The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority closed on a 21-acre property at 440 Riverside Ave. in Medford, where it intends to store and maintain buses, frustrating residents and officials who worry about its impact on the neighborhood and a missed opportunity to build a supermarket. Medford Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn announced on Aug. 25 via Facebook that the MBTA had closed on the property.
Market Basket, a New England supermarket chain, also attempted to purchase the property but was outbid by the MBTA. The property, built in 1983, was previously owned by Anheuser-Busch and closed last year.
In a statement made on Aug. 14 , before the sale’s closing but after the MBTA had made the highest bid, Lungo-Koehn expressed her preference for a Market Basket to open at 440 Riverside Ave. with very few bus operations from the MBTA.
“I felt I had to get as involved as possible because our community has made it clear that access to affordable groceries is far more important and impactful to the neighborhood than a de facto parking lot for the MBTA,” she wrote.
CBRE Group, the real estate agency for the property, wrote in a brochure that current city zoning and the city’s attitude toward redevelopment make the property especially enticing.
“With current zoning allowing for additional density onsite coupled with the City of Medford’s desire to see redevelopment in this immediate area, 440 Riverside offers the unique opportunity to acquire a large-scale, urban site that could benefit from a multitude of potential redevelopment scenarios,” the brochure reads.
In a later statement posted to Facebook on Aug. 25, Lungo-Koehn suggested that the MBTA would consider carving off part of the property for shared use.
“The MBTA has closed on the property at 440 Riverside and is continuing to work to share acreage to help lower grocery costs for our residents,” she wrote in the post.
Lungo-Koehn also said the MBTA’s plans were “too much for one site” and called on them to hold a community meeting as soon as possible.
As part of its Bus Facility Modernization program, the MBTA said it planned on using the site to maintain its expanding fleet of battery-electric buses. The 440 Riverside Ave. site would allow the agency to electrify more than 50% of its bus fleet. According to a presentation by the MBTA, the 440 Riverside Ave. location would therefore be the only viable site for its storage and electrification needs.
“This acquisition will help modernize and consolidate outdated bus maintenance facilities,” the presentation read. “A single, state-of-the-art facility at 440 Riverside is the best path forward for efficiency and modernization.”
According to the MBTA, its existing bus maintenance facilities — the Fellsway facility in Medford and another in Lynn — are too small and essentially “obsolete.”
The MBTA will transfer seven acres of its Wellington Station property and car barns along Salem Street to the city of Medford, according to Lungo-Koehn.
The city of Medford will not gain tax revenue from the site because the MBTA, a state agency, is exempt from paying property taxes.
Nate Merritt, a candidate for City Council who lives close to the Riverside Avenue site, expressed concern about the potential financial loss for the city. He lamented the project’s lack of transparency, saying Lungo-Koehn’s lack of communication between her initial statement on ongoing sale negotiations between the MBTA and Market Basket and the final sale had him searching for answers.
“What is the net benefit for having the MBTA with a bus garage at that 21-acre property? The [transfer of] the car barns don’t make up for it,” Merritt said.
As it was a private sale, Lungo-Koehn had limited power over the final decision. Lungo-Koehn serves as Vice Chair of the MBTA Advisory Board, which makes recommendations over planning and allocation of funds for MBTA operations and capital projects. The Advisory Board, composed of city leaders from 187 municipalities, does not make any final decisions on behalf of the MBTA.
Merritt suggested that in addition to the property’s lack of direct neighborhood benefit is a missed opportunity, noting it could have housed a recreational center for children, among other uses. He believes that more could have been done to encourage a business, rather than a city agency, to purchase the property.
“Did we actually reach out? Because [with] a property developer, ‘if you build it, they will come’ doesn’t always work,” he said.
The time for service to begin at the 440 Riverside Avenue site for the MBTA is still far off, according to Lungo-Koehn. She elaborated on Facebook that the MBTA still needed to run a public procurement process, conduct land surveys and test soil.
The Daily reached out to Lungo-Koehn’s office but did not receive a statement by publication.
