Hospital is impossible dream for BRMC site
Published on March 15th, 2000
STONEHAM, MA - The Gutierrez Company plans to build an office park on the Boston Regional Medical Center Campus on Woodland Road.
Charles Houghton, attorney for the Burlington-based developers, presented a draft of a zoning change to the Planning Board at the March 8 meeting. The draft was of a medical/office district. The area is currently zoned for medical use. A zoning change requires a two-thirds vote of Town Meeting.
When Gutierrez hooked Lahey Clinic as a tenant for 100,000 square feet of the old hospital campus, hopes were high that a full-scale hospital similar to BRMC would return to the site.
"Gutierrez has paid attention to what the town wants," said Stoneham Community Development Director Stephen Sadwick.
The town - as manifest in letters to the editor and comments from selectmen and Board of Health members - wants a hospital, but this may not be possible in today's economy.
Last week Lahey spokespeople said using the BRMC space as an ambulatory or emergency facility, as they had once considered, was "not financially viable." They cited the Harvard Pilgrim fiasco and the changing nature of the industry.
This week the Planning Board asked Sadwick to examine districts developed by other communities for similar parcels. The Board took no action at the March 8 meeting but plans to have an article ready for the Special Town Meeting within the Annual set for May 1.
"It is a top priority of the board to figure out the best way to redevelop this 40 acres of property which it seems will never be reincarnated as a hospital," said Planning Board Chairman Gus Niewenhous.
The property may never again be what it once was - a community hospital - but many doctors remain in offices there, and further development, Sadwick said, could generate increased revenue for the town.
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