Gloucester's most infamous plot of vacant land could soon belong entirely to the city.
And while local residents could be forgiven for being skeptical — they have, after all, heard much of this before — now is the time for city officials to make certain that, this time, the optimism is well-founded.
It was nearly a year ago that Mayor Carolyn Kirk announced that she had secured an $800,000 grant from the Massachusetts Seaport Advisory Council to help purchase the two-acre I-4, C-2 property off Rogers Street, the fenced-off dual properties that have sat vacant, infested with trash and weeds since the 1960s,
Now, the city has taken one more important step, reaching an agreement with Boston developer Jeffrey Cohen to seize the two-acre property through a "friendly" taking by eminent domain, in exchange for $1.5 million.
On the surface, Gloucester's guardians of the public purse may well be choking on that figure. It is, after all, more than double the current assessed value of $745,000.
But the reason it is assessed at $745,000 is because it is landlocked by a sliver of abutting waterfront property already owned by the city. Partially because of that, Cohen has never been able to develop the land.
If the city acquires the Cohen parcel and combines it with the waterfront piece, the entire site becomes much more valuable — not just from a dollar standpoint but in terms of nearly limitless potential.
An appraisal done for Cohen put the value of the combined properties at $2 million, and one done for the city put it at $1.85 million. Because the city owned the smaller, but critical piece, the two sides settled on $1.5 million. That is, indeed, significant progress toward the city's gaining control of this important piece of waterfront land.
It does not yet make it a done deal. The City Council will still have to appropriate another $700,000 to complete the purchase. And money is not the only potential problem. In the past, zoning, community disagreement and state regulations regarding the use of harbor property have all combined to foil any development efforts.
That simply cannot happen this time.
City Councilor Bruce Tobey, a former mayor who also struggled with I-4, C-2, says he supports Kirk's effort, but wants the council to exercise "due diligence" to make sure "it is in the city's best interest and raises no unforeseen risks or downsides."
That is certainly appropriate, but it should not become a stalling tactic. Simply put, the council and the mayor should do their best to work together to try to get this done.
Yes, the up-front cost may be daunting, especially given the city's desperate financial straits amid a prolonged recession. But getting such a valuable property on the tax roles as a working, viable commercial site, especially, could pay that money back rapidly. And removing such a blatant eyesore could spur even more surrounding economic activity, all of which would make the downtown more attractive and give the city's financial bottom line a solid boost for decades to come.
Kirk has said that, once the city owns the parcel, she will hold "listening posts" to gauge the community's desires for use of the parcel, which could then guide any request for proposals presented to interested developers.
But it wouldn't hurt to beginning those discussions now, while the acquisition is still pending.
One obvious possibility we've noted several times is a long overdue downtown hotel and/or conference center, which not only house tourism and business visitors, but host a variety of meetings geared toward the city's role as the capital of the U.S. fishing industry, and a growing marine science and research hub around the Whale Center of New England and the Ocean Alliance.
Whatever its future, it's got to be better than the status quo.
It is long past time for city officials to transform this property from a liability to an asset — and the agreement struck between the mayor and property owner Cohen finally offers the chance to do just that.
Let's do what it takes to get this deal done — now.
