March 5, 2005

More commercial space for air base

New development plan calls for 54% increase, boosts permanent jobs

A revised redevelopment plan for the former Weymouth air base will include a 54 percent increase in commercial space, bumping the number of permanent jobs from 2,533 to about 4,000.

LNR Property Corp., the base’s master developer, will present those and other changes Monday night. The meeting is scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. in Rockland High School.

Some highlights of the revised plan:

• Commercial space would increase from 1.3 million square feet to 2 million square feet.
• LNR would build 150 more senior housing units in Rockland.
• Union Street would remain a dead-end road in Weymouth and Rockland.
• The connection to the east side of the 1,405-acre base would be through Reservoir Park Drive, further south than near Abington Street where it was originally proposed.

LNR officials refused to release a copy of the revised plan, saying they want to unveil it on Monday night for everyone.

But they listed some changes residents and officials will see. Many of them will come as no surprise to those who have attended some of the more than 80 public meetings the company has hosted since unveiling its draft proposal in September.

“We’ve been listening to a tremendous amount of input for the last six months from local officials, residents and peer reviewers,” David Hall, LNR senior vice president, said Friday. “We’ve taken that input and used it to create this master plan.”

Last fall, LNR presented its original proposal, which included building 2,855 condos and houses and 1.3 million square feet of commercial space while keeping more than 70 percent of the land zoned as open space.

Its new plan changes those figures, with the increase in commercial space playing a big part.

The 700,000 square feet of additional commercial space is expected to include about 500,000 square feet in the industrial area on the northern side of the base, and about 200,000 square feet of retail on the first floors of mixed-use buildings in the center of the development.

The proposal, either in the master plan or the zoning, will also provide safeguards for the towns so that LNR can only build so much housing before it has to construct commercial buildings.

The South Shore Tri-Town Development Corp., the agency overseeing the base, will take the revised plan and again bring it before the three towns, Abington, Rockland and Weymouth, that the base straddles.

Later this month, Tri-Town expects to vote on a plan that will then go before the three towns. The Weymouth town council and the Abington and Rockland town meetings will then vote on the master plan and the zoning to go with it, probably later this spring.

Hall said that would just be the beginning of the approval process, as the developer would have to go through state permitting and zoning with the towns.

LNR and each town will also negotiate agreements spelling out extras like outside road improvements, the renovating or building of schools, the possible opening of a fire station, and other amenities that won’t be in the master plan or zoning.

“Even if approved, this is far from the last hurdle,” Hall said. “We have had probably 80 public meetings since September and we expect to continue that three-a-week clip of meeting with the public for the foreseeable future.”

Mark Fontecchio may be reached by clicking here.