Artist’s rendering of Westwood Station
It’s been a long slog for Westwood Station’s developers, Cabot, Cabot & Forbes, who have been fighting the town’s planning process, their neighbors, competition from Legacy Place in Dedham, the economy and incessant rumors of their own downfall.
But they got a rare bit of good news for the 4.5 million square-foot mixed-use development that’s rising, ever so slowly, atop an old University Avenue industrial park: The town of Westwood approved critical changes to its master plan last Tuesday.
Still, both Jay Doherty, CC&F’s president, and Westwood Town Manager Mike Jaillet, insist the development’s prospects remain robust – to say nothing of viable.
Jaillet said the project “is moving forward and on target for the approvals it needs,” and CC&F should clear any remaining regulatory hurdles “by the first of the year.” The developers would then have at least three months to pull building permits and close on their construction loans, before beginning vertical construction in March.
“There will be steel in the air in the spring,” Doherty insisted. Demolition is complete, and “for the past two to three months,” Doherty said, contractors have “been doing aggressive horizontal construction,” building the utilities backbone, installing pads for vertical construction and completing “the first phase of roadbed construction on a couple miles of roads.”
“We were racing the clock on paving,” he continued. “We’re going to hold off until the weather warms up. By most measures, we’ve been doing substantial work for three to four months, and we’re doing very substantial work now.”
Unsurprisingly, Doherty said financing is the biggest challenge remaining.
“It’s bloody awful out there. I feel good today, and good about the next day. We wake up, read the obits, and if our names aren’t in them, go to work.”
Commonfund Realty financed Westwood Station’s horizontal construction as an equity investment. Doherty feels he has lined up a good cadre of “two to four lead lenders we feel good about.”
While Legacy Place steams ahead in neighboring Dedham, Westwood Station has been plagued by regulatory delays and political infighting. The combination of legislative spectacle, frozen capital markets and an absence of vertical steel have made the project a target of incessant whispers.
Rep. William Galvin, the Canton lawmaker who’s currently blocking a vital Westwood Station bill at the State House, said he’s heard rumors “about their financials. I’ve heard their construction loan was pulled. I heard the Commonfund was looking for outside backing. I heard that the project was shut down for now.”
“I’ve heard the rumors and the concerns,” added Westwood Rep. Paul McMurtry, “but it’s just a rumor. But sometimes, rumors have a way of becoming reality.”
Jaillet is more direct: “People would prefer the project die.”
The pace of regulatory reviews has encouraged talk of such a death. Jim Kosteras, whom Westwood hired to help expedite the first phase of design reviews, characterized the permitting process as “exhaustive,” and called it “way beyond what I’ve seen” in Boston and Somerville, where he’d previously worked as a planner. Kosteras’s contract expired in June. Since that time, Westwood has worked – slowly – to reconfigure the site master plan in such a way as to accommodate parking, shipping and receiving needs for prospective anchor tenants Wegmans and Target. In the meantime, national commercial lending dried up.
Kosteras said he can’t fault Westwood for its pace, noting that the suburb’s small planning staff is wrestling with a project that’s “maybe bigger than anything the BRA is reviewing right now.”
At the same time the development has wended its way through the local approval process, it has fallen victim to a darkly comical sideshow at the State House. Westwood Town Meeting voters approved a beer and wine license for Wegmans in May, but since August, it has been held up by a pair of House lawmakers.
One, Angelo Scaccia, was appeased when the town also approved a special beer and wine license for Wegmans competitor Roche Brothers. The second, Galvin, remains incensed over traffic impacts to his Canton district. “The roads can’t take it,” he said recently. “It’s going to be a mess for years.”
The State House battle hasn’t greatly affected the project’s construction schedule, though it has kept Wegmans from inking its lease – a fact that, in turn, has given the development a stench of uncertainty that hampers further leasing efforts. McMurtry, who has responded to the Wegmans delay by stalling virtually all House business since August, said waiting until January when the full House could advance the Westwood bill on a formal vote puts the development at risk.
“We look like idiots,” Jaillet moaned. “People are looking to do everything to kill the project.” Still, he added, “We’re absolutely committed to this, and to getting beyond individuals’ ability to be disruptive.”
