis and the council that will turn over a five-foot strip of land between the northern boundary of Uni-corn Park and Salem Street.
While both sides are reticent to call it a "buffer zone," the conveyance gives the city a firm as-surance that an access road will not be built from Salem Street to the park. The office building and hotel would complete the seven structure Unicorn Office Park.
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