By Dakota Antelman — Dakota@concordbridge.org
Public works and public safety facilities are among the uses up for discussion as the Select Board weighs whether the town should try to acquire the federal Superfund site in West Concord.
Just under a week after the 2229 Main Street Advisory Task Force recommended Concord “move forward on the path” toward potential control, the Select Board on Monday eyed its options.
Board Clerk Mark Howell also placed 2229 Main in the context of other sites coming online, including the MCI-Concord prison property and the soon-to-be-shuttered Peabody school.
“We know that we have public safety and public works site needs, and I think that it’s important for us to really sponsor a very global look at this to see how these pieces fit together,” he said.
Unanswered questions
Decades of munitions manufacturing tainted 2229 Main Street with depleted uranium and other contaminants. The site’s last landowner abandoned it in 2011.
The advisory task force assigned to study 2229 Main spent two years probing the pros and cons of Concord taking control. It plans to deliver a full report to the Select Board in December.
“We can’t recommend outright that the property be acquired,” Task Force chair Paul Boehm told the board Monday, citing outstanding questions ranging from the cost of the property to liability protections.
Boehm said the Select Board must sign a nonbinding letter of interest to start negotiations and conversations.
Only then, he said, will the town get answers to its questions.
If those “resolve satisfactorily to the benefit of the town,” Boehm said, “we think it would constitute a good business decision [to acquire the site].”
Private developers could move to buy the property. But Boehm said Concord will be in the “pole position” if it expresses interest. “I think they’re really anxious to sit down and talk with us,” he said of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which currently controls 2229 Main.
Though the Select Board discussed sending a letter of interest immediately, members delayed action until early next year, after the task force report.
Photo: Dakota Antelman/The Concord Bridge
‘A rare opportunity’
Meanwhile, Howell said the openings at MCI-Concord, Peabody, and 2229 Main Street present “a rare opportunity.”
Howell said 2229 Main’s position on higher ground could be especially valuable as Concord faces future natural disasters. “When we start to think about resilience … to have the opportunity to move some things into places where they might be a little more protected against flood zones and things like that is important,” he said.
Federal officials estimate the 2229 Main cleanup will continue until 2029. In the interim, a draft task force timeline sketches a multi-step process toward potentially acquiring the site.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Select Board member Wendy Rovelli said.
