Thursday evening, the Peabody City Council voted overwhelmingly to authorize Mayor Ted Bettencourt to enter a purchase and sale agreement for 70 Endicott St., a long-vacant city-owned property that councilors dubbed an embarrassment because of its derelict condition.
The vote came after a lengthy debate in a meeting of the Legal Affairs Committee of the council earlier Thursday, where Bettencourt briefed councilors on the plans for the blighted property and laid out its winding history.
The School Committee and the council declared the building surplus in 2006 after housing school administration officers for several years. Since that point, Bettencourt said, it has become “one of the worst properties in the city” — one that city officials have spent years seeking a solution for. At one point, the city had an agreement in place to develop eight units on the property, but that proposal ultimately fell through.
Since 2018, Requests for Proposals issued by the city have only garnered one response submitted by developers Bill Luster and Albert Ellis to construct 18 housing units across three stories on the property, with 36 parking spaces split between the front and back. Peabody had tried to attract several different use types for the property, including commercial and mixed-use spaces, but ultimately failed to generate any interest, Bettencourt said in an interview before the council meeting Thursday.
Bettencourt said that the property’s condition had deteriorated so much that an environmental cleanup was estimated in the hundreds of thousands, a cost he felt was too great for the city to take on. That fact drove down the property’s value to the point where the city is selling it for just $10,000 to Luster and Ellis.
The fits and starts that have plagued the property were clearly weighing on the minds of councilors Thursday night, who largely opposed the idea of constructing housing on the site but felt the benefit of finally ridding the city of the blighted property was too great to pass up.
“My primary goal here is trying to find a solution to this particular property,” said Councilor-at-Large Ryan Melville.
“This building is now at a point where I think if all of us in this room went over there and pushed really hard on one side, it would fall down,” Ward 3 Councilor Stephanie Peach, who serves as council president, added. “This is not what we all want… but this is probably the best we’re going to get.”
But, Ward 2 Councilor Peter McGinn, whose ward is home to 70 Endicott St., said he simply could not support the project in its current form because of the proposed density of 18 units, which Luster told councilors may rise to 24 if the cost of the environmental cleanup rises above $485,000. Acknowledging the property’s dire state, McGinn raised concerns about the proposed development’s location in the flood plain and its impact on traffic.
“There’s no disagreement here on the ultimate objective,” he said. “I believe every resident, the mayor, me, fellow councilors want to see this site cleaned up [but] I don’t agree this is the right approach.”
In particular, McGinn pointed to the joint impact of not just the 70 Endicott St. project but also the two Chapter 40B developments in the neighborhood at 40 Endicott St. and another on King Street, which he said could further snarl traffic in the area.
“I just think it’s too much,” he said.
McGinn’s comments echoed those of a number of residents who appeared before the Legal Affairs Committee, all of whom acknowledged the poor condition of the site but said they could not abide adding additional housing in the area.
Councilor-at-Large Jon Turco expressed concern with the fluctuating unit number contained in the proposal, asking Bettencourt to firm up an agreement with Luster and finalize a specific figure. After a brief recess where Turco and Councilor-at-Large Tom Rossignol could be seen talking to Attorney John Keilty and Luster, Bettencourt told councilors that Luster would move forward with the 18 units and then return to the council if the cost of the environmental cleanup rises to the point where it becomes necessary for the economics of the project to remain viable to construct 24-unit-one.
Because the project is being constructed under the city’s inclusionary zoning, 15% of the 18 units will be designated affordable, and Luster pledged to give preference to veterans.
“That is important for me, important for the council, for the city, that we want to try to create some available units for veterans and their families,” Bettencourt said in an interview with the Daily Item.
After approval from the council, the project heads to the Planning Board for site plan review and to the Conservation Commission for study of the site’s environmental cleanup. Bettencourt sought to assuage possible concerns from residents, noting that Luster and Ellis would be required to present a detailed rodent maintenance plan for the site to city officials.
Bettencourt said he felt comfortable turning control of the property over to Luster and Ellis, who knew the city well and had developed other projects, particularly along Crowninshield Street.
“I feel like it’s just kind of come together,” he said.
For his part, Luster said he and Ellis were “really excited” about the site, calling it a “wonderful site for housing” because of its proximity to Interstate 95 and Route 128.
