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Date: 3/2/2017
LONGMEADOW – The Select Board approved a pair of warrant articles for the Annual Town Meeting in May regarding the creation of a district improvement financing (DIF) area in Longmeadow for a campus-style medical complex. Without the DIF, the project would not move forward.
The DIF would allow for the tax revenue generated by the project to be used solely to pay off a 20-year bond used solely for infrastructure improvements near the intersection and roadway. It would pay for traffic signals and sidewalks to be replaced or repaired as well.
Developer Michael Crowley told the board at its Feb. 27 meeting the project crosses town lines into East Longmeadow along Dwight Road and would include a two-story 54,000-square-foot medical office building and a 24,000 square-foot commercial office building on the Longmeadow side and the East Longmeadow Skilled Nursing Center would be replaced with a new 131-bed facility. A portion of the existing nursing center might also be demolished to create a memory care area. Baystate Medical is the anchor tenant for the medical office building and Berkshire Health is also associated with the project.
“The two towns asked us to go out and look and provide a comprehensive solution to the infrastructure issues there,” he explained. “We did that. Fuss & O’Neill had originally been engaged to do a traffic study for the medical office building and the 24,000-square-foot conventional office building. We expanded that to include the skilled nursing facility and the care building so we had one sizable comprehensive traffic study.”
He added the overall project is slated to cost $2.5 million.
Crowley said he plans to have the complex finished by Sept. 1, 2018.
“That drives the need or the hope for us to receive approval from the town to go forward with this DIF program,” he noted. “The reason why the dates are so critical is because there’s a lengthy construction period … This is a large development that’s going to take somewhere between 16 and 18 months.”
He added construction would likely begin in June if the DIF were approved by Longmeadow. East Longmeadow’s Town Council recently approved the DIF for its community, but the project hinges on both communities adopting the DIF.
The minimum amount of tax revenue generated by the project would fully offset the cost of the bond and the current tax revenues from the current properties on the 7.15-acre parcel, he explained.
Crowley previously spoke with the board on Feb. 10 and answered several questions posed by the selectmen in the past on Feb. 27.
Select Board Chair Marie Angelides asked Crowley if he could shed more light on the details of the minimum costs that would cover the project.
“Fairview Extended Care, [associated with Berkshire Health,] in East Longmeadow have come to an agreement as to the amount of money that they would guarantee to be provided into the bond payment,” he explained. “There would be a form of an inter-municipal agreement between East Longmeadow and Longmeadow. East Longmeadow’s contribution to the bond would be $20,000 annually. The bulk of the payments would be coming from the Longmeadow project because that’s going to generate the largest share, obviously, the entirety right now, of the tax revenue. That would be generated from this campus development.”