On Tuesday April 11th, in their first meeting since the departure of member Stephen Greeley, and regular attendee, Beth Greeley, as usual members of this elite group discussed preventing any unsightly design concepts and riff raff out of their prestigious Framingham Center utopia.
One item on their agenda was the discussion of 111 Speen Street, an office building NOT located in their district. They were upset that the new owners of the building were planning on removing the “post-modern” granite façade and replacing it with something clean and modern.
Acknowledging that they were working outside of their official purview, chair Amy Feinstein spoke about how she and member Paul Silva wrote a strong email to the new owners and how she met with the ownership group on the matter. She said that they were understanding of the concerns but was too late to do anything as all the new façade materials were already ordered.
In an email response to the chair, the ownership group offered three options to preserve the history of the design.
The first option was the only one preserving the granite itself, and essentially was to scatter the remains in the landscaped area of the horseshoe driveway. The second one was to put a plaque in the building lobby talking about the history of the building, and the last was to do something in the Framingham History Center.
Lets be honest here, there is absolutely nothing historical about the building, or the design. It was built in 1985, and frankly it looks old and dated.
This whole matter is the Framingham Historic District Commission working outside of their purview, and now a potential future exhibit at the Framingham History Center, is further working outside the purview of History Center.
The first option came with a design plan offered.
To put it mildly, the commission was adverse to the proposals, essentially they stuck their neck out where they had no jurisdiction, had this ownership group done some real thought here and created some proposals, effort and time, and they’ll get a letter from the commission stating that they are uninterested in the options they proposed.
Members of the commission thought it looked like tombstones, like there was no real thought out process in the design, that it was sad, and people wouldn’t get it, and it would eventually be dug up and discarded in a couple years. They didn’t get what this was, was it benches, or a place for employees to sit on lunch break, would it be buried, or upright. Was there really a purpose to this.
Moving along in the meeting, the chair asked the membership to think of names that they would like to join the commission, as with the Greeley’s departure, and a few future impeding term ends, combined with members still serving out of default a year after their terms ended – that there would be a boatload of vacancies.
When nobody had names to offer, one member suggested posting to Frambors or Framingham Community & Government chat on Facebook.
The chair quickly shot that down as this was an exclusive group of the chosen few who happen to live in a small enclave of historic homes in Framingham Center, and that offering the openings to the public would not do. She went on to suggest that people had to live in specific areas, had to have specific skillsets, specialized college degrees, a special type of pedigree was required.
The city’s website claims similar requirements, but listed with an ‘and/or’ which makes it less restrictive. Therefore if you have ever worked in construction or mowed lawns or gardened professionally, you can join, and irk, this elitist bunch while giving back to your community. Click the button below to apply to serve your community.
