Swampscott properties go back up for sale

SWAMPCOTT – Selectmen hope to approve redevelopment proposals for the town-owned Temple Israel and Greenwood Avenue school properties by Oct. 11, according to a timeline presented to selectmen by the Town Building Oversight Committee Tuesday night.”Is this too aggressive?” asked Selectman Chair Matthew Strauss.”I think that (the committee members) are motivated to get it done,” Selectman Jill Sullivan, a liaison to that committee, replied.This is the second time that the town has issued a request-for-proposals from developers for the two town-owned sites, Town Administrator Andrew Maylor said Wednesday.The town purchased the Temple Israel site for $3.25 million in 2006, with the recommendation that it be the site of a new police station, Maylor said.Instead, the committee chose a Humphrey Street location to build the new police station.The Greenwood Avenue school property was slated for redevelopment once the new high school was opened in 2007, Sullivan said.The building oversight committee issued proposal guidelines for both sites in the summer of 2010, Sullivan said. It received two proposals for each property, but ultimately recommended that only one project – a 32-bed assisted-living center for patients with Alzheimer’s disease – be approved by the selectmen, Sullivan said.Selectmen rejected the proposal’s $1.2 million sale price as too low, however, Maylor said. Neither proposal for the Greenwood Avenue School was deemed financially “appropriate,” he said.Since then, Town Meeting removed a historical restriction on the Greenwood Avenue School property in May to entice its development. Sullivan said that the Building Oversight Committee also tweaked the development requests so that “it made it clear that we’re open to a broader range of ideas.”As a result, both Sullivan and Selectman’s Administrative Assistant Maureen Shultz said that several companies and individuals have recently inquired about the temple property.As for the Oct. 11 goal, Sullivan said that it and the Oct. 4 goal for the Building Oversight Committee to make a recommendation might be extended – but that would be positive.”(The date) depends on the responses,” Sullivan explained. “If we get 10-12, hopefully 15 proposals, it will take a lot longer to review.”