Good Developments, Bad Developments

The development progress train continues to steam forward, with news that the city will be working on a TIF agreement with Micron Products, who are expanding their downtown offices, and that the 49-condo Parks-Cramer project got the city's go-ahead last night.

The train, however, drags a little baggage, as a developer sues the city to get his bond back.

Let's start with the good news. At this point in Fitchburg's development, we favor TIFs. In fact, we favor anything that will get business into the city. In this particular case, Micron more than deserves TIF consideration. It is turning a key corner of downtown into a viable business district almost single-handedly, and really sort of deserves some acknowledgement from the city that it is a leader in downtown. Remember, TIFs don't last forever, so it's a positive move for the city (if it didn't offer the TIF, it could be seen as an anti-business move, and that's the last thing Fitchburg needs right now).

As for Parks-Cramer, it's another piece in the growing demand for new housing in the city. These one- and two-bed units are going for $185,000 and up, and are right along the river near Airport Road. Considering the Save Fitchburg plantation was bought three years ago for just lightly more, that's a positive price tag on some condos. Turning over an old mill building into anything useful is also good news.

Finally, the fine folks at Benjamin Builders wants its bond back, saying its project is done. Both the city and the state have raised issues with the construction of Benjamin's West Fitchburg project, so the bond is being held at this point. Off to litigation, we're sure, but it doesn't seem clear-cut on either party's part at this point (although we'd love to see former Planning Board guy Dean Tran enlighten us a bit on this one).