By Ashlyn Kelly
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FRAMINGHAM – The new owner of Nobscot Plaza held a meeting with the neighborhood on Monday, April 4. The meeting gave a preview of the proposed re-development of the project that will go before the Framingham Planning Board tonight, April 7. Meeting starts at 7
Peter Spellios, who works for Transom Real Estate, said phase one of the project is “99% complete.”
Phase one included relocating the chapel and construction of the new CVS.
Spellios said “we began the process of beginning to remove asbestos from the old shopping center building.”
Demolition will start in May and construction should begin by fall, said Spellios.
“Construction itself is roughly about an 18-to-20-month period, depending mostly on weather” as well as “supply chain issues,” said Spellios.
He said due to community input, they went more residential architecture than commercial architecture.
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The two buildings have also been brought together and the entrances to the residential and retail areas have been moved further apart “to reduce the conflict cars will have between the retail and the parking,” he said.
The developer said they were able to reduce the amount of asphalt used by bringing the two buildings together.
District 3 City Councilor Adam Steiner said that creating more green space “is good” but he is “concerned about parking.
“This proposal had parking on Water Street like parallel parking and at the time I thought that made no sense. In the rendering you have, Water Street looks like this 70-foot boulevard – like it’s not that wide and we have a fire station there. … I still don’t think it makes sense to have that parking there, and I’m wondering if there’s been consideration to not trying to do parallel parking on Water Street and figure out where to get that parking from somewhere else,” said the District 3 City Councilor.
Spellios said, “What we did was we set our building back further on Water Street than the original. That will allow those parking spaces to be 100% out of the travel lane of Water Street so they don’t encroach at all on the travel lane of Water Street.”
Jamie Haber asked if the units were “being considered for electrification versus gas?”
She also asked if the roof would be “solar friendly” and if there will be “EV parking spaces for residents and for businesses?”
Spellios said, “For solar panels, electrification, and specifically chargers for cars, we are actually in touch with several vendors to talk. … I can’t answer that question, because we haven’t gotten there yet, Jamie, but I want you to know that we’re seriously looking at it.”
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Rick Young raised the concern of rodents being displaced when demolition started and “what the responsibility is of the owner.”
Spellios said the City of Framingham requires them to complete a “rodent signoff” to communicate what the company did to “clear the rodents from the site before we start to demo it.”
“Doesn’t mean that there aren’t rodents that didn’t hear the eviction notice and decide to stick around a little longer, so we still will have a past abatement program throughout demolition and construction,” he said.
You can watch the April 4 neighborhood meeting by clicking here.
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Ashlyn Kelly is a Spring 2022 SOURCE intern. She is a is a senior communication arts major with minors in political science and journalism at Framingham State University. When she is not writing an article, you can usually find her in a theatre.
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