Natick Seeks To Sell Former Eliot School

NATICK, MA - The debate about what to do with the former Eliot School property in South Natick has resurfaced as the Select Board reviewed a draft of a request for proposals for the property at its meeting last week.

The 14,000 square-foot vacant brick building at 5 Auburn St. has been unused for about two years. It had housed a Montessori school under a series of short-term leases. That school eventually moved across the street and became the Riverbend School.

The sale of the property was authorized at the last Town Meeting. The three-story school building was estimated to have been built in the 1920s. It includes a multipurpose gymnasium/auditorium, green space, parking and a playground, according to the RFP.

Bounded in part by the Charles River, the property has frontage along Auburn Street and Eliot Street. Originally it was the home of the public Eliot School until about 1981 and is located in the John Eliot Historic District.

The property is zoned residential, which allows for single- and two-family homes as well as nonprofit or civic uses. If a nursing home or assited living facility were proposed, it would require approval of a special permit.

The draft RFP on the 2.84-acre parcel currently is being reviewed by the Select Board, which is expected to give its feedback by the end of the month so that the RFP can be finalized and released sometime in August. From there it will be advertised for about six weeks to solicit proposals.

The 5 Auburn Street RFP Committee formed after Town Meeting to produce this draft RFP and to authorize the Select Board to dispose of the property. It held a public meeting on the site as well as virtually to solicit public comments on potential uses. Affordable housing and community arts programming were two suggestions that came out of those meetings.

Andy Myer, the chair of the 5 Auburn Street RFP Committee, said at the Select Board meeting that, although the property is vacant, it is "still on the taxpayer’s dime, to the tune of some tens of thousands of dollars per year."

"It's a special property, obviously, considering where it is located and when it was built," he added. At the public meetings, Myer said the public expressed that the facade of the building should be preserved, as well as the open space in front of the building.

Fellow committee member Geoff Lewis said the committee "wanted to cast the widest net possible" by not limiting the RFP to a particular use, such as affordable housing.