Fire Dept. Orders Berkshire Mall Owners to Secure Property
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The Fire Department has reinstated a 2022 order to secure the Berkshire Mall, giving owner JMJ Holdings 14 days to respond.
On Monday, Fire Chief Jeff DeChaine discussed current and past orders on the mall property with the Select Board. Failed fire-suppression systems triggered a court order to repair or secure the building years ago, but it was attached to the previous owner and didn't transfer over when JMJ purchased the mall in 2023, the chief said.
The property saw repairs after the sale, but is now seen as a liability, and the town wants it secured or demolished to prevent further break-ins and trespassing. Several videos have been posted to social media of "urban spelunkers" exploring the vacant structure. At the same time, the mall owners have offered Lanesborough a $1.25 million loan to dissolve the Baker Hill Road District, and the road district wants to take the property by eminent domain.
DeChaine said it's "pretty clear" that the shuttered mall has slid far enough that it needs to go back to square one. The 2022 order was reiterated and sent to company principal Jay Jones late last week. JMJ has two weeks to show some sign of compliance.
"The letter states that if he doesn't comply, then we will just go back to court," DeChaine said.
"Nobody wants to do that, but if we have to, we will."
In early 2022, the Fire Department began issuing citations for failure to maintain the fire suppression system, which also services Target, which has a separate but connected building. The suppression systems for the former Regal Cinemas were also found to be compromised, and the movie theater closed promptly, "and that pretty much was the end of the mall as we knew it," DeChaine said.
Later that month, the department submitted a request for a further order of the court to have the building secured or fire suppression systems repaired. The court ruled in favor of Lanesborough.
In June of that year, inspections found that the fire pump was not operating and Target was put on a fire watch. A month later, when the JMJ sale went through, the court order didn't apply because it was attached to the prior owner.
After the Fire Department found the previous order was lifted, another was issued in October 2022 to secure the building, and Jones "immediately" complied, hiring security to patrol the building. In the spring of 2023, the fire pump was repaired, Target was removed from fire watch, and the fire system was repaired, but inspections weren't secured.
DeChaine said short of the re-establishing the phone systems, everything was operational. Plans for the mall have changed over the last few years from cannabis cultivation to affordable housing and assisted living.
Things reportedly started to slide last year, when security was "sporadic," and Jones was asked to apply additional physical barriers to block people from entering the property.
In October, Police 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 the deteriorating road and parking lot around the mall.
JMJ and the Baker Hill Road District, an independent municipal district within Lanesborough, are in litigation with JMJ over unpaid taxes for the Route 7/8 Connector Road. JMJ argues it is being over-billed and underrepresented, and has offered the town money if it would dissolve the road district in exchange for an incremental rebate that caps the property's postdevelopment value at $20.5 million for 10 years.
The district was established by a home-rule petition in the Acts of 1989, and can only be dissolved by its prudential committee, and only once all debts have been retired and the town accepts the Connector Road as a public way. In 2018, the district's powers were expanded to include economic development and to acquire real property when it was considering taking the mall for development.
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