The city is mulling whether to buy land on Cooper Street for a new downtown parking lot, but the land needs an environmental cleanup.
That is according to James Greacen, a licensed site specialist hired by the city to look at the property. The roughly 3-acre parcel, which is now vacant, has been the site of several industrial manufacturing facilities over the course of about 130 years. As a result, oils, dyes, metals and other contaminants permeate the ground there.
If the property is going to be developed, the land will have to be cleaned to pass state environmental muster.
Greacen told the City Council's Committee of the Whole last night that the cleanup could be accomplished by two methods - either by a process that would solidify the contaminants and basically turn them into cement, or by pumping the pollutants out of the ground.
When asked for a range of prices on the cleanup choices, Greacen said they could run anywhere from $500,000 to $1.3 million.
When asked by a councilor whether he thought it was good idea for the city to buy the property given its condition, Greacen held back on giving an opinion.
"My job is to lay out the pros and cons and allow the city, from its perspective, to decide whether it's a good idea or not," Greacen said. "But I can tell you the city can maintain environmental compliance on this property."
Ward 9 Councilor Robert Logan wanted to make sure that Greacen was "not jumping up and down and saying, 'Don't do this,"' regarding the purchase of land.
"No, I'm not," Greacen replied.
Greacen said the use of the site as a parking lot would actually require less cleanup than more intensive development would there.
"Different types of site uses would require different types of remediations at different costs," Greacen said.
Most agree that more parking is needed downtown. A group of Moody Street merchants met with the mayor and several city councilors recently and asked that the city buy the Cooper Street land.
The City Council has already approved an order of taking to seize the property by eminent domain, but has yet to approve a loan order of $1,467,000 for the purchase.
Mayor Jeannette McCarthy, who has worked to acquire the land, said last night that she wants to talk to the owner of the Cooper Street land about who would handle the cleanup and how that would affect the purchase price.
The matter was expected to be tabled.
City Councilor at large Thomas Stanley was concerned about the price tag cleaning up the property could carry.
"My main concern is the cost of the environmental cleanup," Stanley said. "That is the reason why I've been reluctant so far to support this plan."
The committee was still discussing the subject as of presstime.
Richard Conn can be contacted at 781-398-8004 or rconn@cnc.com.
