Boxborough Planning Board Unanimously Denies 140,000-Square-Foot Adams Place Office Permit

BOXBOROUGH — April 3, 2023 — Boxborough Planning Board votes 5-0 to deny special permit for 140,000-square-foot Adams Place office park. The board unanimously rejected the application by Adams Realty Trust — represented by attorney Paul Alphen and Israel Lopez of the Gutierrez Company — for a proposed office, research and development, and light manufacturing facility at 24 Adams Place after months of deliberation over the project's scale, retaining walls described as reaching 50 feet or more, and impacts on adjacent land and resource areas. Chair Mark Barbadoro had repeatedly urged the applicant to withdraw without prejudice to allow redesign work with town planner Alexander Wade, warning that denial would trigger a two-year repetitive petition bar; the applicant declined. Member Mark White said he "would have looked more favorably" on a prior reduced-footprint version submitted at the last meeting, but the motion before the board was on the original, larger plan. The board set a special meeting for April 13 at 7 p.m. to review the written denial decision before it is signed, with a 14-day drafting deadline in effect. In a separate action, the board voted 5-0 to recommend to the Select Board that Loring Avenue, Joyce Lane, and McLeod Way be laid out as public ways using easement plan 906-2002 recorded with the Middlesex South Registry of Deeds, while withholding a full road-acceptance recommendation pending a drainage inspection report expected at the May 1 meeting.