Day: April 21, 2010

At 9 AM on Saturday April 24 Mac Bell’s BirdsEye team will present its second informational session at the Kyrouz Auditorium in Gloucester’s City Hall.

Bell, whose family’s ties in the Fort neighborhood stretch back to the early 1900s, purchased the historic BirdsEye property on Commercial St. in July 2009. In keeping with his commitment to a project that will benefit the city as a whole, he has been working intensively with neighborhood groups, architects, city planners, and state and local officials to develop concepts for the best and highest use of the site.

Saturday’s event will report on the progress of those efforts.

Since last August, Bell’s team has been surveying local opinion and conducting focus groups and neighborhood meetings. M.J. Boylan will discuss the team’s findings, and she and Gregor Gibson will put this information in the larger context of Gloucester’s history and future – specifically the damaging detour that city fathers took in the 60s and 70s, down the road of monolithic use and restrictive Urban Renewal-era zoning that resulted in dead ends like the infamous I-4, C-2 parcel on Rogers St.

Overwhelmingly, the consensus of the prior information gathering sessions has pointed away from such thinking toward a mixed use that allows for waterfront access, public space with an art or educational component, and a blend of commercial, residential and retail uses. There were suggestions of all kinds, but the common thread was a hearkening back to the vitality and energy of Gloucester in its healthiest days, and a strong desire to return to that kind of urban lifestyle. The consensus was for increased tax dollars, more jobs, and a revitalized downtown, and nearly everyone thought that a diversity of uses would be a better way to accomplish this than a single, sprawling hotel or mall.

Presentations by architects and planners Richard Griffin, Craig Herrmann and David McCarley will explore the real-world possibilities for making “wish list” concepts come true in challenging economic times. They will portray an extremely fluid situation in which the ultimate development of the property depends on a regulatory framework that allows for mixed use without the endless hoop-jumping that has squashed many waterfront projects in the past. Because of its unique status of being zoned for density and diversity (prior to BirdsEye, many hundreds of people lived and worked there), the BirdsEye parcel is potentially open to residential/commercial/industrial use not seen on that site since Gloucester’s heyday.

The session will close with a summary and overview by Mac Bell.

The final plan, he says, is going to be driven by a combination of regulatory and economic factors that are not yet fully known. “We have three acres of amazing downtown, harbor front property to work with. What we build there depends on what we’ll be allowed do on the site.”

Bell is adamant that the entire property be deed restricted “so as to only allow investors, tenants and residents who acknowledge and accept the ‘charm’ of the neighborhood’s mixed use nature. People who find that aspect attractive are the only customers I know who will want to be part of the project.”

And, he insists, any development will embody the creativity, vitality and diversity that are the heart and soul of Gloucester. “We want to provide the opportunity for varied, synergistic uses, balanced within our ability to meet needs for parking, public access, views, and utilities. It is our hope that people interested in ownership, rental or tenancy will, together, make BirdsEye a ‘Living District’ where people can live, work and play.”