By Donna Whitehead, Wicked Local Foxborough, November 7, 2016
FOXBOROUGH - A roundabout will handle traffic at the entrance to the new Forbes Crossing development at the intersection off Foxborough Boulevard thanks to a $625,000 state grant.
State and local officials, including Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito and Housing and Economic Development Secretary Jay Ash, held a press conference to announce the Mass Works grant Friday, Nov. 4 at Foxfield Plaza on the Mansfield/Foxborough town line.
The grant will cover the majority of the project cost, Foxborough Town Manager William Keegan Jr. said. The town and developer, Saletin Real Estate Group of Cranston, R.I., provided the design work. Saletin contributed $75,000.
″(The roundabout) will allow people to flow into this space to enjoy retail aspects of this project - restaurants and shops, a hotel of 131 rooms right here behind us,” Polito said. “It’s really going to increase the economic value of this neighborhood and certainly bring more tax revenue to the rolls in Foxborough. And that all comes back to that point of community development and that’s certainly what we are partnering with you to see come to fruition.”
Ash said this was an opportunity to inject new growth into the local economy and create an “even more vibrant Foxborough” as well as and help business grow.
“The prosperity part of it is the part I get most excited about,” Ash said. ” The thought of the people who are going to be working here and the economic activity that’s going to take place as a result.”
“The investment we have here with Secretary Ash and the administration, Baker and Polito, this is really going to lead to very good things and new jobs,” state Sen. James Timility, D-Walpole.
State Rep. Jay Barrows, R-Mansfield, said Foxfield Plaza was one of the first shopping plazas in the area, dating back to the 1960s. He asked who remembered the Sears and Roebuck store where you could pick up the wagon or bike you ordered.
“To see the revitalization that is beginning to take shape is very impressive,” Barrows said.
Saletin Real Estate Group president Jeffrey Saletin described the plaza as a “old, tired, but very well located white elephant.”
Saletin said he expects his project will produce more development around it.
Officials cited the cooperation between state, local and private enterprise that made the project possible.
State Rep. Jay Barrows, R-Mansfield, described how Foxborough Selectman Ginny Coppola organized a bus ride for Mass Highway officials to see the traffic conditions in the area, which began the process for the grant.
“This is what public/private partnership means,” Saletin said.
“On the eve of the election day, people are looking for civility, for people to work together,” Polito said.
The project will include Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton hotel, a Moe’s Southwest Grill and a Starbucks. The Starbucks is expected to open in September 2017. Foxfield Plaza tenants Bangkok Café, Antonia’s Italian Cuisine and Edible Arrangements will stay on in the new development.
Work on the roundabout should being this spring with the goal of being complete before the hotel’s expected opening in November 2017, Keegan said.