Article below from http://www.usmayors.org/

Project was largely made possible by tax increment financing.

Request for Discussion: Readers, please submit other success stories.

http://www.usmayors.org/
http://www.usmayors.org/USCM/brownfields/bp103097.htm

Best Practices ‘97 -Everett, Massachusetts (10/30/97)

Everett’s Former Brownfields Will Become Gateway Shopping Center, Park and Mellon Bank Regional Headquarters

October 30, 1997

The City of Everett, Massachusetts is in many ways a perfect example of the small urban industrial community. Located just outside of Boston, Everett has long been home to major manufacturing industries, such as Monsanto Chemical Corporation, General Electric Company, and Textron Defense Systems. But as these companies have phased out their plants, Everett, like so many other cities in the Northeast, is faced with finding new uses for old and environmentally damaged industrial sites.

Mayor John R. McCarthy has taken on the challenge of finding new and exciting uses for what once would have been considered unusable properties, working closely with state legislators and environmental agencies to turn these sites into opportunities for new businesses and jobs and to increase Everett’s tax base.

At the southern end of Everett sits the 65-acre Monsanto site, which for over a century has been used for the manufacture of a variety of chemical products. In the course of operations, the site was badly contaminated. Five years ago, when the Monsanto Company closed the plant, many feared that the property could never be reused. Mayor McCarthy worked with Monsanto executives to assure that not only would the property be cleaned up in accordance with the state’s stringent environmental regulations, but that the clean-up would be carried out with reuse of the facility in mind. “Everett is a land-poor community with limited opportunities for new development,” said Mayor McCarthy. “I could not see 65 acres of property, including part of Everett’s waterfront, left vacant.”

The result of the Mayor’s effort is the Gateway Shopping Center, a 650,000 square-foot power center being developed by Rosen Associates of Miami. “Although there is a higher level of risk associated with purchasing a brownfield site, Mayor McCarthy assured me the City of Everett would actively assist our company in obtaining the local and state permits needed for the project,” said Clifford D. Rosen, President of Rosen Associates. “His aggressive attitude ultimately convinced me this was a project worth pursuing.”

Mayor McCarthy and his staff worked closely with local agencies, such as the Conservation Commission and Building Department, as well as state agencies such as the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, to assure a “green light” for the project. The state’s environmental agency, in granting final approval for the project, commended the city and the developer for their close cooperation. The Mayor also worked with the state government to win approval of $3 million in traffic improvements to Route 16, the major roadway at the entrance to the Gateway Shopping Center.

In addition to the $70 million Gateway Shopping Center, the largest urban retail development of a brownfield site in Massachusetts, the project also calls for the creation of a 23.5 acre waterfront park to be overseen by the Metropolitan District Commission. This area, known as the Gateway Park, will be developed for recreational use. Access to the site will be created for both pedestrian and bicycle traffic, adding to a long range regional bicycle system that can be used for both business and recreational trips.

Not far from the site of the Gateway project stands the former Textron research and development facility, built upon the site of a city landfill. The two-story building, with 300,000 square feet of office space, was once home to defense related projects and was the victim of corporate downsizing. Mayor McCarthy worked with brokers, as well as prospective owners, developers and tenants, concerning possible real estate tax relief as allowed under state law. These discussions have involved the city’s attorneys and assessors in an effort to encourage local investment and job creation.

As a direct result of the Mayor’s negotiations, Mellon Bank has recently announced its decision to locate its northeast headquarters on the former Textron site. In excess of $30 million will be invested to create a first-class office facility and to remediate the environmental conditions left behind by previous users. The city also will receive 6.4 acres of remediated waterfront property which abuts the office complex and currently belongs to Textron. “The city will finally gain ownership of a bit of its own waterfront,” said Mayor McCarthy.

The project was largely made possible by an innovative use of a state statute creating a tax increment financing program. The developer will continue to pay taxes at the current value of the property while receiving relief from the burden of taxes on the new growth. Such an agreement encourages a partnership between the city and its new corporate citizen which promotes development and better use of the city’s valuable real estate.

Innovation is clearly the key to making better use of Everett’s brownfields. Other Industrial properties abutting the Textron site are now part of a tri-city development program created by Mayor McCarthy and his counterparts in the neighboring cities of Malden and Medford. This development, known as TeleCom City, is a first-in-the-nation attempt to link properties in three separate communities through the use of a development commission headed by the three mayors. “We have effectively increased our real estate base by joining with two other cities to create a regional development,” said Mayor McCarthy. “In this way, we can attract more and better businesses to replace outdated industrial users.”

TeleCom City already has attracted widespread attention as a future center for research and development in the growing field of telecommunications. Many of the properties contained within the approximately 100 acres designated as part of this project are environmentally impaired and are not being optimized. TeleCom City will bring incubator companies as well as spin-offs from the area’s universities to create clean, attractive uses. It will also include redevelopment of the area infrastructure and cleanup of the waterfront along the Malden River, resulting in a new and attractive business center with jobs and increased tax revenue for the three cities.

“I am very proud of Everett’s record of brownfield development,” said Mayor McCarthy. “By using creative strategies to form partnerships with the private sector, Everett is seeing its contaminated properties cleaned and is attracting a better quality of business to those properties.” Additional information on Everett’s redevelopment initiatives is available from Mark Reich, (617) 394-2231.

The United States Conference of Mayors
J. Thomas Cochran, Executive Director
1620 Eye Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006
Telephone (202) 293-7330, FAX (202) 293-2352

Copyright © 1997, US Conference of Mayors, All rights reserved.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 11th, 2007 at 10:43 am and is filed under ●Brownfields Financing, ●Brownfields Success Stories.

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