Craig Wilson
The Alexander Company's plans for the property remain the same.
Years after its tenants were evicted, the fate of the Drumlin Farm remains in limbo.
The five-acre farm is wedged between Rimrock Road and Highway 14 in the city of Fitchburg. The Alexander Company bought the property about a decade ago for its Novation Campus. The tenants at the time were running a community garden and CSA and protested the eviction, but eventually left in September 2009.
The property has been vacant ever since. And it looked like the lot's two homes would be demolished on Saturday, with the Fitchburg Fire Department planning to burn them on Saturday in a training exercise.
However, the Alexander Company asked them to hold off. "We've just decided to wait," says Joe Alexander, the company's president.
Alexander says the company's plans for the property remain the same, which is to develop it in accordance with how the rest of the neighborhood is developing.
"If some biotech firm showed up tomorrow, then we'd have plans," he says.
The two buildings on the property, including the historic Andenberg House, are beyond saving, however.
"Those houses are beyond repair," he says. "People have broken in there and looted materials and we've had to re-board the windows. What character they did have is pretty well wrecked. The city of Fitchburg has deemed them unsafe."
Alexander says he expects the company to decide how to remove the houses -- either with a training fire or a standard demolition -- in the next couple of weeks.