Myles Standish Industrial Park, Taunton

In 2002, when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts shuttered the final active portions of the Paul A. Dever State School in Taunton, the 220-acre development looked like it would go the way of many other contaminated, decaying, and abandoned institutional sites. Reacting quickly to the school’s closing, state Senator Marc Pacheco and a delegation of local lawmakers provided legislation for the site to be redeveloped as an expansion of the existing Myles Standish Industrial Park that had already contributed so much to the region’s economy. The legislation also called for a 50-acre Life Sciences Business & Technology Park that would feature a new state-of-the-art Life Science Training & Education Center.

Unfortunately, the site had a negative land value due to the amount of demolition, remediation, and new infrastructure required. Unable to attract any private development, the site sat vacant for many years, increasing the rate of decay and liability of the campus. In 2011, MassDevelopment and the Taunton Development Corporation (TDC) together formed a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, the Taunton Development/MassDevelopment Corporation (TD/MDC), to realize the full potential of a beautiful site that was once considered as a location for the headquarters of the United Nations.   

MassDevelopment and our partners, the TDC and the City of Taunton, worked closely together to prepare the site for new private economic development opportunities. With the assistance of MassDevelopment and TDC seed funding, state and federal grant funding, and the city’s approval of District Improvement Financing (DIF), the 220-acre Myles Standish Industrial Park and new Business Park at Myles Standish were completed in 2022, with all parcels sold. The public-private partnership completed MEPA permitting and traffic mitigation, demolished and remediated more than one million square feet of vacant buildings, tunnels, and water towers, and constructed new roads and utilities. Eleven new companies have now invested in this site, resulting in more than 1.3 million square feet of new development, $98 million in private investment, 1,400 new jobs, and an additional $2.5 million in annual tax revenue to the city. 

The TD/MDC continues to work with Senator Pacheco on the final remaining lot at the Business Park at Myles Standish, which has been reserved for a 30,000-square-foot Life Science Training & Education Center.