The Lynn City Council is preparing to use eminent domain — defined in the Massachusetts Constitution as the taking, with reasonable compensation, of private property for public purposes — to take city ownership of commercial buildings located at 2 State St. and 37 Friend St.
Councilors voted in January to authorize the city to exercise its bonding authority to buy the buildings and sent letters in February notifying the property owners of the city’s intent.
Below is Mayor Jared C. Nicholson’s explanation for why the takings are necessary.
As mayor of the City of Lynn, I wish to take this opportunity to explain the reasoning and advanced planning which led the City to consider taking the properties at 2 State St. and 11-17/37- 41 Friend St. by eminent domain.
In March, the Lynn City Council sent a 30-day notice of intent to take two properties: 2 State St. and 11-17/37-41 Friend St. At an upcoming meeting, we will be asking the Lynn City Council to approve the taking.
The decision to utilize our eminent domain taking powers was not made without considerable thought and was made with a belief that this course of action was in the best interest of all in the city of Lynn.
Our elected and appointed officials appreciate the gravity of any decision to take property by eminent domain and would never undertake such an endeavor lightly. In the interest and spirit of full transparency, I wish to share how we made this difficult decision and the rationale behind this proposal.
It has been clear for many years that the city of Lynn is in dire need of additional usable space in public buildings to fully provide all necessary services to our residents. The 2020 U.S. Census confirmed that Lynn currently has more than 100,000 residents and has its highest population since its peak in 1930. However, with a growth in population also comes a corresponding growth in the needs of the community at large.
Unlike most surrounding communities, the City of Lynn has never owned nor operated its own Senior Center. In fact, the City has had no available space to provide our seniors a place to congregate in more than two years.
Senior centers are vital to the physical and mental well-being of our elder population in that they provide services, activities and opportunities for social interaction that are age- and culturally-appropriate.
Lynn Public Schools also have a pressing need for space that has increased significantly over the years as more students continue to enroll in the school district.
The City has been diligently searching for space for administrative offices and a Welcome Center where families register and children are placed in one of Lynn’s 25 public schools.
By successfully acquiring usable space for our School Department, we will free up the current administrative building located on Bennett Street for much-needed pre-kindergarten classrooms. In addition, it is almost universally agreed that the Welcome Center should be relocated to a building that is easily accessible by public transportation in the downtown area, as it is the primary touch point for families enrolling in the Lynn Public Schools for the first time.
The need for suitable, additional space for public health was never more apparent than during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lynn requires space to host COVID-19 and flu clinics, store medical equipment such as test kits and masks, and accommodate other Department of Public Health community programs in the future. Education and outreach are cornerstones of public-health interventions and additional space will permit the department’s other programs, such as substance-abuse and tobacco programs, and the food security task force, to have a place to succeed and grow.
The space that the city currently uses for 911 call takers is under a costly lease, running Lynn’s taxpayers approximately $60,000 a year. We believe there exists opportunities for more suitable space for our operational needs, which would ultimately cost a fraction of what we are incurring at the present time.
All of these varied services represent permanent, long-term needs to our residents. It is indisputable that owning the space to provide these crucial services is much more cost efficient than renting.
In addition, we want to communicate that Eastern Bank and Element Care are valued members of our community. Their use of both these properties had ended and the buildings were for sale. We are pursuing a plan that would displace no one business or tenant.
Knowing this, and that both Element Care and Eastern Bank will receive the fair market value to which they are entitled, gives us confidence that both will continue to be valued partners to the City.
With this as a way of background, municipal officials have been diligently searching for available space throughout the city for the past several years.
Lynn’s economic turnaround has made the purchase of usable properties possible where such a prudent course of action was not financially possible as recently as two years ago.
Lynn’s elected and appointed officials have been considering the property at 2 State St. for almost a year. Two State St. is a modern building, which requires few repairs or new construction and possesses on-site parking for employees and visitors.
The property is also a short walk from Lynn’s Commuter Rail station and bus terminal, further facilitating public access. With the recent merger of Eastern Bank and Century Bank, the lower floors of this property have been vacant.
