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Date: 7/19/2023
LUDLOW — Westmass Area Development Corporation President and CEO Jeff Daley met with the Board of Selectmen at its July 11 meeting to discuss an update on Mill 8 in the Ludlow Mills complex and other buildings.
“Mill 8 we are excited about. As I am sure many have noticed, we allowed WinnDevelopment and their construction developer to come in and start early on the project. They are moving real quick.”
WinnDevelopment plans to renovate the 110-year-old, 4-story, 220,000-square-foot Mill 8 into approximately 95 mixed-income units for adults over the age of 55 with 147 parking spaces, a fitness center, a resident lounge, laundry facilities, work pods and an outdoor community space.
The project is also looking to work with Renaissance Medical Group to establish an adult day health facility using most of the building’s ground floor with on-site medical and supportive services for those living in Mills 8 and 10 as well as the broader community.
According to Daley, Westmass has closed on the sale of Mill 8 to WinnDevelopment but added they will retain ownership interest in the first floor.
“We anticipate about 48,000 square feet of the first floor becoming retail and/or office space like commercial. There is restriction so a lot of regular businesses can’t be in there because the residents above, but we think we are going to have some pretty good activity of some light retail, sandwich shop, coffee shop atmosphere as well as office space,” Daley said.
The construction is expected to be done by July 2024. Daley said Westmass will take ownership of the property again when the project is complete and resident move in.
Daley added, “I am excited for July of next year. More importantly, it is going to give the residents of Ludlow a really nice place, if they choose to live there, to live there as well as some commercial businesses in the area.”
Daley added that WinnDevelopment has a waiting list of people who want to move into the apartments once the project is complete.
Westmass has also received $740,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency as one of the 13 brownfields awards.
A brownfield is a term used to describe an environmentally troubled property.
Daley said the organization will use the funds to examine and remove asbestos from the roofs and windows in buildings 44 and 58, which is the “train barn right at the beginning.”
Daley added, “This is the with the big train doors right when you pull into Mill 8 by the clock tower. That roof and windows will be mitigated as well as 540 windows in the 300s. All those windows, the building up in the front, those will be mitigated as we hopefully, eventually demo.”
He expects that project to start spring 2024 after an EPA monitor goes in to evaluate and get pricing.
Westmass is in the process of getting approval to demolish the storage building at Mill 11.
Current concerns with Mill 11 include low ceilings, columns and concrete slab floors that cannot be brought to code for any commercial or residential use.
Daley added that there has been concern from the community with destroying the building but Westmass has reports from architects that the building is unable to be redeveloped due to its structure.
For example, occupiable spaces require a ceiling height of no less than 7 feet, 6 inches by Massachusetts state building code.
Currently, each floor is only 6 feet, 10 inches from the floor to the ceiling.
Daley added that Westmass is also beginning to work with an architectural firm for a design for Mill 11, a new water sewer loop around the stock houses and adding two new parking lots adjacent to Riverside drive.
Recently, there have also been many Ludlow residents who have been complaining of a rat problem in their neighborhoods with some residents pointing fingers at the Ludlow Mills project and the dismantling of certain buildings.
Daley also spoke on those concerns.
He said, “To put the rat issue aside for Westmass, we absolutely do not have rats, we don’t have a rat problem, we never had a rat problem since we owned it in 2011. I have been here since 2019, we have never seen a dropping, a trace or the actual rats themselves.”
Daley added that Westmass has live catch cages because of a “possum problem” where they walk through and set off alarms but talked to maintenance who also have seen no traces of rats.
WinnDevelopment is also in charge of construction on some of the Mills and Daley talked to them also.
Daley said, “We did talk to [WinnDevelopment] when we started hearing the scuttlebutt on the street and during their Mill 10 redevelopment, they actually put live traps out as well to see if anything, when they started dismantling Mill 10, they had nothing, No signs, no visitations, nothing.”
According to Daley, WinnDevelopment has also put out traps for Mill 8 and have seen no signs of rats.
He added, “We have been down in the tunnels, one of the false beliefs is that all those buildings have cellars. None of them have cellars. There is one cellar and its where all the electrical came from State Street back in the day. I have been in there and its clean as clean can be.”
Daley concluded, “I hope it puts to rest that everyone is pointing obviously at the old Mill building project at the end of the street, but I can attest that we do not have a rat problem.”