WESTBOROUGH – Westborough town officials learned on the same day as the rest of the general public last week that Mass General Brigham (MGB) had withdrawn its proposal to open a new outpatient care clinic in town.
The news came as a disappointment for many, Select Board Chair Ian Johnson told the Community Advocate on Saturday.
“We’re disappointed because we did have tremendous support from residents to place this outpatient facility in Westborough,” he said .
MGB had pitched plans for a Westborough location in the Westborough Office Park off Route 9 early last year.
The location would have been one of two new clinics constructed as part of MGB’s larger suburban expansion proposal, with the other being located in Woburn. Plans also called for the expansion of a third existing facility in Westwood.
The Westborough location had local approval, with MGB officials additionally inking a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreement with the town in September.
But the matter had remained in the state’s determination of need review process, with stakeholders continuing to make their cases for and against the expansion.
MGB then opted to withdraw its project after learning that the state Department of Public Health (DPH) would not be recommending it for approval.
Plans have also been withdrawn for those other suburban expansion projects.
Johnson noted that the town has and continues to support the state’s review process, despite the town’s disappointment in this end result.
Though MGB’s Westborough, Woburn and Westwood expansion has been withdrawn, separate MGB expansions of Massachusetts General Hospital and Faulkner Hospital, both in Boston, are moving forward with Department of Public Health approval.
MGB’s decision to withdraw its suburban expansion proposal, thereby avoiding an official denial by the DPH, may also allow the system to refile its requests in the future, experts Paul Hattis and John McDonough noted in Commonwealth Magazine on Tuesday.
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