Monson Developmental Center Is the Latest Westmass Challenge
BusinessWest (July 18, 2025)
The Next Chapter
An aerial view of the Monson Developmental Center campus.
When Jeff Daley first pitched the Westmass Area Development Corp. board on the concept of redeveloping a portion of the former Monson Developmental Center (MDC) campus, it wasn’t a hard sell, necessarily.
“But it was a sell,” said Daley, the agency’s president and CEO, and for several reasons.
“It’s an imposing site, and there’s a ton of work that has to be done,” he said of the 100-acre parcel, which essentially sits between two mountains, with very little of what would be considered flat land. “And there’s a lot of money that has to be invested just to make the site developable again.”
But Daley was able to sell his board on the concept — a commitment from the state to provide a $9 million site readiness grant to the agency, as well as an accompanying reversion clause, certainly proved to be a turning point in the sales process — and late last month, the Commonwealth officially conveyed the property to Westmass, touting the transaction as part of ongoing efforts to utilize existing properties to build more housing in a state where there is a strong need for it.
And with that transfer, Westmass, in partnership with the state’s Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance, will commence work to create what will be known as the Village at Sawmill Brook.
The brook runs through the middle of the property, said Daley, adding that the name was chosen to reflect the rural nature of the community, and a ‘village’ is what is intended, with both residential and commercial development planned.
This is a village that will take shape over the next 10 to 20 years, he noted, adding that the first steps in the process involve demolition of almost all of the 14 existing buildings on the site — one structure, a recreation center at MDC, might be salvaged — as well as environmental remediation and infrastructure improvements.
Demolition is slated to begin early next year, and actual building will likely commence in maybe three years, Daley said.
Exactly what will be built remains to be seen, he told BusinessWest, as well as a gathering of about 100 Monson residents at a recent meeting of the Monson Board of Selectmen, noting that the site, and the market, will likely determine what shape this village will take.
The next phase of the MDC project will involve demolition of the buildings on the campus, most of which are in an advanced state of deterioration.
There will be housing, and probably several forms of it, with subdivisions, senior housing, veterans’ housing, and other options under consideration.
One of the first steps in the process will be creation of a master plan for the site to determine how many of those 100 acres can be developed, and in what ways.
“We’re in discussions with several of the groups that do housing for veterans,” Daley noted. “We’ll also talk with folks who do assisted living projects around the area to see if there’s a need for that in the Monson area.”
There could also be senior affordable housing, similar to what has been created at another Westmass property, Ludlow Mills, he went on, adding that single-family homes, condos, duplexes, and fourplexes could also be in the mix. There will also be commercial elements, he said, such as retail businesses with residential units on the upper floors of buildings, in keeping with that ‘village’ concept.
“Right now, it’s a blank slate,” he noted, adding, again, that need and market conditions will likely dictate how the site is redeveloped.
Before any development can take place, the site needs to be cleared and infrastructure improved, a massive undertaking involving everything from the demolition of existing buildings, some of which are quite large, to replacement of a bridge that provides access to the site, for which the state has approved $5 million in funding.
The total cost of site preparation work is expected to approach and perhaps exceed $20 million, said Daley, adding that the state will work with Westmass to identify additional funding sources to advance the development.
Overall, the project represents a different kind of challenge for Westmass, but in many ways it is similar to the Ludlow Mills in that it involves extensive demolition and redevelopment of cleared sites.
“This is what we do … this is where Westmass shines,” Daley explained. “We take older properties and figure out what we can do with them, and I thank the governor and her team for trusting us and supporting us with the financial resources to do this. But once it’s down, cleaned, and demoed, it’s up to us to put together a really good, solid development plan that will benefit Monson.”
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