Development firm Bulfinch is changing up its plans for the site of Needham’s former Muzi Ford dealership, exploring a pivot to a mixed-use project with hundreds of housing units instead of an office and laboratory complex.
The Needham Planning Board in 2022 approved Bulfinch’s proposal to build a 475,000-square-foot, two-building complex at the 10-acre site on Highland Avenue just off Route 128, which once housed a large Ford and Chevrolet dealership.
But since then the once-turbocharged demand for life sciences lab space has slowed significantly, both in Greater Boston and across the United States. Bulfinch last week approached the Planning Board to begin exploring different development options rather than leave “a graveyard” of an empty site for years to come, said Robert A. Schlager, Bulfinch’s president.
Advertisement
“We’re looking to you to help us develop this so-called vision as the gateway to Needham and allow this property to be developed as a flagship entry to the town, something that we can all be proud of,” Schlager said at the June 3 meeting. “I know it’s different from when we started a few years back, but unfortunately the world has changed, and we need to adapt with that change.”
The special zoning permit approved for the site in 2022 allows for two office and lab buildings of five and three stories connected by an atrium, a five-story parking garage, and a retail plaza at the corner of Highland Avenue and Gould Street.
Last week, the Muzi Ford development team presented a “conceptual option” to the Planning Board, with four buildings surrounding a central parking lot. The potential uses include hotel, senior housing, medical office, and market-rate apartments, and Bulfinch intends to keep its approved 10,000 square feet of retail space.
Advertisement
Schlager said Bulfinch was exploring around 150 units of senior housing in various forms, including assisted living, memory care, and independent living. Medical office users are actively on the hunt for space now, and there’s always demand for housing, he added.
Greg Reibman, chief executive of the Charles River Regional Chamber, said while he welcomed housing with open arms, it’s disappointing to not grow Needham’s commercial sector.
“Our employers have been telling us for years that they need more housing closer to their places of work to attract the workforce that they want,” Reibman said.
The Muzi site has a long history, at this point.
Fearing a then-expansive Amazon, Needham voters in 2019 blocked a proposal to rezone it to accommodate an e-commerce warehouse; two years later, Bulfinch bought the property for $57.5 million with a plan for life sciences, which was red-hot at the time.
But at that price, Schlager said, it will need to hold more housing to make the numbers work, “closer to 500″ units than 150 to 200, Schlager told the Planning Board last week.
“It would be very difficult, given the purchase price paid for the site, the infrastructure that would be required, and the success of the project, to have only 150 or 200 units of housing,” Schlager said. “That doesn’t make financial sense.”
The Planning Board suggested Bulfinch restart the process of community outreach, which Schlager pledged to do. The developer would like to see a Town Meeting vote on the rezoning next May, so a project could be in position to start construction in late 2026 or early 2027.
Advertisement
Catherine Carlock can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @bycathcarlock.