Malden City Council approves funding for several long-awaited community improvement projects

Councillors approve over $2.1 million in expenditures from Community Preservation funds for five new projects citywide

By Steve Freker

The Malden City Council voted to spend over $2 million in Community Preservation funds – set aside through Malden residents’ municipal taxes – to either initiate or complete five new community projects citywide. All of the projects were accompanied by a letter of support from Mayor Gary Christenson. These projects are:

— A $983,000 for the Malden River Works Project

The Malden River Works Project will construct a publicly open space along the Malden River while improving climate resiliency along the Malden DPW Yards. All Community Preservation Act Funds will be expended on the open space improvement only. The overall scope of the nearly $7 million project includes rehabilitation of the DPW Facility on Commercial Street, with none of this work attached to Community Preservation funding.

— $783,000 for Malden Hospital Open Space Acquisition

This funding will cover all of the cost of acquiring open space at the Malden Hospital site, which has been set aside by the overall plan of Tufts Health Medicine in rehabbing the major former Malden Hospital site at 100 Hospital Rd. This expenditure will allow the city to acquire 6.7 acres of open space next to what will be a new behavioral health center operated by Tufts. The city intends to use it as passive recreational space (in initial discussions).

— $175,000 for improvements to Fitzgerald Park, adjacent to the CBD Parking Garage on Exchange Street

Some of an overall $225,000 project in the downtown on Exchange Street has been completed; $40,000 from Community Preservation funds has already been expended. It is a continuation of the project – creating an enhanced play area in the downtown.

— $67,360 to Linden Rink Project at Wescott Street, Linden Park

The total project includes construction of an outdoor recreational hockey rink for outdoor “street hockey” with an asphalt and acrylic surface. An earlier proposal for an enclosed ice hockey rink requesting funds was not approved for funding. This total project cost is approximately $481,000 and will be completed with use of $150,000 in Ward 8 mitigation funds and $200,000 in Community Development Block Grant funding.

— $151,650 for Design Planning for Oak Grove Community Center rehabilitation

The goal is to historically restore and preserve the Oak Grove Community Center at the intersection of Winter and Washington Streets while at the same time modernizing the building to make it completely handicapped accessible in line with federal regulations.

City Council President Stephen Winslow led a wide-ranging discussion of some details of parts of the various projects and thanked and praised all of the hundreds of people whose contributions and input led to the initiation and progress of all of these projects. Councillor Winslow noted that this was one of the key evenings in the community in terms of advancing such a slate of commendable and worthwhile community improvement projects in Malden.

Approving the expenditures in the separate votes were Jadeane Sica (Ward 8), Chris Simonelli (Ward 7), Carey Macdonald (at-Large), Ari Taylor (Ward 5), Amanda Linehan (Ward 3), Peg Crowe (Ward 1), Craig Spadafora (at-Large), Karen Colón Hayes (at-Large), Paul Condon (Ward 1), Ryan O’Malley (Ward 4) and Stephen Winslow (Ward 6).