WRA seeks city funds to leverage $2 million grant
By DAN MORIARTY
Staff Writer
WESTFIELD The Westfield Redevelopment Authority is requesting the City Council to approve an appropriation of $26,000 from free cash for surveying work related to the reconstruction of Airport Industrial Park Road.
The road project, which will be completed with a $2 million state economic development grant, will service a proposed industrial park on land currently owned by the Airport Commission. The current access road between North Road and Elise Street, where there are a number of industrial and aviation-related tenants including Gulfstream, is currently a hodge-podge of street fragments, including two segments of Apremont Way, and a segment of Old Stage Way.
“The current road does not conform to the city’s requirements for industrial park road,” City Advancement Officer Jeff Daley said this morning in his report to the WAR as executive director. “The project is making good headway. We need to request the Mayor (Daniel M. Knapik) and the City Council to approve $26,000 from free cash to pay for survey services and to prepare land-taking documents.
“When the surveying is done, in six to eight weeks, we will go back to the council to ask for funding to purchase property,” Daley said. “That is our agreement with the state, that we do the surveying and land takings. then we can ask the state to release the grant for the engineering and permitting process needed to support reconstruction of the road.
“The Law Department will ask for another $10,000 to perform appraisals and some additional sum, based on the appraisals, to take the land by eminent domain,” Daley said.
“When the road reconstruction is done, we can request the WRA to take control of the parcels along both sides of the new road,” Daley said. “The scope of services will be the engineering and permitting for the parcels.”
Daley said that the WRA is hoping to implement a developmental model that refunds the free cash “borrowed” from the city and generates a revenue stream to use as seed money on future projects.
“I’d line to establish a process of getting equity that we can use to finance future projects, reinvest on projects without having to go back to the City Council,” Daley said. “The WRA has more leverage to do these type of projects than the city because we don’t have to follow (Massachusetts General Law, municipal bid laws, Chapter) 30-B.”
The $2 million state grant will be used for the final engineering plans and bid documents, permits and construction. The timeline, Daley said, is to complete the surveying work in four to six weeks, followed by a period of two to four weeks to secure the property through eminent domain, with the engineering phase underway by May.
The WRA’s goal is to complete the road project and create between 10 and 12 industrial lots that will be the city’s newest industrial park.
