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Student Leaders: Kendra Cone, Emma Delisle, and Brandon Sosa
Policy Alternative #1:
Finding a private buyer who is capable of disassembling, removing, and relocating the building to a different location, preferably in Danvers.
Advantages:
A private buyer solves the funding dilemma and moves the station off of Townsend Energy's land. It preserves the station and turns it into a local business that can showcase its architecture and its historical signficance.
Disadvantages:
Buying, moving, and renovating the station is a very expensive and time consuming task. It may not be able to happen before demolition and may require an extension of the demolition.
A private buyer may decide to take the station out of Danvers, which would be a loss for the town.
Locating available land is challenging, especially in the current real estate market.
“Our history in preservation is mixed at best. Each year, with less usable land and more development pressures, we continue to lose major historic chunks of our community. … You’re being asked to do something that Danvers seldom has done, but which many other enlightened communities do on occasion - to save a piece of our town heritage and make it into something generations into the future will be able to view and enjoy.”
- Richard Trask
Eric Nolan,EN, (2021, July, 30), Danvers Town Meeting takes no action on warrant to save Plains Train Station, WickedLocal.com. WickedLocal.com
Policy Alternative #2:
Our second alternative is reintroducing the idea of the Select Board taking ownership and using CRA funding to help with the cost of relocation and preservation. The building could be moved to the Hobart St parking lot or another town property where it can serve another function.
If the Select Board were to take ownership, CRA funding, which would need to be approved in next year's town meeting, could help offset some of the costs of moving the station and renovating it to be a commercial space the town could rent to private businesses. The revenue could then be used to cover the building costs as well as generate additional funding for the town.
Advantages:
The town can benefit from this because it can bring in people from other towns and create more revenue for local businesses and the town.
Disadvantages:
Town Archivist Richard Trask stated in a phone interview with us that if the station were to be moved, he would like it to be put somewhere close to where the tracks used to lay.
Current CRA funding will be delayed a year
It is extremely difficult to move the station because it involves taking down power lines.
Example of a station-turned-restaurant
"Trask said he particularly likes the concept of transforming the station into a restaurant, but he would be happy with any plan to move and preserve the building."
Eric Nolan,EN,(2021,July,30), Danvers Town Meeting takes no action on warrant to save Plains Train Station, WickedLocal.com. WickedLocal.com
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