The town of Middleton, Mass., is moving ahead with plans to buy 23 acres next to Angelica's Restaurant on Route 114 for a new town center, starting with the construction of a new fire station in the next few years.
A special town meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 13, during which voters will weigh whether to purchase the property for $3.8 million.
They will also vote on a $250,000 request to commission a master development plan on how best to locate several municipal buildings on the site, Town Administrator Andrew Sheehan said.
The land is owned by Fairway Estates LLC of Wakefield, whose manager is Raymond Falite, one of the founders of Falite Brothers, an HVAC company. The town and the owner have come to an agreement on the sale, Sheehan said. The town needs a vote of a town meeting to authorize the purchase and borrow the money.
"We've had facility studies," said Selectman Tim Houten. "The biggest driver is our fire department -- the building is just terrible." Houten was referring to the station on Lake Street in Middleton Square, next to the public library.
"But you can't rebuild on the spot," he said. "It's a postage stamp, and plus we could use that for parking or something else."
Fire stations should be located within a half-mile of the center of town, Houten said. The town has only one fire station. The problem is that land close to the town center can be some of a community's most valuable. The town has been looking for a long time for such a site, Houten said.
Houten said the property is big enough for a new fire station, senior/community center, police station and town hall, in that order.
The site is set back about 500 feet from Route 114, and wraps around the side and the back of Angelica's parking lot. It also backs up to homes on Boston and South Main streets. Access would be down a long driveway off Route 114.
More than half of the land, 13 acres, is dry, Sheehan said, meaning it would not face wetland permitting issues.
"We believe it's enough for what we want to accomplish over the next few years," Sheehan said.
The most pressing need is for a new fire station. The current one was built in 1957 and formerly contained the public works department in the basement, Sheehan said.
It has proven to be a tight fit over the years for the department's modern fire trucks. Its bay openings have been widened and raised to fit the trucks. If the parcel is purchased, and all goes smoothly, it would be 2021 or 2022 when the fire station is built.
The next project would be to build a new senior/community center. The Council on Aging now operates out of 38 Maple St., in the historic Old Town Hall, which was built in 1848, and where parking is tight.
The town's police station was built in 1952, and was formerly the Danvers police station. Middleton bought it when Danvers outgrew it, and moved it down Route 114 in the 1980s to its present location on North Main Street.
Finally, the town may look to move out of Memorial Hall, which sits across the street from Angelica's, due to deficiencies that include a lack of handicapped access to its second floor.
"We've had great support so far," Sheehan said of the plan.
Fairway Estates bought the property in 2015 from Alfred Fraumeni Jr. Inc., as part of a bankruptcy proceeding, according to the deed. The town has assessed the land's value at $562,600.
