By Joseph Domelowicz Jr.
According to City of Lynn attorney James Lamanna the city has decided to move forward with a plan to sell a portion of public land that currently serves as a traffic island on Neptune Street, in order to allow the intersection to be re-worked in a more traffic safety way and to allow development of the land to a higher and better purpose.
The idea to sell the land grew out of discussions between the city and the Lynn YMCA, which is interested in building a new state of the art facility in Lynn and expanding its youth centric programming. However, the current YMCA property site is not large enough to accommodate the new facility that is envisioned. When looking to expand the footprint of the existing building, the only possible place to expand was into the streetscape.
Lynn City Councilors discussed the issue ion committee last month and initially asked the law department to pursue a long-term lease option with the YMCA.
However, according to Lamanna the lease option “did not work” for the YMCA, so the city has decided to put the parcel of land out to public sale, with stipulations that will require an investment by the purchaser to make all necessary upgrades and improvements to the intersection at no cost to the city.
Additionally, the city has indicated that the Request For Proposals could possibly include language that would require the future use of the land to serve a public purpose or benefit, such as expanded programming that could benefit Lynn residents, etc.
Lamanna also noted that once bids close, the city will not be required to accept any bids on the property, and could decide not to sell after the bids are opened, if they believe that the proposals are not in the best interests of the city.
The entire RFP process is expected to take about month and could be before the City Council for a vote sometime in June or July.