Burlington acquired the Marion Tavern as part of the three way land swap between the Guiterrez company and developer Gary Ruping. Part of the rationale for the deal was to renovate the old farm house/tavern on the site for historical reasons. Other reasons for the enthusiam for the deal was the affluent neighborhood adjacent to the site just was interested in reducing the number of units and the affordability component of the original much larger develoment proposed by Ruping. Up until that point no ever suggested the town spend a dime in acquiring this property.
At the time of the deal a few voices in town suggested that we were going to be stuck with a termite infested albatross that would be an enormous expense to the town to renovate and an ongoing facilities nightmare to operate and maintain.
The political forces behind the acquisition said not to worry because no tax payer money would be used in the renovation. So far that has been almost true with the exception of the tax payer money that has been acquired for the project by virtue of the sale of one of the lots that was part of the package. The deal was supposed to be three lots however after closing on the deal, the town found out that because of wetlands on the site the town had only gained two lots. That resulted in the value of the towns end of the deal being reduced by about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. There has never been an explanation from the selectman as to how the town, which is the actual enforcement authority for such things as wetlands could have acquired land that by its own rules could not be developed.
All of that is in the past however and now we are faced with how to move forward with the project. The first of the three proposed phases of reconstruction faced a setback this week when it was reported that the two bids received for the far exceeded the available funds (approximately 800k).
This should come as no surpise to anyone familar with municipal construction projects in Massachusetts. A rule of thumb might be what ever is reported should be at least doubled and that is a good starting point for what will likely be an even more expensive project.
There is a reasonable and creative solution to this particular problem however. The Shawsheen Technical High School has long been in the building business by virtue of its carpentry instruction program. A renovation of a structure of this type would be a perfect learning experience for its students. Instead of a bloated bid and cost over run process, the town could simply engage Shawsheen to use the site as a school project and provide materials only to the school. There is no pressing time table for completion of the project since once completed there is no real use for the tavern anyway.
The superintendent of Shawsheen was approached at the May town meeting and asked about the possibility of the school taking on the project, Mr. Lyons replied that "that is something we do". So far there has been no effort by the board of selectmen to publicly inquire about the possibility of saving as much as two or three million dollars by taking this avenue. I wonder why not?
