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Consultants begin sprint on MCI Concord study; team to deliver public scenarios by June 30
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Summary
The town’s consultant team has started work on a near-term study of the MCI Concord property, with an accelerated public‑engagement and scenario‑development schedule driven in part by available state funding and coordination needs with MassDOT and wastewater assessments.
Town staff and the consultant team advising on the MCI Concord site told the Select Board they are on schedule and within budget and have launched an intensive outreach and study phase that aims to deliver preliminary development scenarios to the public by June 30.
Dan Gainsborough, co‑chair of the MCI Advisory Board, told the Select Board that the consultant team held a kickoff meeting that included principals and technical staff and that the team has already begun site reconnaissance and stakeholder outreach. "We are on budget and on schedule," Gainsborough said, thanking town staff for expediting early tasks that cleared the way for rapid progress.
Rhiannon Sinclair, principal at Agency Landscape + Planning, introduced the consultant role and described a parallel program of work combining site analysis, economic assessment and an outreach sprint. "This is a sprint," she said. "We will present a range of options — commonly three scenarios — and refine those with community input into June 30 deliverables." The team reported that it has identified roughly 96 stakeholder groups and will begin targeted outreach and a public meeting schedule in the coming weeks.
Staff reported coordination with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (DOT) and said a meeting with DOT planners is set for March 17 to discuss the rotary redesign and related road network issues. The team is also advancing wastewater treatment capacity assessments to understand infrastructure constraints for site scenarios.
Gainsborough said the state funding behind portions of the work imposes an accelerated timeline for the initial study, but he noted the more detailed zoning and regulatory work that will follow the June deliverables will require a longer planning phase. The board and staff encouraged the consultants to publish meeting dates and to coordinate early with other town committees and chairs to avoid schedule conflicts during a busy spring calendar.
Next steps: the consultant team will publish an outreach schedule and website, hold stakeholder and public engagement sessions, and deliver initial scenario packages to the town by June 30. Staff and consultants will present progress to the Select Board and the MCI Advisory Board as the work advances.
