Development Talks Resume for Wenham Land

All the owners of nearly 60 acres of land off Grapevine Road - including Wenham town government - have all sat down to see if there is a way to jumpstart discussions about how to develop the property.

Interim Town Administrator Mark Andrews said last week that the meeting was convened at the request of Molly Martins, chairman of the Board of Selectmen.

It was a "very good, very effective" meeting, Martins told the Board of Selectmen.

"The group is in general agreement to move forward," she said.

Emelie Cademartori, Wenham's planning and conservation coordinator, said that the next step is to ask MassDevelopment whether it can assist the town in determining what is possible on the site.

MassDevelopment says it is "the state’s finance and development agency" that works with businesses, nonprofits, banks and communities "to stimulate economic growth across the Commonwealth."

In addition to the 19 acres owned by the town, there's another 14 acres in Wenham that are privately owned and another 26 acres in Beverly. The plan is to look at all the land together.

"It's preliminary, nothing has been decided," Cademartori said.

The property's only access is on a dirt path called Boulder Lane off Grapevine Road, between Route 128 and Hull Street, near Gordon College. The land is generally bound by Hull Street, Route 128, Grapevine Road and Kennel Hill Drive in the Centerville section of Beverly.

The first step was the determine whether all of the property owners want to pursue development of some type. And that agreement was reached, Cademartori said.

There have been discussions in the past about how to use the property, including a proposal in 2006 for a "strip mall" in 2006, according to a report by the Salem News at the time. Cademartori said there has also been a proposal for multi-family housing on the Beverly side of the property, which is zoned for industrial uses.

Nothing that specific is on the table right now. The Wenham side of the property is zoned for single-family homes, but Wenham officials have determined that is not a desired use for the property.

Instead, office or retail space is some of the possible uses, Cademartori said. But there are so many questions to be answered before anything can move forward and MassDevelopment may be able to help answer some of those questions.

The group has not heard back from MassDevelopment. If it was able to help complete work to examine what is possible on the site, it would come at no cost to the town.

"Obviously it is complicated because there are three property owners and it is in two towns," Cademartori said. "In the past developers failed because they tried to do it on their own. It has to be a joint venture."

This story has been corrected to further clarify the request that the town of Wenham is making to MassDevelopment.