North Andover A site once pitched as a major manufacturing center adjacent to a planned residential and commercial community may have a new future — as a marijuana growing facility.
Residents at Town Meeting may have a hand in determining whether this is the future of Osgood Landing, thanks to a proposal by Jeff Goldstein at Monday’s Board of Selectmen meeting.
Goldstein, owner of Ozzy Properties and Osgood Landing with his wife, Orit Goldstein, proposed a large cannabis growing facility in the 1.1 million empty square feet of manufacturing space at 1600 Osgood St., the site of the former Lucent Technologies manufacturing plant. But Goldstein needs voter approval to change the zoning of the property so he can begin to woo potential cultivators.
Massachusetts legalized recreational marijuana in November, and legislators are still working on creating the retail infrastructure. Meanwhile, cultivators are scouring the state for places to plant their roots and grow.
Goldstein said Monday he has no intention of running a dispensary out of the facility. He just wants to grow the marijuana and supply it to medical and recreational dispensaries in the area.
In Essex County, dispensaries have provisional approval in Amesbury, Danvers, Georgetown, Gloucester, Ipswich, Lowell, Salem, Methuen and Lynn.
Goldstein said he has already been approached by several American and European companies looking to use the facility for marijuana cultivation.
A cannabis center
Since the marijuana retail industry is just starting to bud, Goldstein couldn’t offer specifics on how many trucks he expected would be going to and from the facility and dispensaries, or just how much water the plant would actually use or where it would come from.
And state lawmakers voted in December to delay the opening of recreational retail marijuana stores until mid-2018.
Goldstein argued his proposal would essentially make Osgood Landing what it was at its height: a massive manufacturing facility. And he has big goals for the plant.
"Our thinking is that Massachusetts, we’re a research hub. We have innovation, we have research and development, we’re interested in grabbing the higher value," he said. "We want to create an International Cannabis Research Institute, we want to fund that."
Goldstein, armed with a marketing consultant, argued the facility would bring 1600 Osgood back to its manufacturing roots, while also being forward-thinking with the future of agriculture.
Tom Lee, senior partner at Boston-based 451 Marketing and a North Andover resident, said tax revenues from the property were at their highest when there was a single industrial tenant fully utilizing the property.
In addition to the tax revenue, Lee said the town has the potential to see additional revenue through a host community agreement: the facility operator would pay the town a certain amount of money in lieu of local sales taxes.
This payment in lieu of taxes is similar to the agreement recently signed by the town and Osgood Solar, which will pay the town roughly $86,000 yearly to operate a solar farm on land adjacent to the massive manufacturing plant.
The growing facility would also bring roughly 2,500 jobs, according to Goldstein.
"It’d be everything from the actual farming cultivation, to research, to operations," he said.
Change of message
Goldstein and his wife, Orit, purchased the facility in 2003, as the once-thriving Lucent Technologies plant was in the process of closing down.
Some 17 years ago, Goldstein and the town entered into a "smart growth overlay district" zoning agreement. The plan was to create a dense residential and commercial district along the Route 125 with homes and retail businesses complete with a commuter rail stop adjacent to the manufacturing facility.
To date not one of the 530 planned residences has been built, and only 10 percent of the manufacturing space is being utilized. Recently, Ozzy Properties reached an agreement with Osgood Solar and the town, to develop a six megawatt solar array on the site.
Today, 1600 Osgood is 41 percent occupied with multiple tenants running manufacturing, retail, and storage operations, according to the presentation given at the Board of Selectmen meeting Monday.
In a change of message from the past two decades, Goldstein argued Osgood Landing is best suited for "single-use manufacturing."
"The highest and best use of this facility is manufacturing. We’ve had a lot of plans … I think that’s what the site will become," he said.
In order to move forward with any of the plan, Goldstein would need to alter the zoning of that area and therefore have to go before residents at Town Meeting.
The proposed changes would expand the registered marijuana dispensaries zone that already exists next to Osgood Landing to include the property itself, and lift the limit on the size a marijuana facility can be, which is currently set at 20,000 square feet.
Selectman Phil DeCologero expressed interest in the facility, but warned Goldstein that he would have to sell it to residents who have been waiting for change at Osgood Landing for years.
"You’re going before Town Meeting asking for zoning changes. If you shopped at the Market Basket, and wore a shirt that said ‘I’m responsible for the Osgood site’ you’d get stopped in every aisle," he said.
Goldstein has until March 6 to file his citizen petition with the town for it to be added to the warrant articles that will be discussed at Town Meeting in April.
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker
Full Article: Marijuana Growing Operation Proposed In North Andover
Author: Zoe Mathews
Contact: 78-946-2000
Photo Credit: None Found
Website: Eagle-Tribune
