Worcester Business Journal

A new $130M development is set to bring an old Digital Equipment Corp. site back to life BY GRANT WELKER Worcester Business Journal News Editor A long time coming T wo decades have passed since Digital Equipment Corp. occupied a 58-acre site in Maynard just a mile south of town center. More than half of that time has been spent trying to redevelop the property. Final- ly, a new use is becoming a reality. Site work on the $130-million retail-and-housing complex Maynard Crossing is underway, with the first retail tenants slated to open in mid- 2019. e development will include 300,000 square feet of retail, along with 180 residential units in three buildings called Grandville at Maynard and a 143-unit senior living facility slated to start construction in July. A Planet Fitness gym, a 110 Grill, a Mexican restaurant, a day spa and an Emerson Hospital outpatient urgent care center are among those commit- ted to the project. A Market32 grocery store had long been a planned anchor, but the company now doesn't have definitive plans for the development. e Maynard Crossing plan, now smaller than first envisioned, fits better with a trend toward a mix of uses. "In some ways, I think we're lucky," Town Administrator Andrew Scrib- ner-MacLean said of the town dodging less-popular alternatives. "It's definitely a positive development." A technology capital e Parker Street site, originally a farm, was turned into an industrial park in 1960s. DEC bought the site in the early 1970s, later adding two additional buildings, according to the Maynard Historical Society. DEC was once a behemoth in the computer industry, second only to IBM and employing more than 100,000 worldwide. But DEC's strength was computers popular with scientists and the government, not more user-friendly desktop versions geared to consumers. "ey began to have difficulties in the very late '80s," said Edgar Schein, a retired MIT management professor who wrote a book about DEC in 2004. "e market for their kind of product was drying up, and they weren't able to design what the consumer wanted." DEC was more committed to technol- ogy than making money, Schein said, a mindset helping lead to its demise. e company was vastly downsized by the time California computer manufacturer Compaq bought it in 1998. DEC le the Parker Street property that year. Picking the right use A later owner, John Wolters, bought the property in 2000 for $13 million with a proposal for a commercial devel- opment. Maynard Town Meeting voters approved a zoning change to allow for commercial use in 2006; but Wolters ran into financial troubles, and in 2011, the site was sold at a foreclosure auction. e current owners, Capital Group Properties of Southborough, didn't im- mediately get town backing. Town Meet- ing voters denied a zoning change in 2013, leaving Capital Group Properties to instead propose affordable housing units and a big-box retailer – features residents did not want to see. A change in plans to include rela- tively smaller-scale retail – a Walmart Supercenter was a potential tenant – and a senior-living component changed the project's fortunes. A necessary zoning change was approved in January 2016. Capital Group Properties agreed to pay $1 million to Maynard, help with road improvements and ban fast-food chains. "e people in Maynard are very pas- sionate about this project. A lot of people worked at this site," said Bob Depietri, a vice president for Capital Group Proper- ties. "A lot of people had different ideas for how it should be developed." Maynard Crossing will fill something of a geographic void in MetroWest retail. e nearest plazas of similar size are five miles north at the Acton Plaza in Acton, which is anchored by a Roche Bros., T.J.Maxx and HomeGoods, or the Stop & Shop-anchored Wayland Town Center development six miles to the south. Maynard Board of Selectmen Chair- man Christopher DiSilva said residents don't need to be concerned about the project harming existing businesses, as they could thrive with competition. DiS- ilva said residents are glad to see the Parker Street site no longer vacant. "It's the right project for the town of Maynard," he said. e last office building of a small cluster at the site was finally torn down last year. In February, the part of the site where the retirement community will go was sold for $2.25 million. Other DEC remnants Maynard Crossing is one of many former DEC properties le vacant when the company dissolved into Compaq. "is site was a major business center for the area, with thousands of people 1960s: Digital Equipment Corp. expands at new office complex at 129 Parker St. in Maynard. 1998: Compaq buys DEC for more than $9 billion. DEC downsizes with thou- sands of layoffs and leaves the Maynard site vacant. 2000: John Wolters buys the former DEC site for $13 million. June 2006: Maynard Town Meeting approves zoning change from industrial to mixed use to allow for Wolters' proposal to move forward. The zoning allows for up to 100 residential units. February 2007: Town Meeting approves concept plan for the site. September 2009: Plan- ning Board issues site plan permit for the development, where Price Chopper signs a lease to open a grocery store under its Market32 brand. April 2011: Site is sold at a foreclosure auction. May 2013: Town Meeting rejects zoning change for the site, with opponents citing concerns about traffic and harm to the town's character. October 2014: Town Meeting rejects another zoning proposal, this time for residential development. January 2016: Town Meeting approves zoning change for the project, after senior housing is incorpo- rated into the plan. October 2016: Town Meeting approves a new concept plan for the site, letting the housing-and-re- tail efforts move forward. November 2017: A $3.2-million grant from the 2017 MassWorks Infrastructure Program is secured to cover sewer upgrades for Parker Street for the project. Maynard Crossing, a timeline Maynard Crossing has begun soliciting tenants, which already includes Planet Fitness, 110 Grill and an urgent care center. PHOTOS/GRANT WELKER Source: The Beacon-Villager, The Boston Globe, Telegram & Gazette 10 Worcester Business Journal | May 14, 2018 | wbjournal.com

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