Market Basket and Demoulas Supermarkets just built a large new grocery store in Bourne, redeveloping the aged and nearly vacant Cape Cod Factory Outlet Mall adjacent to the Sagamore Bridge. They even created new outlet space for shops like Bass and Izod. Town officials and residents were glad to have the new project replace the sad old stores, especially since the town has been without a supermarket of its own for more than four years. That was big news for Bourne, but the town’s economic development story doesn’t end there.
Enter Coreen Moore, Bourne’s town planner. She and other town representatives are in the process of creating a new vision for the downtown, in the village of Buzzards Bay, and creating a central business district for commercial projects like a new hotel or other uses to make the area a destination, while retaining much of the area’s maritime history. Buzzards Bay is, of course, home to the Massachusetts Maritime Academy and sits at one end of the Cape Cod Canal. The question is, how does that happen?
Title: Bourne Town Planner
Age: 54
Experience: 32 years
Q: Buzzards Bay isn’t exactly a hotbed for development. What’s the plan to revitalize the downtown?
A: In 2008 we adopted new zoning for smart growth with higher density and smaller lots. We’re looking for new, mixed-use projects, commercial on the first floors and residential above. We increased the building height quite significantly there. We want a minimum of two stories. As of right now, you can build up to four stories. You can get a special permit for anything above that. We don’t really have a cap. It depends on what the project is and where it would be located.
Q: Is there a particular need in the town? Or something residents are really craving?
A: Right now, Bourne is divided into eight villages. Most towns do have a downtown. Buzzards Bay has always been its own village, but it’s really Bourne’s central commercial area. We’re trying to change the perception that it’s just another village and really turn it into a downtown. We really don’t have a lot of retail. Any real shopping you do you need to go out of town for it. We’re looking to create a maritime theme in the downtown. We have a few nice restaurants, but not many. We have Mass. Maritime and the Bourne Bridge and the train bridge that so many people visit, so it makes sense to retain the maritime feel to it. We want to make it a real destination, especially with more restaurants and specialty shops, maybe a hotel. We need the property owners to get more invested in the surrounding area. We don’t really have that now.
Q: What are the challenges to making all that happen?
A: The infrastructure is there; the only thing that’s not is our wastewater. That part of town has sewers, but it’s shared and we send our wastewater to Wareham. But we only have a 200,000-gallon-per-day cap, so we can’t go over that. Right now we’re at about 120,000 to 140,000. So if there’s a new project, like a hotel, that will certainly increase capacity, and restaurants increase the capacity quite a bit. Right now we have a committee in place studying the different options. We’re going to have to find something to do here in town, like putting a new wastewater plant somewhere.
Q: So that’s all in the future. But in the present, you just had the opening of the new Market Basket and redeveloped outlet mall site. What has that done for the town?
A: I’ve heard that they’re doing so well that they … may want to enlarge the supermarket even more. We didn’t have a supermarket in town for years. The town was so excited for this the whole time. They have really created a place to draw in people from different areas. That outlet mall was slowly dying, so this is a great addition.
Coreen Moore’s Five Favorites Things To Do On Cape Cod:
- Eating lunch along the Cape Cod Canal at the Railroad bridge in Buzzards Bay.
- Taking a scenic drive down the Cape via Route 6A.
- Visiting Sandy Neck Beach.
- Riding the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard.
- Participating in the Mashpee Wampanoag Powwow every 4th of July with my tribal family.
