Redevelopment underway at former Lakeville Hospital; Russell & Pica funeral home planned for the long-unused site
Russell & Pica funeral home is planned for the long-unused property
LAKEVILLE — Land-clearing is underway on the first portion of the former Lakeville Hospital campus on Main Street to be redeveloped in more than a decade.
A Brockton-based funeral home chain is planning to build its third facility on the 70,134 square foot parcel.
Site plans for the property located across from the Walgreen’s store on Bridge Street, and a 65-by-104-foot wooden building featuring traditional New England architecture were approved by the Planning Board this spring.
Russell & Pica Funeral Homes recently expanded from its original Brockton location with a second facility in West Bridgewater. Owner David Russell told the Planning Board at its April 25 meeting that he recently moved to town, and was looking forward to expanding his business here.
“I am a new Lakeville resident, and a lot of our employees have moved down here, and I know the need of the community” for a second funeral home in town, he said. “I would not be doing this project if I could not provide a beautiful building, a beautiful parking area, and great service at a reasonable price,” he added.
Consulting engineer Larry Silva of Silva Engineering Associates provided the board with site plans including a concept drawing for a Cape Cod style building with multiple dormers and a synthetic clapboard front. With a peaked canopy over the front entrance, and white trim, it will fit into the rural character of the town nicely, he said.
“We’re looking for this to be an asset to the community itself, and look good from Main Street,” the engineer said.
The site plans called for 87 parking spaces on three sides of the building, more than adequate for the large crowds that wakes and funerals generate. The West Bridgewater funeral home only has 58 parking spaces, Russell noted, saying he was thrilled to have so much room for parking at the Lakeville site.
Planning Board Chair Brian Hoeg thought the site plans and building plans were well designed and would fit the neighborhood. “I think this is a very good proposal, and I think it’s a very good complimentary use for this property,” he told Russell.
Most members agreed with that opinion, but there was some discussion of the amount of traffic generated by such businesses, and concerns whether the single access point – a two-way driveway for cars entering from and exiting onto busy Route 105 – would create more congestion at the busy intersection with Bridge Street.
Member Barbara Mancovsky suggested a second driveway be added to the plans, but Silva said that Mass DOT (Department of Transportation) seldom approves two curb cuts on property fronting state roads. He also noted that a second access point is not required by zoning bylaws.
A second drive was one of the recommendations filed by the fire department after their review of the plans, members noted. The department’s concern was about emergency vehicle access to the property when a wake or funeral was taking place; the Planning Board required the engineer to work out the issue with the fire chief and report back to them before voting its final approvals.
Russell said that any temporary congestion problems would certainly be handled by the police details that the company hires for all wakes and funerals. His engineer pointed out that the other funeral home in town, located on Route 18, only has one access drive on Crooked Lane; other businesses in the neighborhood only have one driveway, he said.
Member Peter Conroy suggested that Russell consider adding a walkway from a nearby crosswalk to the front of the building to accommodate pedestrians, and remove foot traffic from the driveway. The owner said he would consider that option in the final landscaping plans.
Speaking in support of the business plans was hospital redevelopment company owner Derek Maksy, who called it “a great thing for this location.” It was, he noted, “the first project that’s going on at the Lakeville Hospital... property that’s been idle since, what, 1990?”
Maksy noted that some of the outlying land along Rhode Island Road which was included in his redevelopment company’s purchase was being laid out for house lots.
Other potential buyers were interested in some of the other commercial parcels that made up the hospital campus, he said, but no firm plans were in the works at the moment, he said in April.
Just five months later, most of those parcels were in fact purchased by new owners in a public auction following a bank foreclosure on most of the properties.
Although the commercial properties have access to a Middleboro water line, large scale development is somewhat hampered by that town’s abandonment of the sewer line that once served the site.
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