1990 Uxbridge

Location, Location, Location

by Carol Masiello

Real estate agents always advise people selling their house that the most important factor in a successful sale is location, location, and location. Well Uxbridge has that thanks to the completion of Route 146, but do you want the takers? A New Jersey based company, Wilmorite Corp., plans to build a thoroughbred racetrack and mall on 300 acres near Route 146 in South Uxbridge (they will abandon the plan because of the drop in the economy).  The company has built many racetracks on the East Coast and loves Uxbridge's location; another entrepreneur plans to build a one million dollar horse training facility and exposition hall in South Uxbridge on forty acres on the town line with Millville. It will have a ½- mile-training track, exposition hall and restaurant. Hopedale wants 30 acres of land on Millville Road for a land reclamation project where sludge from their wastewater treatment plant is applied to scrub land. 

The state needs a second major airport by 2010 and is looking at a parcel on the Uxbridge-Douglas line. The site is one of eleven possible locations and the airport is estimated to cost 2 billion dollars. And as if that wasn't enough to keep everyone on their toes, Boston Edison has listed Uxbridge as an alternate site for a 300 megawatt combined cycle power generation plant on 350 acres in South Uxbridge by Elmwood Avenue and Glendale Road. Their Weymouth plant has big problems and the company chose Uxbridge from a list of 60 sites in New England. The Board of Selectmen and Uxbridge Parents for Clean Air and Water (UPCAW) are outraged that the Massachusetts Energy Facility Siting Committee allowed the towns placement on the list in spite of the bylaw prohibiting power plants in town. Selectmen tell Boston Edison to bark up some other tree and send a letter saying residents do not want a power plant and have said so many times. UPCAW ask selectmen for support in the war to keep power plants out of Uxbridge and an outside law firm is hired. Uxbridge is questioning the legality of the Siting Council overriding local bylaw by placing the town on the list