By Bill Archambeault
Journal Staff
BURLINGTON - With the approval of town meeting last week, plans are moving forward for a three-way land swap that will produce an office building and senior housing, and will also add 11 acres of open space and preserve a historic building.
The vote, which required a two-thirds majority, passed 74-22 on May 16. The deal, which is waiting for approval from the state attorney general’s office, would trade land owned by the town, the Gutierrez Co., a Burlington-based office developer, and Ruping Builders of Billerica. Though a number of details need to be worked out in the permitting process, Burlington planning director Tony Fields said the land swap will allow the town to develop affordable housing, protect open space and preserve a historic building-all goals of the state’s recently enacted Community Preservation Act-but with a distinct advantage.
“We are creating more open space than we would have obtained through other forms of development,” Fields said “It’s a key example of how to achieve the goals of the Community Preservation Act, without having to raise taxes.”
If the permitting process proceeds smoothly, Field said, construction on a 170,000-square-foot Class A office building that Gutierrez expects to build on Wall Street could begin next spring. Gutierrez already has site plan approval for the project. But the town expects to create a new business district that will enhance the property, said Agustin Rios, a vice president at the Gutierrez Co.
“With the district that was approved (by the town meeting vote) we can make it a better building and one that is more marketable,” Rios said
The site would also see the development of 144 market-rate housing units and 36 affordable senior housing units.
The land swap also includes plans in which: Gutierrez would develop a 159,000-square-foot office building on 14.6 acres of land on Wheeler Road the town will give up; Ruping Builders would develop 48 units of affordable senior housing (instead of the 105 it had proposed, which the town was opposing); and the town will take ownership of the historic Grandview Farm building.
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