The town has received a $400,000 state grant to design and engineer an upgrade to the wastewater treatment plant in South Lincoln, which owners of the mall have been advocating as a requirement for redeveloping that commercial area.
Lincoln Planning officials have been considering ways to rezone South Lincoln to encourage denser housing and mixed-use development in the larger area encompassing the mall, the MBTA station and adjacent businesses, Ridge Road, Doherty’s Garage, and Lewis Street. Among the ideas is redeveloping the mall (which is in tenuous condition financially) by adding a second story for housing. But the Rural Land Foundation, which owns the mall, has said that the wastewater treatment plant that serves both the mall and Lincoln Woods will need an upgrade for any redevelopment to be feasible.
As a result, the town applied for a $400,000 grant even as it awaited the results of an engineering study by Wright-Pierce to evaluate the condition of the plant and see if it could handle additional septic capacity. Phase 1 of the study was completed in October and showed that the 35-year-old plant, though “a little long in the tooth” and needing some work, is operating at about 50% of its 26,000 gallon-per-day capacity and could handle some additional residents and businesses.
The town applied for the grant before knowing any of the study’s results because “you always have to plan the next step and the next step” in advance, said Paula Vaughn-MacKenzie, director of planning and land use.
“As that [study] was going on, we knew that if we could get a grant to cover [upgrading the treatment plant], that would benefit both the town and Community Builders,” which owns the 125-unit Lincoln Woods and the plant, Vaughn-MacKenzie said. “Everybody knew it was working but everyone also knew it was old… this entire evaluation is in response to the feedback we’ve been getting from the public asking about the infrastructure, and we know we can’t have redevelopment without the infrastructure” to support it.
The mall originally had a separate wastewater treatment facility that failed, and the RLF has been contracting with Community Builders to use the Lincoln Woods system for some years.
Wright-Pierce said earlier that Phase 2 of the study, which should be complete by the end of the year, will look at whether the existing plant can handle flow above 26,000 gallons per day for which it’s permitted, alternative treatment methods with a life-cycle cost analysis, and a recommendation on how to proceed, both with flows and treatment type. It’s unclear if that remaining work will be affected by news of the grant.
The grant money isn’t targeted at a specific project, “but it will provide a framework for going forward,” Vaughn-MacKenzie said. After Phase 2 is complete, “we’ll look at options and discuss with the community and Community Builders what the capacity and various costs will be” to upgrade the plant.
Vaughn-MacKenzie said she had asked Wright-Pierce and two other engineering firms for a ballpark estimate for upgrading or replacing the plant and was told it would be around $400,000, so that’s the figure she used in the grant request.
The town had been under a public announcement embargo while a formal announcement ceremony was being organized. Mike Kennealy, Secretary of Housing and Economic Development, will appear at the event at Town Hall on Wednesday, Nov. 17 at 3:30 p.m.