03/20/2026
Hi all,
Just a few updates.
1. Centennial Office Park rezoning
On March 10, 2026 the City of Peabody held an informational session on possible zoning changes to the Centennial Office Park. The meeting was led by our Community Development Department along with representatives from Mass Development and the Mayor. Most of the City Council was in attendance.
This stems from a motion made by Councilor Welton and I from about a year ago. The motion was to explore zone changes in the office park in an effort to ensure its long term success. As most of you know, there are significant vacancies. Also, most new companies coming into the park tend to be logistics and trucking which I don't believe was ever the vision for the park. Of course there will always be a need for some of those companies, Craig and I felt we need to expand on the available uses and possibly limit some of the trucking. After making the motion before the Council, Community Development submitted for a grant through Mass Development to help adjust the zoning.
About 40 or so residents attended the meeting where they were able to make some suggestions for what they would like to see. Those suggestions were similar to what Councilor Welton and I had envisioned, including more retail, recreational, grocery, hotel/hospitality uses. Although it wasn't discussed at length, there could also be some residential use in the form of condos or apartments. We would attempt to limit any parcel zoned for residential to those closest to the highway ramps in an effort to prevent traffic in the neighborhood. The vision for the zoning is simply a carbon copy of the zoning that exists at 3rd Street in Burlington where Wegmans is.
We are at the very beginning of this process and it would likely be a significant timeframe before any changes in the zoning are made. It would take several public meetings before the council to implement changes and then there would have to be some buy in from the business owners in the office park. The difference between Centenial and 3rd Street or Lynnfield Marketplace is that Centennial has dozens of individual property owners while the other properties fall under one umbrella. I'm under no illusion that this will be an easy process. I am also aware that Centennial Drive needs to be paved. There is no immediate plan to pave it. I will continue to advocate for paving as soon as possible. Due to the cost of paving such a large area, it would have to be done in sections. Again we are at the beginning and nothing is etched in stone. As one of our largest areas for tax revenue, it's important to explore all options to keep the Office Park viable.
2. Noises in the Crestview neighborhood
For those of you in the Crestview Park neighborhood (Lynch Street, Joyce Road, Will Sawyer, Holden ect...We are aware of the noise coming from the office park which seems to be limited to one of the two Aerospace businesses on 5th Street. We have been in contact with both. Some of the noise seems to be coming from Specter Aerospace due to some product testing and there could be a separate and distinct issue coming from Collins Aerospace. We have been in contact with both companies. There is a site visit scheduled at Specter at the end of the month. They have agreed to limit any testing to 5pm until after that meeting. They are also more than willing to provide some noise mitigation. I will follow up after that meeting.
3. Bartholomew/Lynnfield intersection
Although some of you love them and some of you hate them, the deliniators at Lynnfield and Bartholomew will be replaced shortly. They were destroyed by snow plows this winter. DPS should be picking up the broken ones today. While I agree they do back up traffic at peak times, the purpose was public safety and they have certainly reduced the amount of accidents in that area.
4. Casco Road.
As some of you may have read in the newspaper this week, there will be no changes to the Casco/Lynnfield Street intersection. We did propose a no left turn coming off of Casco onto Lynnfield and a no left turn coming from Lynnfield onto Casco but it was determined that we don't have the legal authority to do that without approval from the City of Lynn. It was also determined that this stretch of Lynnfield Street near Casco is owned by MA DOT and not the City thus limiting or eliminating any options for us.
Thank you,
Jon Turco
Councilor At Large
