MONTAGUE — The Selectboard, eyeing future development as demolition of the adjacent Farren Care Center looms, accepted the property and office building at 356 Montague City Road during Monday’s Selectboard meeting.

Trinity Health of New England, the former long-term care facility’s parent company, offered to give the property and its 2,676-square-foot office building to the town, sparing it from the scope of the planned demolition project. The building, housing a former psychologist’s office and residential space, was built in 1937 and expanded in 1980. It is assessed at $213,400 and “in good shape and suitable for productive reuse” for office or residential purposes, according to Assistant Town Administrator Walter Ramsey.

“The thought is that the town would have to be prepared to take possession of the property and hold onto it for at least a year, or maybe a couple years as we go through a planning phase,” Ramsey told the Selectboard before Monday’s vote, adding that the building would likely be “essentially mothballed for a couple years” with its utilities cut off.

“I would hate to leave it to sit fallow for two years, but let’s be optimistic and say we’re going to (begin redeveloping) it within a year,” Selectboard Chair Rich Kuklewicz said. “But who knows?”

Ramsey noted that the building contains some asbestos in its piping and some siding, but “nothing major.” Town Administrator Steve Ellis affirmed that Building Inspector William Ketchen found that “it’s not a problematic form of asbestos.”

“The good news is I think it can be contained under other siding and it’s not anywhere near the abatement level,” Kuklewicz said of the building’s asbestos-containing siding. “Even if we do re-side or have to remove it, it’s still going to give the town more value.”

The Selectboard agreed to request documentation from Trinity Health regarding what materials contain asbestos as a condition of accepting the property before unanimously voting to accept it.

The town will also take advantage of “several opportunities for preservation of ancillary elements,” according to Ramsey. This includes a pavilion, a gazebo, trees, pillars, monuments, plaques and markers.

After Montague’s vacant Farren Care Center received a demolition recommendation in November 2021, Trinity Health received the go-ahead to proceed, as the Historical Commission opted not to invoke the town’s demolition delay bylaw on Dec. 6. The demolition delay bylaw, which can delay proposed demolitions for up to one year, serves to “preserve and protect, through advance notice of their proposed demolition, significant buildings,” and to “encourage owners of preferably preserved significant buildings to seek out persons who might be willing to purchase and to preserve, rehabilitate or restore such buildings rather than demolish them.”

The Farren closed in April 2021, having essentially merged with a similar facility in Holyoke called Mount St. Vincent Care Center. Trinity Health has maintained that the Montague City Road building was too old for its purposes and would be too expensive to update to modern standards.

Aside from presenting a limited summary detailing costs and aspects of the building’s decrepit condition, however, Trinity Health has declined to provide the town with access to the full building assessment that resulted in the demolition recommendation, citing advice from legal counsel.

Reach Julian Mendoza at 413-930-4231 or jmendoza@recorder.com.

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