Community Involvement

Public Meeting: Februray 24, 2021

Public Meeting: July 30, 2020

Wakefield was recently awarded a Complete Streets grant to implement upgrades to Albion Street, including safety elements, like crosswalks, and aesthetic components, like plantings. A virtual meeting took place on July 30 where residents and business owners discussed Albion’s design and reconstruction plan. With the potential for Albion to serve as a model for the larger Envision Wakefield Downtown Revitalization initiative, time was also spent discussing streetscape and landscape themes for the Main Street portion of that project. View the slide deck.

Public Meeting: February 11, 2020

Project leaders provided an update on MassDOT's initial approval of the project, announced Complete Streets funding for upgrades to Albion Street, and spoke about the project timeline and next steps. Read a brief summary of meeting highlights.

Public Meeting: June 18, 2019

 A fourth public meeting was held to review the current concepts, explain the next steps in design development, and the process to obtain funding.

Town Meeting: April 29, 2019

Voters at Town Meeting on April 29 approved moving into the second phase of design for this project.

Public Meeting: April 9, 2019

On April 9, VHB presented refined concepts of the Main, Albion, and Water Street areas. They proposed several approaches to parking on these and surrounding roadways and took questions from the audience. VHB also touched upon some of the material choices that would be made in the future and how construction would be funded.

Public Meeting: March 21, 2019

The second public meeting was held on March 21. Significant data on parking was reviewed, and several concepts on each section of the corridor were presented. Participants then had the opportunity to review printed plans and discuss ideas and concerns with engineers.

Public Meeting: February 12, 2019

The first public meeting was held on February 12 at the Galvin Middle School. Moderated by VHB, the discussion covered the Main, Albion, and Water Street areas, including the Town Common, Common Street, Spaulding Street, and Lake Avenue. View a project map here. VHB reported on their preliminary observations of the areas and facilitated breakout sessions to gain input on current challenges, ideas for improvements, and vision for the future.

Focus Groups

Merchants and community groups have been very gracious with their contributions and have attended focus groups throughout the process. The project has benefitted from the insights of the Chamber of Commerce, Historical Society, Wakefield Center Neighborhood Association, Wakefield Civic League, our Senior Center, Wakefield Main Streets, and more. Thanks to the perspectives these groups bring, the design concepts have changed throughout the process to best meet the needs of our residents, business owners, and visitors. Collaboration has been, and will continue to be, critical to this project.