NORTHBOROUGH – The Select Board and the land use boards may have a joint meeting in the near future to discuss downtown revitalization efforts, such as determining the future location of town offices.
Planning Director Laurie Connors and Master Plan Implementation Committee (MPIC) Chair Rick Leif went before the Select Board on Aug. 12 to gauge the board’s interest in a joint meeting to discuss economic development initiatives.
Northborough’s Master Plan was completed in 2020.
In a memo to the Select Board, the MPIC provided a spreadsheet that outlined the goals and objectives in the Master Plan and their statuses.
“As far as the plan itself, as you can see from the matrix, we’re doing pretty well on the master plan,” Leif said. “A lot of the recommendations of the plan have either been completed or are underway.”
At the beginning of its meetings, the MPIC decided to concentrate its efforts on economic development and downtown revitalization. A downtown revitalization study was created that focuses on three different geographic areas.
However, in the memo, the MPIC wrote that it felt that continued economic development and downtown revitalization progress depended on several decisions that were outside of the authority of the committee.
Those decisions included reaching a consensus on the type and amount of housing needed in and near downtown; defining design standards for how the downtown should look and feel; and determining the future location of town offices.
In June, the Town Offices Feasibility Study Committee presented a report to the Select Board. As part of its report, the committee recommended that Town Hall move to White Cliffs.
Leif said that these three decisions all came back to recommendations in the Master Plan regarding revitalizing downtown and the downtown revitalization study.
“Determining the placement of town offices is critical because the master plan and the downtown revitalization plan talked quite a bit about the area down Blake Street from 4 West Main St. where the Town Hall is now, back to the existing fire station on Pierce Street as a prime area where revitalization could happen,” Leif said.
Leif also noted that Connors has a request for proposals out to improve the streetscape on Blake Street and the recent news that resident Millie Milton intended to develop the former fire station at 13 Church St. along with two abutting lots.
“It really opens the door to looking at that area north of Route 20 as a great place to look for revitalization,” Leif said.
Additionally, if town offices will not move to the old Town Hall site at 4 West Main St. or the current fire station, then revitalization work can continue.
The other outstanding issues included determining the level of support the government should provide to recruit new businesses; whether the town should expand its commercial and industrial tax base through development, infill and/or redevelopment of underutilized properties; creating an economic development committee, business improvement district and/or economic development coordinator position.
“Before we move forward with that, there needs to be some sort of consensus on how much economic development the town is willing to support,” Connors said.
Once these decisions are made, the MPIC can continue to work to see how it can be implemented in the future, Leif said.