The Boys and Girls Club of Greater Haverhill is contemplating a move, placing a bid on state-owned property near Interstate 495 at Broadway.
The Club, which is nearing its 125th birthday in downtown Haverhill, still faces several hurdles before obtaining the 6.5-acre property at 393 Broadway. It faces a competing $850,000 bid, purportedly from a housing developer, and any land sale still requires Federal Highway Administration approval, according to John Goggin, spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.
Goggin told WHAV the state received “two bids that tied and is now awaiting a best and final offer between the two bidders. The bid process is still ongoing, so MassDOT cannot identify the bidders at this time.”
The land, at the corner of Broadway and Monument Street, isn’t far from Haverhill High School.
The state first bought the property around 1960 when planning construction of I-495 at Route 97. Large swaths of land were acquired on all corners of the intersection to accommodate a future “full cloverleaf”—or circular on and off ramps on all four sides allowing the two routes to cross without traffic lights.
The cloverleaf would have supported a planned downtown Haverhill connector between the interstate highway and the start of Haverhill’s “road to nowhere,” as it was once called, Bailey Boulevard. (See also “Haverhill’s Transformation by I-495 with Conflicts, Politics for Good Measure.”) The road, formerly known as Bailey Street, curiously, is named for the nearly 50-year Club Executive Director Edward D. Bailey who died in 1953. Two earlier streets—Pleasant and Oak—were aligned and became Bailey Street after Bailey’s death. They were later realigned again and widened in anticipation of joining the proposed connector.
Bailey, who went to work for the then-Boys Club in 1907, is credited with helping to move the club from a former shoe factory to the new building in 1916. Bailey was also the founder of the associated Camp Tasker in Newton, N.H.
The Boys and Girls Club of Greater Haverhill declined to provide any details while bids are pending.
The Boys and Girls Club is not only one looking for land at that interchange. Mayor Melinda E. Barrett has asked the state to make available the other unused corner for a future Haverhill fire station.
Goggin said the state is “awaiting the formal revised request for the land. Once the request is made, MassDOT will review the request. After that step is taken, the request is subject to (Federal Highway Administration) review and approval.