Credit Union Gets Year Extension On New Commercial Building

Norfolk Community Federal Credit Union plans to look for a buyer for its vacant lot at the second round­about in Norfolk in hopes of leasing space in a new build­ing there.

The credit union sought and received last week an ex­tension of a site plan permit from the town’s Planning Board, to allow time for the property to be sold and de­veloped. The architect for the project, Robert Nicodemus, told the Planning Board that credit union can’t afford to de­velop the lot on its own.

“The issue is the credit union in their business analy­sis has determined … that they economically need to put the property up for sale and become a tenant of the prop­erty on a long-term lease in order to be able to financially meet their goals and objectives of occupying the property the way it is approved at the moment …” said Nicode­mus, of Bergmeyer Associates, an architectural firm in Boston.

This is the fifth extension the credit union has gotten from the Planning Board, Nicodemus said. The first two were granted because of problems with getting approval from the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals and a problem in state Land Court. The previous extension was scheduled to expire May 15, 2010. “At some point in time, we’ve got to say, ‘we’re done,’ we’ve got to be done,” said Planning Board member Thomas Burke. But Burke supported the new extension to provide a reasonable amount of time for the credit union’s plan to work. David Roche, chairman of the Planning Board, asked Nicodemus if anything else were preventing development of the property.

Nicodemus said everything else is in place. “The sale of the land and the lease of the property for development is a viable and reasonable way for a bank to go forward,” Nicodemus said. Nicodemus said he has talked with six developers and that two expressed interest in talking more about the project. He said the site is desirable because of its prox­imity to train station in Norfolk Center and the 10,000 cars a day that move back and forth in that area. The lot, which is at the corner where Liberty Lane meets Union Street, formerly had a home, which was de­molished after the credit union got approval to construct a commercial building there. Credit union officials hope to move from the credit union’s current site at 194 Main Street. “Everything is ready to go but they can’t make their business plan work unless they can find a way to restruc­ture this, and this is the way to do it, from what we can learn,” Nicodemus said. The new extension for a building permit to be issued runs out May 13, 2011. The Planning Board approved the extension late last week, on Thursday, March 4.