Hints of more possible Wellesley housing development: 888 Worcester St. & MassBay property
It paid to stick around to the end of the June 2 Wellesley Planning Board meeting, when Planning Director Eric Arbeene revealed two interesting pieces of news regarding possible future housing development.
First, real estate investment firm Jumbo Capital met with Arbeene and other town staff regarding the possibility of turning the 888 Worcester St. property into an independent and assisted living facility.
That not-exactly-historic site served as a temporary Wellesley Town Hall during renovation work on the “real” Town Hall at 525 Washington St., in 2023-2024. The 888 building remains home to the town’s land use offices, and now also temporary offices for Wellesley’s Health and Recreation Departments as work is done on the Warren Building.
Arbeene said Jumbo would be reaching out to neighbors, and expects to hear from them in the future at a Planning Board meeting if things develop.
We’ve reached out to Jumbo for further comment and will update this post if we hear back.
Property owner Haynes Management refers to 888 and 892 Worcester St. as “Wayne Office Park” on its website. Arbeene estimated during the recent Planning Board meeting that the 888 property boasts about 6 acres of space.
Separately, Arbeene relayed information from a meeting between town staff and the Commonwealth’s Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM), which is responsible for capital planning, public building construction, facilities management, and real estate services. The topic of the conversation: state-owned land near MassBay Community College on Oakland Street that could be developed for housing.
We hope any future tenants are pickleball enthusiasts given the new temporary courts in the parking lot across from MassBay (we jest, those have been set up as part of a pilot program that from what we hear give people a chance to both play pickleball and get in some running as they case balls across the lot).
“I don’t have any details in terms of how many units or what kind of housing or anything like that,” Arbeene said, adding that neighbors may be notified by DCAMM. “They’re in an information gathering stage. They let us know that they are doing some exploration at the moment.”
The Governor’s Office on Monday announced that some 450 acres of surplus state-owned land could be used for development of 3,500 housing units across the state, and that another 17 sites could be made available over the next year for housing development. The Wellesley property was not cited in the announcement. We reached out to DCAMM for clarification and will update this post if we hear back.
Word about these two possible housing developments came as Select Board and Planning Board readied to discuss on Tuesday, June 3, a draft of the Strategic Housing Plan commissioned to a consulting firm.
If you live or work in one of these neighborhoods and learn more, feel free to keep us in the loop: theswellesleyreport@gmail.com