Blighted or Unused City Properties

The announcement of the Waterford Community Center Lease signing in November 2024.

A Press Conference held at the site of the blighted School Street School.

Waterford School 2022 Announcement.

Question: So you come into office, and you know that there were a lot of blighted or unused city properties. Properties just sitting there, costing the city money because, for example, with School Street School, the police department was out there, the fire department was out there when kids would break in, Waterford Street School was unused. So much was unused, no tax money coming in. So with respect to Prospect, School Street School, the Greenwood Indoor Pool Building, the Garbos Metal Site, the Mill Street Corridor, the DPW Salt Shed that was falling apart. I remember you doing an update from that shed one time, it was just falling apart. Improvements at City Hall, the Park Street Substation that showed just a horrible look coming into town. And then what’s been done with the Waterford Street School to make it a community center to actually help the needs of the Gardner CAC, the Senior Center, and various non-profits. Tell me from the beginning what your thought process was and kind of take us through that a little bit.

Answer: I mean, the main thought process that we had was I didn’t want the city to be our next absentee landlord. And if we were putting this pressure on the private sector, especially with the ordinance that was co-sponsored by myself and now Council President Tyros at the time to really update our blighted nuisance and problem property ordinance, we should be holding ourselves to the same standard. So we did a big effort to put a lot of buildings out for sale that we were just sitting on. Not just buildings, but also land. There was land on Chelsea Street that we own that we took in tax idle years ago that we’d never done anything with. Prospect Street School had been vacant for years. It’s now currently under construction. If you drive by, you can see that the National Grid has installed the temporary electricity in there for the new condo units that Molina Realty’s currently putting together over there. School Street School, we had the announcement that we’ve obtained CDBG funding for its demolition. The Greenwood Indoor Pool, that demo is going to be happening imminently within the next month or two over at that location. The Garbose Metal Site is currently under negotiation right now with the GRA and a developer that will soon be able to announce soon to the Mill Street Corridor. That same developer actually has not just the Garbose Metal Site under negotiation, but also the former S-Bent property under negotiation. Again, those are all fluid situations that are there, but it’s stuff that we’re all working on right now because, again, we should be holding ourselves to the same standard that we’re holding everyone else to and setting the example with that too. The DPW Salt Shed, if you drive by Manca Drive right now, you’ll see the area has been cleared, the site work’s been done, and we’ll be going out to bid for the full construction of that imminently. The Gardner Airport, that was all federal grant funded, so there really wasn’t much city funding that went into that, but the state and federal government pushed in millions and millions of dollars to get that back up and running right now. That’s how we were actually able to secure additional programming over there through MIT and their drone program, so they actually train at the Gardner Airport through their classes on drone classes through MIT. But that was a full reconstruction. It was the first time the runway had had any type of pavement since it was originally installed in the 1980s, so if you picture if your road hadn’t been paved any time since the 1980s, what that would be like. Imagine landing a plane on something like that. So that was a big investment that we made over there. City Hall, we’ve had some smaller improvements, so for instance, we moved the public restrooms to the first floor rather than where they were previously in the stairwells, and the reason being for that is that up until we moved them back to the first floor on either side of the City Hall rotunda, they weren’t handicap accessible. You’d have to go down the flight of stairs to a stair landing to get to the bathrooms and then use another set of stairs to get into the bathrooms themselves once you open the bathroom door. So now we’ve made it so that they’re fully accessible here to the public. We’ve also made different upgrades throughout the building that are smaller in terms of just increasing access to the public in terms of our online permitting so that you don’t have to come to City Hall if you don’t have to. You can do that from the comfort of your own home. The Park Street substation, I think the Park Street Park is one of the nicest views that we have in the city, and it took an area that was literally bound by barbed wire in our downtown and just dead looking and turned it into one of the nicest walking spots or spots to just sit by the water and have a picnic, have a bite to eat, just sit down, just think in one of the benches and just watch the water and just have a relaxing time over there where it connects to the new bike trail that’s behind the Greenwood Pool through the newly paved road on Crystal Lake Drive and then through the bike trail that goes around the cemetery out through the Park Street area by Eaton Street. That’s one of the, I think, nicer walks that we have in the city right now too. And then the amount of work that’s been done over at the community center is substantial. When this building has its chance to open later on this year, I’m very excited to see how people utilize the facility to its fullest there. The CAC and Growing Places that currently have two leases with the city for their spaces over there have done a ton of investments and a ton of work in there to outfit their spaces that are there. It’s really been great to see how much progress has been made inside that building and I’m looking forward to seeing that open later this year.

Question: Now starting here in fiscal year six, you’re doing something with Helen Mae Sauter School. Tell us about that. Yeah, I just put a proposal before the city council to put the Helen Mae Sauter School up for sale. The city council will have to vote on that at one of their upcoming meetings. But again, it’s the same thing. We don’t have the resources to maintain that building on our own right now with the buildings and facilities that we have a lot of back maintenance on our own to do that. So I would like to put it out for a request for proposal or RFP. What that does is people submit not only their price to buy the building from us, but also what their intended use of the building is. It can be anything from office space to housing to anything in between, but they need to submit a detailed plan to us as to what they’d like to do with the building. And then I’ll appoint a committee to do a preliminary review of everyone who puts in those submissions for that building. And then they’ll issue their final recommendation to me and I’ll have a chance to review not only their recommendations, but all of their final proposals that were submitted. And then after all of that, then we’ll take a look at what the price offerings are too. So through the RFP process, we’re able to look at quality versus price and get the best outcome for the city that way. And in doing so, really take a chance to look at that process that we have there and make it the best possible outcome for the city. So I am hopeful that we’ll be able to do something with Helen Mae Sauter soon and see the best that we can do to save that building one, so we don’t end up with a situation like School Street School or the Greenwood Pool where it’s put off so much on the back burner that it just falls in on itself, but also gets us to a point where it increases the opportunities for our residents out there, be it even residentially or through the services offered if it goes to some type of commercial use.

Question: And you’re also being reasonable up front. You’re suggesting a minimum bid of $300,000, even though there was an appraisal of $765,000, recognizing what needs to be done to make it a viable business venture for someone.

Answer: Absolutely. There’s so much work that has to be done on that building. Anytime you take a school building and convert it into anything other than a school, there’s significant investment that has to be made, let alone in a building that was built in the early 1900s. So that’s something you just have to be reasonable. And that goes back to our phrase partnership that we mentioned earlier, is yes, it’s great for the city to sell something. Yes, it’s great for us to get that sale revenue, but it’s also better for us to get the tax revenue long term over the next 20, 30, 50 years. And the way we do that is making sure someone’s set up for success to actually repair the building and get it up to its most optimal use so that we have that longer term investment and not just that one time money that we have right now.