FRAMINGHAM – A few news nuggets I picked up at last night’s Friends of Saxonville annual meeting, which featured a keynote presentation by Sarkis Sarkisian, Framingham’s director of planning and community development, as well as updates from several FOS board members:
1) The Pinefield shopping center was sold recently, and there may be some changes at that property. “The new owner is very interested in working with the community. He’d like to redevelop this property,” Sarkisian said.
Sarkisian also noted that a strip of land abutting the old McAuliffe Library building across the street is part of the shopping center property.
That former library building is currently being used “as a capital facilities building,” he noted. “Is there a better use for that?” Sarkisian asked, wondering if that could be integrated somehow into shopping center redevelopment.
“One idea we had is what I, why can’t we shift the road over?… create parking for our asset, maybe even consider selling this and putting a restaurant here and creating more green space and redeveloping the front with housing,” he said. However, Sarkisian stressed that “this was just a concept plan,” and now that this parcel is unlikely to be part of MBTA Communities Zoning housing, it’s unclear what might happen.
2) Opening of the new Wagon Creamery ice cream shop - by the owners of neighboring Pizza Wagon, in the Walgreens Plaza - has been delayed until June. It should be open in time for the next Saxonville community mixer on June 12.
3) The Carol Getchell nature trail will be closed all summer during construction of accessible boardwalks on both the south and north ends of the trail. “It’s going to be a construction site,” board member Steve Weisman told the meeting. “It’s actually closed now, but, that doesn’t stop people from using it.”
That prompted some laughter from the crowd, apparently a lot of people have still been enjoying the trail while it’s technically been closed. However, soon it really will be closed. “They are going to be putting up construction fencing because they’re concerned about people having accidents” as construction gets underway, Weisman said.
Boardwalk construction on the south end will likely start next month and finish in August. That boardwalk should run about 1,000 feet along the river. A boardwalk on the north end of the trail (by Little Farms Road) should be completed in the fall.
Community Preservation Act money as well as a Mass Trails grant are funding design for the middle section of the trail, which hopefully will be completed in the next year or two.
4) There are plans to install accessible tables and benches along the Cochituate Rail Trail, as well as bike repair stations and air pumps and new informational historical kiosks. In general, the idea is to make it look more like the Natick section and less “bare bones”.
5) The first phase of the Framingham portion of the Bruce Freeman trail is slated for construction in 2029. Sarkisian said the city might try to get the project moved up one year, but this is state-funded work and so scheduling will ultimately be done based on state priorities.
6) When asked about the problems accessing businesses in Saxonville generally and the Mill specifically, Sarkisian acknowledged the issue. He said it might require purchasing property to “build a real parking lot where people could park and lock their bikes up. But that’s something that we’re looking at, as well as the intersection.”
There wasn’t a specific timeline commitment for McGrath Square intersection improvement projects, but there was an acknowledgement that because the city has kept postponing desperately needed work there, the pricetag has ballooned from $3.5 million ten years ago to $10 million now. “We have a major improvement that needs to take place in McGrath Square,” Sarkisian said, noting that “it’s not going to be cheaper down the road.” Hopefully this won’t put off again!
7) The first phase of work has begun on the Athenaeum which involves the exterior only, board member Jan Harrington told the meeting: the slate roof, the windows, the trim, and the siding. Bidding for the work needs to start by the end of June.
8) Friends of Saxonville has a new website that includes business member listings, the ability to renew memberships online, and archived newsletters back to 1998, board member and newsletter co-editor Lynne Damianos said. Business members who like the design and might be interested in having the same company that did the FOS site do work for them are eligible for a discount, she added.
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