Building a legacy for tomorrow
by Patrick ButlerAs a young child growing up on Cape Cod in the summertime, my grandfather would take my brothers and me on an afternoon excursion. We would drive into Hyannis and visit the Ocean Street docks and watch the ferry coming from or going to Nantucket. From there, we would visit the train station and the arrival from New York. The excursion would continue up Main Street (which was two-way at the time) and stop at Martin’s Bakery, or perhaps Charlberts, Lorrainia’s or Storyland.
For most people reading this, those names may mean nothing. Almost 50 years later, the face of Hyannis, and indeed, Cape Cod, has changed. Downtown Hyannis is undergoing change at a rapid pace, with several mixed-use, multistory projects getting under way this past year. That change is perhaps most striking with the completion of the Mugar Building addition at Cape Cod Hospital. This six-story, 120,000-square-foot facility will eventually provide 120 new patient beds and is one of the tallest structures on Cape Cod
With those changes have come new ways of approaching development and its associated regulatory permitting. The concepts of growth management, mixed-use developments and so-called smart growth are emotionally and politically charged. By necessity, they involve significant complex issues and debate. Land use planning has evolved into tools for development which help mitigate impacts and protect the environment, economy and quality of life within our community. The Cape Cod Commission’s approval of the application by the town of Barnstable to treat downtown Hyannis as a Growth Incentive Zone, and the use of regulatory agreements for development of combined residential and commercial use, is an excellent example.
The shining lights of the new Mugar Building on the skyline of Hyannis mark not only the beginning of a new era of health care, but also represent an example of this change. It is a success story of cooperative and coordinated review and permitting at the local, regional, state and federal level. This new approach to land use approval and development should serve as a model for the future of Cape Cod.
The development of the Mugar Building required review and approval by both the town of Barnstable and town of Yarmouth, as well as the Cape Cod Commission. The town of Yarmouth was required to approve a zoning change at its town meeting. The two towns, utilizing an agreed-upon joint site plan review process, expedited approval and utilized unprecedented cooperation and communication. The Cape Cod Commission review process as a Development of Regional Impact took less than six months and led to unique and innovative traffic, community character and open space methodologies. The creation by the hospital of a neighborhood working group consisting of representatives of town government, residents and civic associations early in the process led to very specific and concrete changes in design to address the impacts on surrounding properties and neighborhoods.
This is not, however, just a story of one building. Cape Cod Healthcare’s purchase of 40 acres off of Attucks Lane in Hyannis, and its rezoning by the Barnstable Town Council as a Medical Services Overlay District, played a critical role. Through the use of a little-used provision in the Cape Cod Commission Act, a development agreement was approved to allow for construction over the next 10 years of a 236,000-square-foot ambulatory campus to take traffic and infrastructure pressure off the main hospital campus.
At the same time, in Harwich the Fontaine Medical Center received local and regional permits that incorporated unique mitigation in the form of sliding-scale services for underinsured patients. All of this represents a new and more strategic way of thinking about health care, land use planning and development on Cape Cod.
The opening ceremony of the Mugar Building last October marked not only the completion of construction in a short 16-month period, but also an unprecedented success story in the area of philanthropy. With more than $17 million raised toward the construction of the addition, the future for other needs throughout Cape Cod is extremely bright.
These developments, and the process of obtaining approvals and philanthropic support, all represent what some would call a new Cape Cod. In many ways my grandfather would be amazed at where we are and what we have done at Cape Cod Hospital, in Hyannis and throughout Cape Cod. Our excursion today would be much different. Fifty years from now, we hope, this new approach will result in a better, more sustainable legacy to our grandchildren.
Patrick Butler is an attorney with Nutter, McClennen & Fish LLP, and manages its Hyannis office.
Published in Cape Business May/June 2007
Patrick Butler Patrick Butler is an attorney with Nutter, McClennen & Fish, LLP. 
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