By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter
Shrewsbury – A life sciences company, Cytiva, formerly part of GE Healthcare Life Science, is anticipated to be moving into an 80,000 square facility on Route 9 by the end of the year. That news and other economic updates were shared recently by Town Manager Kevin Mizikar with the Shrewsbury Board of Selectmen.
“We are extremely happy to have Cytiva going into 800 Boston Turnpike (Route 9). It’s part of their worldwide expansion and includes roughly 200 additional jobs to the commonwealth (including at their Westborough facility) and 80,000 square foot of manufacturing,” he told he Board.
According to a statement from the company, bioreactors, hardware used by drug manufacturers for growing organisms under controlled conditions needed for making biopharmaceuticals, vaccines and antibodies will be manufactured at the Shrewsbury facility.
Mizikar also updated the BOS on the status of the Edgemere Crossing at Flint Pond, a 68-acre mixed use project, formerly known as the Edgemere Drive-in, located at 180, 200 and 228 Hartford Turnpike.
“We’ve been holding a series of meetings and understand that the developers are ready to begin pulling building permits for the residential component,” he said. “The commercial component including the Market Basket will start in early calendar year of 2021 and looks to open in the spring of 2022 so that project continues to move forward which will be a great economic asset to the community.”
“We probably will see building permit applications come in this month but we most likely won’t see building construction until the spring for the residential units or the commercial units,” added Kristen Las, assistant town manager, in a phone call after the Board meeting.
She also noted that they were in the final stages of permitting with MassDOT go out to bid in early 2021 for improvements to the intersection of Route 20 and Lake Street. That work will be done in accordance with a MassWorks Grant that the town was awarded in 2018 for $3.75 million to do improvements to the Route 20 Corridor associated with the Edgemere development.
Other economic news Mizikar shared include: the Midas building in the Trader Joe’s Plaza, 77 Boston Turnpike, will be converted into a Verizon retail store and FedEx will expand in its space; Geico is planning on moving into the space vacated by 2 Ovens restaurant in the White City Plaza and the retail outlet 5 Below will move into another vacant space in the same plaza; Rockland Trust is moving into the former Qdoba space at the Lakeway Commons, 193 Boston Turnpike; and the former India Store at 264 Boston Turnpike is being retrofitted to become a butcher/meat market.
