Saugus auction offers 71 commercial acres

SAUGUS – A gargantuan swath of prime commercial property off Kimball Lane goes on the auction block Aug. 26 with the potential to dramatically transform the wooded neighborhood.The noon foreclosure sale conducted by Marianne Sullivan, president of Sullivan & Sullivan Auctioneers, will be held on the premises at 10 Kimball Lane. The property for sale at Zero Pennsylvania Ave. – an address on a paper street – is accessible only via Salem Street to Kimball Lane in Lynnfield.Sullivan is selling the land, formerly owned by Helen M. McCarthy of Boxford and her son, James F. McCarthy of Laconia, N.H., on behalf of Sovereign Bank.The McCarthys are the subject of a lawsuit filed by state Attorney General Martha Coakley, in conjunction with the property. Court documents alleged the pair maintained an illegal dump and filled in protected wetlands on the site for at least a decade.The lawsuit, filed last month in Suffolk Superior Court, seeks a permanent injunction that would require the McCarthys to clean up the site and restore the wetlands. It also seeks civil penalties for violating the state’s environmental laws.Wendy Reed, clerk to the Board of Selectmen, said original special permits for the land issued in 1980 allowed storage of mobile offices and classrooms. Over the years the property morphed into a contractors’ yard and dumping or burying ground for demolition debris, roofing materials, asbestos, scrap metal and crushed trailers.In 2007, Helen McCarthy was fined $220,000 by the state Department of Environmental Protection for failing to comply with a consent order to clean up the property and restore the wetlands.”By using their property as an illegal dumping ground for asbestos and other solid waste, we allege that the McCarthys have not only put at risk the health of workers at the property, but have destroyed sensitive wetland habitats,” Coakley stated in the lawsuit.Of the 71 acres for sale, 27 are wetlands and 44 are upland areas. The property is subdivided into eight lots.