ERVING — The Selectboard gave the green light to release a request for proposals (RFP) on Sept. 9 for redevelopment of the former International Paper Mill property, marking the latest attempt at site redevelopment since the town took ownership in 2014.
The Selectboard met last week to revisit the draft RFP it weighed in on in late July. The July draft was an update that took into account comments from the Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG) and MassDevelopment, while the latest draft incorporates feedback from the board from its previous review.
“I’d like to say you’ve done a good job making this a … friendlier RFP than it has been in the past,” Selectboard member William Bembury said to Town Administrator Bryan Smith, who gave credit to Town Planner Glenn Johnson-Mussad, Ted Harvey at FRCOG and MassDevelopment.
This is the fourth time the town has put forward an RFP for the property at 8 Papermill Road, with the three previous RFPs failing twice in 2022, and again in 2024. As Smith explained to the Selectboard, the previous attempts were stymied by the language of the previous draft requiring applicants to commit to a “very expensive and in-depth submission process” within a specific timeline that could be unappealing to developers.
The property at 8 Papermill Road, valued at nearly $1.49 million between the land and buildings, has sat vacant for two decades. Between 1902 and 2000, eight buildings were constructed on the property.
The town took control of the site after International Paper left in 2000, leaving it to a private developer that left the building vacant and delinquent on property taxes. The town conducted feasibility studies and evaluations before eventually putting out a formal request for interest (RFI) in fall 2021. An RFP was then released in March 2022, but the town received no bids. An additional attempt to find a developer later that year failed, and a third attempt in 2024 was also unsuccessful.
While these requests were going out, plans for the mill’s future moved forward. This included the town securing a $600,000 Site Readiness grant in 2021, while an additional $3.7 million toward demolition in the form of a tax override failed at the polls in May 2024. Later that summer, a demolition proposal from the engineering consulting firm Tighe & Bond was accepted by the town and sent to MassDevelopment for review.
Most recently, voters at Annual Town Meeting in May approved using $600,000 from Capital Stabilization to match the MassDevelopment grant.
Some of the biggest changes to the RFP include adding a section with information about the $600,000 MassDevelopment Site Readiness grant and the matching town funding that was approved at Town Meeting; updates to the comparative evaluation criteria and clarifying what a developer should include in their proposals; and adding information about having select people from the town and partner organizations like FRCOG join a review committee to go over proposals privately.
Regarding the timeline of development once a proposal is accepted, including project completion within 10 years from start to finish, Smith said that, based on experience with previous projects and their timelines, a 10-year timeframe was established with recommendations from FRCOG and MassDevelopment. He said putting in a timeline that’s too aggressive could deter applicants.
One question was if a resident could be part of this review committee. Selectboard Chair Jacob Smith said the consideration should be that this will be a private development and not a public project, while Selectboard member Jacquelyn Boyden said there should at least be two more town representatives who understand a project like this.
The decision was made to open the review committee up to town officials who are involved in land use and financial planning, and an interested community member, but attendees noted the language of the RFP won’t guarantee this makeup.
Finance Committee member Daniel Hammock asked about how much the town has spent on the property. Between direct costs of insurance, property management and town staff visits, loans associated with grants that may need to be repaid and hazardous material abatements, Bryan Smith said it’s “hundreds of thousands of dollars,” with Jacob Smith also noting town staff hours that go toward the work.
“I think having a successful outcome, regardless of what you all eventually decide on and what proposals may come forward, is what this community needs,” Bryan Smith said about the property, “and so to have somebody who has a vested interest in seeing that be a successful venture would be amazing to take this weight off of us.”
Hammock said he appreciates loosening those review committee requirements a bit, and while not every resident may get exactly the proposal they want to see for the property, “what everybody, I think, does want, is [to] stop spending money on this thing.”
By the end of the discussion, the Selectboard voted unanimously to implement any changes they recommended that night and to get the RFP ready for a Sept. 9 release date.
