Police are calling the early Thursday morning fire suspicious. Clean-up crews spent hours clearing out the charred remains of a one-time staff dormitory located on the former Belchertown State School property.
According to the Belchertown Economic Development Industrial Corporation, which owns the property, the building was ultimately going to be torn down, along with about two dozen others, to make way for future commercial and residential development. Going forward, the EDIC is proposing more security around the property.
Like “towing during the evenings,” says EDIC’s Bill Terry, “because when [trespassers] lose their cars they’ll figure out they weren’t supposed to be there in the first place, and security cameras plugged right into the police stations.”
Belchertown Police say trespassing has increased since the EDIC purchased the land from the town last year.
The hurdles to develop more than 80 acres of dilapidated property began years ago. Former Massachusetts State Senator Gail Candaras told NEPR last year the problems may have begun when, for the price of $1, the state of Massachusetts transferred the title of the land to town officials. Belchertown became responsible for finding developers willing to pay for the costly clean-up of decaying buildings full of asbestos and other hazardous materials.
After years of lobbying, the state provided $10 million for the clean-up and essentially a realtor, in the form of MassDevelopment, the state’s finance and development authority.
But according to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, the Boston-based developer chosen to build an 83-unit assisted living complex on the grounds of school “failed in its most recent bid to be awarded low-income housing tax credits from the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development.”
That means construction on the proposed development will not begin for at least another year.