Lanesborough Officials Urge Demo of Berkshire Mall for Safety
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The Select Board wants the Berkshire Mall property to be secured but the owners continue to cite the Baker Hill Road District as their roadblock for further action.
On Monday, the board had a tense conversation with JMJ RE Holdings about safety concerns brought forward by the police. Principal Jay Jones agreed to apply for demolition permits, and the 600,000-square-foot mall is estimated to cost as much as $7 million to take down.
Chief Robert Derksen reported that there has been more vandalism, dozens of break-ins, with at least half resulting in arrest, and vehicles are being damaged by deteriorating road and parking lot around the mall.
"And recently, within the last, say, two to three weeks, it seems it's been a gathering point for these kinds of underage teenage parties," he said.
"They get chased out of Pittsfield, and then they end up on the backside of the mall property and just gathering, and two of them resulted in some pretty large-scale fights that we had to respond to along with the ambulance, and also had charges as a result of those."
It's also been a target for "urban spelunkers," people who explore abandoned buildings, who have posted videos of their trespasses into the mall.
Jones said the problems are not new, and a fence, filling potholes, or turning on the lot lights would be ineffective and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"The solution is to tear it down, not spend $200,000 or $300,000 more or half a million dollars on a fence, so we will apply for the permits. We will do everything that's necessary to move that progress forward," he said.
"Other than that, the people, they're not little kids over there. These are teenagers. You're not talking about preschool kids, kindergarten. You're talking about people coming in and committing acts of vandalism, which is something that falls within the peripheral of what the police normally do. They respond to it."
He said the corporation is trying to develop the mall, and the taxation on the property is why nothing has been done yet.
"Anytime you're doing a development, most of the time, most cities and towns, they're helping you with tax incentives or all kinds of other things to increase the tax base," Jones said.
"We have major developers, Fortune 500 company developers, and you know what keeps coming up every day? The Baker Hill Road District."
The road district, an independent municipal district within Lanesborough, is in litigation with JMJ over unpaid taxes for the Route 7/8 Connector Road. JMJ argues it is being over-billed and underrepresented. Select Board members insist that they wanted to talk about the safety concerns, not the road district, but the mall's project team say the road district it is the reason there has been inaction on the property.
When asked if the police see a solution, Derksen explained that it's not in his realm of expertise and that it would be best addressed by the owner.
In August, JMJ announced its collaboration with Integritus Healthcare to redevelop the shuttered mall into campus-style senior housing that includes supportive and ancillary retail space. Jones said they are still in the process of negotiating with developers.
"Tonight, we're here to talk about what's going on at the mall, the vandalism that's being done over there, the kids, whatever they're doing over there. There's holes in the road. There's one part of the road that's actually sunk in, and I believe that's part of the ring road," Chair Deborah Maynard said.
"We've seen nothing from you, from any of you, as to what's going to happen with that mall. You keep saying, get rid of ... We aren't going to do anything. OK. We want you to take care of the vandalism and the property over there, and if you need to demolish it, please apply for the permits and demolish it so that at least we can have some safety precautions back. That is my opinion."
Consultant Timothy Grogan, of the Housing Development Corp., countered Maynard's statement that they haven't done anything and said the team has been in contact with the town administrator and working with a small group on the road district situation.
"When your taxes are five times as high as any other property besides for the Target in the town, it's really difficult to get financing," he later said, referring to the Target department store that is in a separate building but attached to the mall.
"We have said it time and time again. The development feasibility of this property is going to be defined by the Baker Hill Road District, and you don't want us to talk about it, I'm sick of talking about it, but that's the fact on the ground."
Select Board member Michael Murphy said people, including the town's police officers, are putting their own lives in danger walking through the mall.
"To prove an attractive nuisance claim, the property owner must have known, or should have known, that children were likely to trespass, that the condition posed an unreasonable risk of serious harm to children, that children would not realize the danger, and that the owner failed to take reasonable steps to eliminate the danger," Murphy said.
"Common examples include unfenced swimming pools, refrigerators left outside without the door being removed, and construction sites. I believe that description applies to your mall right now."
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