MALDEN — The future of the former Malden Hospital site will be addressed by the City Council’s ad hoc committee, with the first of a series of discussions planned for Tuesday, Jan. 16.
The committee on Malden Hospital Site Development will talk about any proposals put forth for the redevelopment of the 17.6-acre land tract which has been dormant since the hospital closed in 1999. It is the largest undeveloped land site in the city at this time.
Ward 3 Councilor John Matheson has been a vocal proponent of preserving the land site for open and recreational space. He is the chairman of the ad hoc committee and is joined by members and City Councilors at large Debbie DeMaria and Craig Spadafora, Ward 6 Councilor David Camell and Prisco Tammaro, a Malden citizen who serves as president of the Friends of Fellsmere Heights.
Councilors DeMaria and Spadafora both live in the West End section of Malden, where the hospital land site is located.
Matheson also pushed for the 2015 ballot question, which won by a healthy margin, where Malden residents passed a non-binding referendum asking the city to purchase the site for the express purpose of using it as a historic park and open space.
Matheson reiterated the intention of this committee to work with a similarly-formed committee in Medford toward a mutually-acceptable development proposal for both communities.
“Both communities have similar concerns and it makes sense to bring everyone together to talk about the future for this land,” Matheson said.
The city of Medford also has a committee created in 2016. While nearly all of the land tract is contained within city of Malden boundaries, most of the western dividing line of the Malden Hospital property is also the Medford-Malden city line. The majority of the residential areas surrounding the property is Medford land.
According to Matheson, Medford residents in that neighborhood share Malden residents’ concerns about traffic and pedestrian and overall safety issues that could arise with a multi-unit residential development, which has been proposed by at least one developer.
Tammaro’s group, Friends of Fellsmere Heights was formed shortly after a large-scale development was proposed for construction at the site. A plan for 224 apartments, seven condominiums and 18 single-family homes garnered a lot of neighborhood opposition. Shortly after, a residential construction moratorium (which expired Dec. 31, 2017) went into effect.
The Friends of Fellsmere Heights does back some residential development at the hospital site, but limits its preference to senior citizen housing. It also submitted its independent development proposal last year, calling for reuse of the hospital site as a community garden; athletic fields; hiking trails; and also a community center and commercial center where residents could get advice on planning and starting a business.
The site is owned by Hallmark Health, which operated the former Malden Hospital and now operates Lawrence Memorial Hospital in Medford and Melrose-Wakefield Hospital in Melrose. Hallmark Health last year submitted its own development proposal which called for multiple single family residential units, but the Malden Planning Board rejected that bid.
The Jan. 16 ad hoc Committee on Malden Hospital Site Development is expected to be held before the Malden City Council meeting.
