ADAMS, Mass. — The town will try again to find a campground developer for the Greylock Glen, and will be looking for input from the community as it prepares a updated request for proposals. 

 

"We've talked about having a more of a public kind of meeting where we talk about this as a community," said Community Development Director Donna Cesan to the Selectmen at their workshop Tuesday. "Obviously, we've gone through this process before ... making sure that the community can support what we're proposing in the RFP, I think is going to be essential."

 

The town signed a 25-year agreement with Shared Estates Asset Fund back in January 2024 to develop cabins, tents and possibly Airstreams at the glen, but the crowd-sourced real estate firm pulled out a year later saying it couldn't come up with the funding. 

 

The Shared Estates proposal had raised concerns from residents who had thought the campground would be less glamping and more primitive tenting, along with issues about traffic, development and costs. 

 

Daniel Doyle, executive director of the Greylock Glen Outdoor Center, said looking at the request for proposals with fresh eyes and open minds that can find creative solutions. 

 

"I think the public conversations, forums, whatever, this summer would be really a valuable opportunity to think about different ways to develop this, because it has been challenging and will continue to be challenging for all the same and some maybe different reasons," he said. "We have already is a great starting point for that, so that whenever something does go out, it's as you all are pointing out, as closely tied to what's realistic as possible, so that we get back things that might actually work."

 

Selectmen Chair Jay Meczywor will appoint a two-person subcommittee as part of the RFP review. Town Administrator Nick Caccamo said he would have the lease agreement with the state, a couple hundred pages, printed if any of the board members wanted a copy. 

 

The town was selected by the state as the developer of 140 acres in the 1,063-acre site back in 2007 when several private attempts to promote the property in the Mount Greylock State Reservation came to naught. The state has been a partner, and financial supporter, in the current work to build trails, the outdoor center and the proposed campground and lodge.

 

The master plan has two limitations: no more than 140 sites and the location. Cesan said the state Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance surveyed the development zones, and those documents would be available to any developer. 

 

Cesan said it would best to issue an RFP during the summer of early fall when the property looks its best. 

 

Selectman Joseph Nowak, the only board member serving during the last RFP process (and the sole vote against a lease with Shared Estates), noted the town's real estate lawyer, Jonathan Sabin, said what makes the development a "very hard sell" is the fact the town doesn't own the land. 

 

What can we do to minimize that problem, he asked. 

 

Cesan acknowledged that any developer would be "not only dealing with one level of government, but dealing with two, so some people might take pause on that." However, she said the town's been willing to discount the cost of the land and that it was really soliciting a partnership, one that will allow the town set the criteria but will make money for the developer. 

 

"The other thing I will say is that the RFP process, it's a bit of a problem in that a developer needs to first win you over, so they're putting everything in their package to wow you," she said. "It may, in turn, scare the public, and that's an issue the past developer never had a chance to have those public meetings ... We never got to that point, so that's kind of a bit of a problem, and I think it's going to be important that we explain that to the public, that these steps are what the developer initially proposes, that they may end up in a very different final project based on public comment."

 

Selectwoman Ann Bartlett asked how Community Development would reach potential developers. Cesan said the RFP would have to published in the local paper and on the state website but it would also be promoted in industry publications like Woodall's Campground Magazine.

 

The town's talked to nonprofits, including the Trustees of Reservations, which went as far as hiring a consultant to evaluate everything back in 2016. There was some interest but the Trustees at that time were putting more emphasis on its coastal properties. 

 

"We modeled our campground design on Tully Campground, that is run by the Trustees, so it was something they were familiar with to begin with," Cesan said. Caccamo and Doyle had also recently visited the private Prospect Berkshires in South Egremont, which is using tiny home-style cabins. 

 

"Maybe as part of that community conversation we could invite them to share their experience, and what do they find difficult, what do they find new trends in campground stuff," she said. "I mean, it was interesting, the Berkshire magazine ... one of their lead articles was on glamping and camping in the Berkshires, so we're not in that, so we need to remedy that."