MetroWest495 Biz

18 MetroWest495 Biz | February 2015 I t was a rough start. But leasing activity at Westborough's Bay State Commons, a 55-acre mixed-use development with retail and housing adjacent to downtown and the junction of routes 30 and 135, appears to be picking up, despite early setbacks. According to Paul Matthews, execu- tive director of the 495 MetroWest Partnership, a regional group promot- ing sustainable economic development, the effort has paid off. "They turned a brownfield site into a real innovative model," he said. "It can't be overstated that this site was empty, in the middle of downtown. The town more than met [developers] halfway. At the time, it was unheard of for a project of this scale to do a mix of public park, housing and retail space." From the beginning, the 2007 Bay State Commons project — which includes 44 luxury apartments and large and small retail units — was dif - ferent from other mixed-use develop- ments. The brownfields site was home to manufacturer Bay State Abrasives until 2002. As a result, hazardous waste cleanup was needed, and an old manufacturing building had to be demolished. With a half-million-square-foot contaminated structure on the site, stormwater drainage problems and a host of other complications, serious work was needed before any construc - tion could begin. Enter Waterman Design of Westborough. Owner Randy Waterman said gaining access to Main Street in Westborough was also among the "tons of issues" to deal with. "This project took four years for zon - ing, site plan review … and one year for demolition of the old building," Water- man said. "We wrote a new zoning code to allow the mixed-use there." Larger forces But by the time the town got all those approvals, the fiscal picture had changed, said local Realtor Deb Schradieck, chair of the town's design review board. Recession hit, complete with higher unemployment and less real estate activity across the country. "The economy tanked … timing was not good" for leasing space, West - borough Town Manager Jim Malloy remembers. So, with the Roche Bros. grocery store in place as Bay State Commons' anchor tenant, attention turned to the on-site condominium complex, Parkview on the Commons, where its 44 units sat vacant. To nudge residents to move in, an auction was held for 16 of the units. Asking prices for a one-bedroom unit, for example, hovered around $500,000 in 2008; at the auction, starting bids were at 60 percent of that cost. Real estate developer Matthew Senie bought one of the condos at that auction, and lives there today, with his wife. He called the auction a good move for Parkview and Bay State Commons to spur activity and then build on the momentum with future condo sales. "They got the values stabilized, and every unit was sold," he said. But commercial leasing at Bay State Commons however, has been slower. Since 2010, Senie has seen a Hall - mark shop, Sleep Shop and a Verizon store move out — about 10,000 square feet of space vacated. However, a restaurant, real estate office, liquor P H O T O / M A T T V O L P I N I cutline cutline cutline BY SUSAN SHALHOUB Special to MetroWest495Biz Built before the Great Recession, Bay State Commons struggled with retail leasing initially but has slowly added tenants in recent years. Bay State Commons coming into its own The West submarket ranked second by square footage gain in Greater Boston, due in large part to a new Market Basket in Hudson and a Walmart expansion in Northborough Year-to Submarket 2014 sq. ft. year change West 25,876,300 2.3% Southwest 20,051,200 0.5% Northwest 17,524,300 0.7% 2014 2013 Submarket vacancy vacancy West 8.5% 7.6% Southwest 6.3% 6.7% Northwest 6.40% 6.40% Source: Keypoint Partners LLC, Retail Real Estate Trends & Analysis 2014 Hudson, Northborough expansions boost retail, but vacancy close to flat

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