Cummings Properties Press Release - January 29, 2008

Planning Board Approves Courthouse Occupancy
Cummings Properties Press Release

After several days of active work on Route 38 traffic improvements, the lights turned green for TradeCenter 128 last night. Planning Board members voted unanimously that work had proceeded far enough to issue the Courthouse Occupancy Permit.

The Board’s outside traffic consultant briefed the Board on the almost complete traffic improvements at the intersection of Main Street, Elm Street, Alfred Street and Sylvan Road as well as those at several other area intersections. Planning Director Ed Tarallo informed the Board of his satisfactory inspection of the TradeCenter site and of his receipt of positive reports from several city departments before the Board voted unanimously to approve the Courthouse move in.

The Board also voted to request the City Engineer and Planning Director to initiate talks with MassHighway about possible additional work on the Route 128/Main Street rotary. Planning Director Tarallo reported that he had earlier in the day received a check for $540,000 from Cummings Properties’ president, Dennis Clarke, “with no strings attached.” Clarke said later the funds would be used to fund any further improvements the City negotiated with MassHighway, or could be used by the City for any other purpose.

The Middlesex County Superior Court had earlier announced that it expected to move from Cambridge to Woburn on March 17. Pending receipt of the Occupancy Permit, however, “the courthouse was something like an ocean liner in the harbor waiting to dock,” said Clarke.

He said that the 139,000 square foot structure has been mostly complete since January 3, exactly one year after construction started. When the occupancy report is delivered and final paperwork is received for the recent elevator inspections, the structure will reportedly be ready to turn over to the Commonwealth, likely before the weekend.

Construction is also well along on the next two phases of the large structure directly overlooking Interstate 95/Route 128. The second phase is expected to have its first occupants May 1, and the third phase, closest to Stop & Shop, by year end, Clarke said.

The structure, which was first proposed to the City several years ago, will also have several hundred thousand square feet of high quality office space when done. According to Clarke, the complex when fully occupied, will generate more than two-thirds of a million dollars a year in new taxes for Woburn. It will certainly generate more traffic, too, however, and the Planning Board has been very careful, by all accounts to see that all possible traffic issues were addressed.

Originally, operating only in Woburn, Cummings Properties still has its home office in Woburn, but most of its new recent development has been in other communities. Its nine million square foot portfolio reportedly spreads now from Marlborough and Sudbury in the west, and as far northeast as Beverly, where it operates two million square feet.

The Company says it employs more than 200 workers based in Woburn, including 45 who are Woburn residents. It has been known to move many Woburn people into senior positions during its 38-year history in the City.