UPDATED: Ames Castle Demolished To Make Room For Development

Efforts to preserve historic Catamount Road home are unsuccessful.

UPDATED: At 12:30 p.m. with comments from Marc Ginsburg. Efforts to preserve Ames Castle officially came to an end Monday, as the historic Catamount Road home was demolished to make room for a small subdivision. The actual demolition was really just a formality. The home's fate was sealed last month when the property, which included the main house and a servant's quarters on 2.76 acres, were sold by John Sullivan to local developer Marc Ginsburg and Sons, Inc. for $360,000. The town had most recently assessed the value of the property at $762,400. Ginsburg, who said the parcel of land is actually between 3.5 and 4 acres, confirmed his plans to build three single-family homes on the property. The 17-room, 12,781-square foot mansion was …

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Has The Old Discount Auto Parts Property Been Sold Again?

There is plenty of activity on the site. Is something finally being built there?

Question: We've gotten several emailed questions, asking what is going on with the property that used to be home to Discount Auto Parts. As you may recall, construction began a couple of years ago on a small strip mall that was thought to be a location for a future Subway Restaurant. However, there were major problems with the construction being done by a firm out of Lancaster and the framing was ordered torn down by town officials. Within the last several months, a giant "For Sale" sign has shown up along Route 38 and in the last several days, there has been heavy equipment doing work on the 2.5 acre site, located across the street from Jim Boudreau's Auto Repair on Route 38 in South Tewksbury. So the question folks want to know is, has …

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Mike Roberts

4:46 pm on Saturday, September 8, 2012

That wasn't built with 'particle board framing timbers' - those were engineered wooden beams. Unfortunately when you allow them to get wet, they fail. If they had sheathed them and covered with a proper roof, would have been a different story.   more ›

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What's The Status Of The Ginsburg/Martel East Street Development?

Readers are looking to find out what has happened since Town Meeting rezoned a parcel adjacent to Industrial Avenue.

Question: What's going on with the piece of land we rezoned at Town Meeting a while back? It doesn't seem like anything is being built there. Is the project dead? Answer: The project is very much alive. We actually got two questions relating to this project. The other wondered why there was a big pile of rocks sort of across from the Market Basket headquarters. The land in question is 25 acres at 842 East St. It's being developed by Marc Ginsburg and Arnie Martel. According to an article published recently in the Boston Globe, the Planning Board opened a public hearing on June 18 regarding Ginsburg and Martel's plan for 117 condominium units, blending single unit townhouses with duplexes. The hearing was continued to July 16 and was …

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Selectmen Approve Affordable Housing Plan, Hear CPC Update

Board approves appointments to several boards, tables others.

Tewksbury finds itself short of the 10 percent affordable housing stock required by the state under the 40B law ... but just barely. Community Development Director Steve Sadwick and representatives from the Northern Middlesex Council Of Governments (NMCOG) provided an update on the town's status at the June 19 Board of Selectmen's meeting and presented a revised Affordable Housing Plan that runs through 2016. According to statistics provided by the NMCOG, Tewksbury presently has 1,011 affordable housing units. That represents 9.36 percent of the town's total housing stock (10,810 units). To reach the 10 percent requirement, Tewksbury will need to add another 70 units for a total of 1,081. Housing units, which can be either single family …

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What Is Going On With That Awful Cell Tower?

Nobody likes it but nobody is sure what to do with it.

Question: What is being done to get rid of that awful tower in front of the South Fire Station. Answer: The reader who sent in this question was talking about the massive cell tower that was constructed on the grounds of the fire station about six years ago. The tower is owned by Sprint, leasing land from the town. The biggest problem is nobody likes it. At least nobody likes it where it is presently located. It is considered something of an eyesore, especially because it towers over the flag pole, dwarfing it by comparison. About four years ago, according to _Community Development Director Steve Sadwick,_ there was talk of moving the tower behind a shed on the property but that would only be a shift of about 30 feet. Suffice to say that …

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Ocean State Job Lot Reports Strong Grand Opening

CFO thanks town officials for "business-friendly" attitude.

Ocean State Job Lot officials have reported strong numbers from the Grand Opening of their new Tewksbury store on Dec. 1. According to Chief Financial Officer John Conforti, saw approximately 15,000 consumers walk through the doors and processed more than 11,000 transactions. The Tewksbury store, No. 104 in the Ocean State chain (44th in Massachusetts), is located in the 40,000 square foot former Purity Supreme space at 553 Main St. The store had a “soft opening on Nov. 23, the day before Thanksgiving, which positioned it to take advantage of the “Black Friday” business on Nov. 25. Conforti expressed gratitude to Tewksbury officials, whom he said made it an easy process to get the store up and running.  He singled out Community Development…

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No Progress In Sight On I-93 Interchange Project

No timetable for construction.