City officials learned last summer that Eastern Bank was planning to sell the property and issued a Request for Proposals to sell the building to a third party. Last September, the City sent a letter to Eastern Bank expressing its interest in the property prior to the opening of the bids.
The City’s interest in the Friend Street property has developed over a similar timeframe. Lynn had issued two Requests for Proposals for the Senior Center during the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in no responses from any prospective bidder.
The third RFP resulted in two bids for a lease arrangement, which was determined to not be in the City’s financial interest. Element Care, which currently owns the Friend Street property, had vacated the premises and relocated all of its services to the former Union Hospital site.
Like the State Street property, Element Care was seeking to sell the Friend Street property. Like the State Street property, the eminent domain taking of the Friend Street property will result in no displacement of any existing Lynn businesses.
The Friend Street property possesses ample parking and will require no extraordinary expenditures to retrofit the first floors into space suitable to house a modern, state-of-the-art Senior Center for Lynn’s elder population.
The City of Lynn was extremely fortunate that two separate properties suitable for its needs were placed for sale by their prior owners during the last year. As neither property would require significant capital improvements and repairs and no businesses would be forced to move to a different location, city officials began working on the legal process to acquire the properties.
Cities, unlike private parties, are subject to strict public procurement laws that limit the ways in which we can acquire property. This led the City to initiate eminent domain proceedings as our best option, given the limitations we are under from those public procurement laws.
In January, the City Council authorized bond issuances for property acquisition for both sites. The City of Lynn possesses tremendous borrowing capacity for real-estate investments such as those being currently proposed. The City’s Law Department has also been engaged in good-faith discussions with representatives of both property owners in an attempt to reach mutually-agreeable resolutions.
An explanation into how eminent domain works is crucial to understanding the process moving forward. Eminent domain takings of private properties are specifically authorized by both the United States and Massachusetts constitutions.
However, in order for the City of Lynn to take any private property by eminent domain, it is obligated to pay the property owner the fair market value for the property. Both the City and property owner will utilize the services of appraisers to determine a fair market value.
In the cases of State Street and Friend Street, the City and the owners have a real-time assessment of the fair market value as each property was for sale and each owner recently received offers to purchase from third parties.
The City is required to make a payment to each property owner within 30 days of the taking of the property. In the event that the property owner believes that the City’s established price does not represent the actual fair market value of the property, the owner may file a lawsuit to seek additional compensation along with interest.
As the City moves forward with the anticipated eminent domain takings, I wish to highlight several important points:
First, not a single tenant or business, including the current second-floor tenant at State Street, will be displaced or forced to relocate to a new building.
Secondly, the current owners, both Eastern Bank and Element Care, were seeking to sell the respective properties and had no intention of retaining ownership of the properties.
Thirdly, both Eastern Bank and Element Care are guaranteed by law to receive fair market value for the properties.
Next, both Eastern Bank and Element Care both were provided ample notice that the City was interested in acquiring these properties for municipal services.
Finally, the City currently possesses the financial ability to purchase these properties at this time.
The potential acquisitions of these properties represent an important milestone for the city for generations to come. A great deal of time, thought, work, and expense remain to ready these properties for their intended uses.
But once ready, the two new spaces will transform the City’s footprint in the community and ability to serve all of Lynn’s residents regardless of age, race, income level or ethnicity.
As our city emerges from the pandemic, there are certain services we can continue to provide without being in person and face to face. We owe it to our residents to make the most of those opportunities to access services remotely for efficiency and convenience where warranted.
However, certain municipal services will require in-person interaction in appropriate physical spaces that are welcoming and inviting. Spaces that give people a reason to get together in a safe environment.
The municipal departments we will be installing into these spaces will possess that same mission. The services that will be provided in these new spaces — for seniors, for students and families, for residents with health needs — will be provided most effectively with the proper facilities.
Importantly, City ownership of these spaces will mean that this is the most efficient use of taxpayer dollars, as lease and rental payments to private parties will no longer be required.
The next step in this process, the Council’s decision to take these two properties, will allow us to make the homes for these services a permanent feature of what the City offers our community. We are eager to continue to work with all involved, including Element Care and Eastern Bank, on our shared future for the city of Lynn.
Jared C. Nicholson is the mayor of Lynn.
