Rebuilding At Rutland Heights Gains Traction
17 years later, can the old hospital site thrive again?
After 14 years of waiting and planning, and millions of dollars, the 87-acre former Rutland Heights Hospital site is poised for rebirth as a mixed-use development.
But even the strongest advocates for the project acknowledge that it’s hard to tell whether the town’s ideas make sense in the current economic climate.
“We know what we want it to be,” said Tom Dufault, chairman of the town’s development and industrial commission, which is charged with redeveloping Rutland Heights. “We just don’t know what it’s going to be.”
Development Delays
In 1991, after a long history of housing various state and federal medical facilities, Rutland Heights Hospital closed, and ideas for reuse first began. The tract is an appealing property in many ways, near the center of Rutland, with town water and sewer.
Before it closed, the hospital employed more than 300 people. Dufault, who owned a deli at the time, recalls catering events there and being surprised to find that most of the employees were town residents.
“When that closed you were left with a void,” he said.
Peak Use
Today, the town has little business, mostly convenience stores, gas stations and doughnut shops. The state counts fewer than 900 private-sector jobs in town.
That number looks especially low if you know that, in terms of people, Rutland is one of the fastest-growing communities in the state. The town’s population went from less than 5,000 in 1990 to 7,600 in 2006, according to U.S. Census estimates, and Dufault said the number today is closer to 8,500. The tax base is 96 percent residential, he said.
The old Rutland Heights site looks like the perfect place to grow new jobs, and since the town first created a plan for it, Dufault said it has gotten inquiries from a number of companies interested in locating there.
A Boston-based assisted living company made a proposal, he said, as did a sausage maker, a mushroom grower and several other businesses. But plans to demolish the old hospital buildings moved so slowly that most of those suitors have gone on to other locations.
The delays in getting the project going have to do mostly with its scope. The town had to rezone the site for mixed-use development and get a major financial commitment from the state.
In 2000, the state agreed to spend up to $10 million at the hospital, mainly to demolish the old buildings. Then, it took another five years to plan and bid the demolition and start knocking the buildings down.
Tearing Down, Building Up
Richard Henderson, executive vice president for real estate at MassDevelopment, said that, based on his experience with similar sites, the demolition of the buildings was probably the biggest hurdle for Rutland Heights. Henderson, who is not involved with the Rutland project but has worked on other state hospital redevelopment efforts, said the idea of a mixed-use development is often a good one.
“You clearly cannot put all your eggs in one basket,” he said. With mixed use, “you can be building housing when the housing market is strong, building offices when that’s strong.”
Henderson said it can be difficult to lure companies to locations far from major highways, like Rutland. But he said the size of the site could make it appealing to some companies, and the idea of focusing on assisted living is a strong one since it is a growing industry with the first wave of Baby Boomers ready to retire.
Dufault said the town plans to do a market study to determine how to proceed. Meanwhile, it needs to purchase the property from the state, something he hopes local residents will approve at the annual town meeting in May. The state Department of Capitol Asset Management has appraised the property at $655,000, but it is now considering reducing that number because the town is currently under a sewer moratorium. Dufault said he hopes the town will be able to get the moratorium lifted before long, so that any company using the site would eventually be able to get access to the sewer lines.
Even at a reduced price, making the purchase could be difficult for Rutland, which Dufault said is already facing a budget deficit. But one thing sweetening the deal is the fact that the demolition of the old hospital actually ended up going under budget, leaving the state with $2.5 million. It transferred more than half of it to another project elsewhere, but there is still $1 million left over.
If the town purchases the property, Dufault said, it will be able to use that money to build recreational facilities, hire consultants to work on the development of the property or any other aspects of developing the site.
There are certainly plenty of ways money could be spent on the site. Walking up the empty hill where the hospital buildings once stood, Dufault points out an old rose garden that could be rehabilitated and wooded areas where walking trails could go.
The most visible object on the site today is a tower for testing wind speeds that was funded by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.
The town’s development and industrial commission is using the tower to investigate the feasibility of generating wind power on the property.
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