Fire Station Buyers Still Searching for a Plan

The former Foxborough fire station and Keating Funeral Home may have a buyer, but what will become of the property remains uncertain.

Pending properties owners Mark and Judy Duffy told the Board of Selectmen Thursday that they currently have no long-terms plans for developing the three parcels they recently purchased at auction. Short term, a local businessman may buy the fire station for office space, according to Mark Duffy. The couple plans on boarding up the windows at the funeral home to prevent further interior damage to the building.

As part of the purchase, the couple must apply for a municipal conversion permit from the selectmen and create a proposal for the parcels.

“In a sense the reason why we put in a bid on the property was to protect our little corner of the world because we have 14 tenants,” Mark Duffy said.

The Duffys own 34 School Street, which sits next door to the former home of the Foxborough Fire Department. Currently, the building has 14 tenants. Duffy said the decision to purchase the properties at auction was in part to protect the School Street building from losing parking to a project by another developer.

While it’s only been roughly a month since the Duffys made their purchase at auction, the prospect of the fire station becoming an office building did not sit well with the selectmen, who are looking for more economic development in the downtown area.

“In my mind, I had a picture where you could move your business to the Common side and have retail on the first floor and offices or residential on the second floor. I was a little disappointed when I hear you were going to reuse the fire station for offices,” Selectman John Gray said. “I had this vision of a spark of something fantastic that would propel other developers to move in and build other spectacular projects.”

Mark Duffy said he would be open to selling to another developer if the offer was good enough, but Selectman Ginny Coppola asserted that such a sale should include the whole purchase, not just the fire station.

“It defeats the whole reason for putting that while property on the auction block,” Coppola said of selling only the fire station.

According to Coppola, selling only a portion of the purchased land would prevent enhanced sewer from coming to the downtown area.

Building Inspector Bill Casbarra confirmed that a sale including all the properties would be preferable for the town.

“The downtown overlay district was designed to maximize development and the reason why it was sold as one property is because the town realized you couldn’t sell the fire station if you didn’t have the parking the other parcel would provide. By separating them, you are really limiting the prospects of the property,” he said.

Selectman David Feldman said he understood that there was a quick turn around from bid to proposal, offering to provide any assistance possible.

Duffy said he spoke with two local developers who said such a project would cost millions of dollars

Currently, the Duffys do not own the property since the sale is contingent on presenting a plan that is beneficial to the downtown area. If the buyer defaults on their purchase and the properties are sold for less at a second auction, the buyer would be responsible for paying the difference in price.

The selectmen will revisit the issue in March.