Devens officials are discussing a third attempt to create hundreds of housing units at the former Vicksburg Square barracks, where two previous attempts were rejected by local voters. Photo courtesy of MassDevelopment

Creation of over 6,000 jobs in industry clusters like clean energy, biomanufacturing and indoor agriculture made redevelopment of Fort Devens a national model for military base redevelopment. 

Devens’ missing piece remains its modest housing component, a reflection of a decades-old cap on residential development at the 4,400-acre property that spans parts of the towns of Ayer, Harvard and Shirley. Ayer – which voted to block a pair of housing proposals at Devens, most recently in 2012 – is now seeking to fill the void with a smart growth approach just outside Devens’ main entrance. The vision: a new “West Ayer Village” replacing a major corridor lined with 1970s-style strip malls. 

“It’s sitting right at the front gateway of Devens and it’s amazing what they are doing up there,” said Alan S. Manoian, Ayer’s director of community and economic development. “But this place was not beneficial to the curb appeal.” 

Rezoning approved last year replaces the low-density, single-use development pattern with a flexible form-based zoning code that requires buildings of two to four stories and encourages mixed uses, such as housing above commercial space. The town received a $3.1 million MassWorks infrastructure grant that it’s using to add sidewalks, new water mains, street parking, bicycle lanes and landscaping. 

“We’re building the infrastructure of a traditional downtown,” Manoian said. “I want to create density and a liveable economy out here.” 

Investors Take Notice 

Plans for additional large-scale commercial development at Devens such as Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ 714,000-square-foot clean energy facility and King Street Properties’ $500 million biomanufacturing campus are setting the stage for housing demand in Ayer, Manoian said. 

One Ayer commercial property owner has been swamped with offers from developers since the rezoning was approved. 

In 2014, Brighter Horizons Environmental relocated from Chelmsford to a 5.5-acre property on West Main Street for its new headquarters including offices and storage space. CEO Jason Squeglia has been receiving cold calls from potential buyers interested in acquiring the property for a mixed-use development. Squeglia sees the same opportunity, however, and has commissioned designs for a retail and multifamily housing project. 

“It’s going to be a great little area for folks to move here, stay here, have everything they need and have access to the [commuter] rail which is right down the street,” he said. “West Main Street is going to be a whole different area when just a few projects get built.” 

An undisclosed New York real estate investor has inquired about redeveloping a property that it owns on West Main Street containing a single-story building, Manoian said. 

Skepticism About Housing Cap 

For all the development potential local leaders see, the former military base is still subject to a housing cap. The 1990s Devens reuse plan limited total housing to 282 units, amid concerns about potential effects on town services and a local housing glut. And state law includes high hurdles to lifting the cap, with any changes to the reuse plan having to be approved by all three communities’ town meetings on the same night. 

While the Baker administration is seeking to encourage housing production to address the state’s affordability crisis, MassDevelopment CEO Dan Rivera is pessimistic about the near-term prospects for more housing at Devens. 

“Housing is a crisis in the commonwealth,” Rivera said. “The real question is: What can get past a super town meeting? I’m not sure anybody knows.” 

That hasn’t stopped the Devens Enterprise Commission from discussing a third attempt to create hundreds of housing units at the 1930s-era Vicksburg Square barracks. The property is part of an “innovation technology” zone but received little interest from high-tech companies, said Peter Lowitt, director of the commission, which functions as the local land-use board. 

Attempts to rezone the structures for housing were most recently shot down in 2012, when Boston-based Trinity Financial proposed to renovate the buildings with an 80 percent affordability component. 

The long-vacant buildings continue to deteriorate, but are unlikely to be demolished because of their National Register of Historic Places designation, Lowitt said. 

“We all know how difficult it is to get one community to approve something. Imagine how much fun it is to get three,” he said. 

‘Too Many Unknowns’ 

At the request of the Harvard Select Board, the commission provided a memorandum in November on the benefits of housing at Vicksburg Square, including the restoration of the historic buildings and generation of a 25 percent affordable component as required by the reuse plan. 

Steve Adams

Harvard Select Board Chair Stuart Sklar said the town wants MassDevelopment to pay for a consulting study of effects on town services and predicts any proposal to build housing at Vicksburg Square would be rejected. 

“When we have too many unknowns, we vote things down, and MassDevelopment has not done a very good job with filling in the unknowns,” Sklar said. 

The town of Harvard has no direct road connections to the Devens property, but Devens residents can send their children to Harvard Public Schools under a long-term contract with MassDevelopment. 

“They have done an amazing job in creating jobs and that was really why they were put in place: to redevelop that as a job center. But they don’t run towns, and they aren’t accountable to voters, Sklar said.