They want to know why the retail center’s owners have allowed their properties to become eyesores, and what they plan to do about it. If officials don’t get answers they like, they may pursue taking the plazas by eminent domain.
“I’m not willing to wait another decade to do nothing,’’ Selectman Dennis Giombetti said in an interview. “There doesn’t seem to be an effort by either landlord to either market or develop a plan for either of those locations.’’
At a meeting last month, Giombetti made an impassioned plea for the town to get tough on the owners. The selectmen voted to ask the owners or property managers to attend a meeting to address the issue.
“They have done nothing but thumb their noses at us for a very, very long time,’’ Giombetti said at the board’s meeting on Aug. 9. Taking the properties by eminent domain is “an action of last resort, there’s no question about it,’’ he said. “But it’s getting to the point where it’s been a decade. I would be more than willing to start aggressive action if they either don’t attend the board meeting or we are just unsatisfied with the plans.’’
The town counsel has affirmed Framingham’s right to take the properties through its Economic Development and Industrial Corporation, a quasi-public entity that was created to stimulate economic development, Giombetti said.
Terri Desjardins, with Centercorp Retail Properties in Salem, which owns the Nobscot Shopping Center, said company representatives would “possibly’’ sit down with the town, but not until the company gets an official request in writing.
She said she first heard about the town’s concerns through a televised news report on a local station last month.
Desjardins said the company would gladly rent out retail space at the Nobscot plaza to a stable tenant with good long-term prospects.
“If we could find some type of grocery store or a viable tenant that will stay, that’s something we would be interested in.’’
But Desjardins said until the company gets an official request from Framingham, she won’t say more about the situation.
