Billerica MA

“Yankee Doodle’ is Changing This Town

A Community with Space to Grow and Energy to Thrive

Spanning over 26 square miles and home to nearly 42,000 people, the town of Billerica Massachusetts, incorporated in 1655, is a community with an interesting history. According to local lore, a local resident was the cause of the tune “Yankee Doodle” becoming a patriotic song of pride, after he was tarred and feathered by British soldiers just a month before he marched into the Battle of Concord and Lexington, earning Billerica the official title of “Yankee Doodle Town.”  Reports show that British soldiers taunted him with the song during his torture –as they did with many colonists- but that the song was slung back at them by minutemen in Concord and Lexington as the British were forced to retreat down Battle Road.

Today, Billerica is a place where residents enjoy a high quality of life, supported by wide open spaces, and easy access to larger cities. “We have two rivers. We have state forests and town forests. If you’re an outdoor enthusiast, you’re absolutely coming to Billerica to hike trails and paddle,” shares Katherine Malgieri, Director of Planning and Community Development.

The town is also home to heritage sites like the Middlesex Canal Museum. “Long before trains took everything everywhere, that canal connected the city of Boston to the city of Lowell to get materials to communities like Billerica,” Malgieri continues. From June to October the Billerica Community Farmers Market, voted number one in the state for three years running, brings fresh local goods to the community, adding to the New England charm.

New traditions like the Billerica Hot Air Balloon Festival add to the experience. Malgieri elaborates, “It’s a glow festival. In addition to the typical hot air balloon experience where you can purchase tickets to ride in, at night there’s also a choreographed “dance” with these balloons, and they actually light up and there’s a laser show as well. It’s this big, huge choreographed production which is growing excitement in town.”

Industry, Business and Workforce

Billerica’s downtown and commercial areas are being reinvented as the town adjusts to shifts in retail and development, brought on by the national closing of several large retailers. The solution has been to reimagine these spaces with a focus on smaller businesses and mixed-use projects.

“In our historic common area, we have a 1970s shopping mall that’s being redeveloped. There’s some housing there. There’re new pad sites, there’s new eateries coming in,” Malgieri conveys. “Really large anchors, the super stores, don’t necessarily fit within our existing shopping centers that we have right in town. So, for our main road, they’re small businesses, and chain businesses that have smaller footprints.”

With a prime location along Route 3 and the Middlesex Turnpike, Billerica has also become an attractive option for companies looking for available land and connectivity. “The industrial parks are mostly along Route 3. We have three different exits in town just off of that highway, and then we have these other main side roads that connect to other parks,” explains Malgieri.

The Middlesex 3 Coalition, a regional economic development organization, works closely with Billerica to strengthen key industry clusters, which include life sciences, defense, advanced technology, clean tech, and healthcare.

“Our role is to bring the public and the private sector together to improve economic development in the region,” details Executive Director Stephanie Cronin. “Billerica is smack dab in the region, and they’ve got great clusters of these types of companies.”

She offers the example of E Ink, the pioneer behind the electronic ink used in e-readers as one example. When relocating from Cambridge, the company cited Billerica’s existing concentration of high-tech neighbors as a key factor.

“They knew if those companies were in that neighborhood, we would have the workforce, the amenities, and the resources,” she shares. “What we’re trying to do, is create communities of similar types of industry clusters and really build upon those in the area.”

The growth is ongoing, with companies such as Factorial Energy, a developer of EV batteries, operating on Middlesex Turnpike, while other areas host medical supply operations, logistics companies, and freezer and dry storage facilities. Cronin emphasizes, “A lot of the residents don’t know that there are these really cool companies here. EMD Serono is a great example, they’re trying to solve cancer, and it’s just tucked away.”

Equally important is Billerica’s ability to connect businesses with a skilled workforce. From transportation to workforce training, Billerica has all the support in place to ensure that industries have access to local talent. “We have a shuttle that services from Boston, Cambridge up to Billerica to get employees from the city up here,” expands Cronin. Middlesex Community College in neighboring Bedford provides workforce development programs based on industry needs, while UMass Lowell is a major resource for research, engineering, and advanced manufacturing expertise.

“Those are the two post-secondary institutions that are closest to us, that the businesses here drive a lot of their employees from or they have their employees go back to school at those two facilities to improve upon themselves,” relays Assistant Town Manager Robert Maynard.

The Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) is another crucial entity helping to guide the future of advanced technology manufacturing in the region. “Our most recent grand opening was a business that was created out of WPI called AM Batteries,” Malgieri adds. “They found a way to create the internal layered materials in batteries without using a football field length of carcinogens like typical battery creation. So we’ll take it. That’s great news.”

Housing Challenges and Opportunities

Like many communities Billerica is facing the challenges of housing affordability and availability. Malgieri imparts, “Most recently, the state of Massachusetts came out with a law to try to address housing. So, for any town like Billerica that has transit access to the city, we needed to put in better zoning that actually allowed for more apartments. We chose places that were next to our train station as well as next to the highway corridor, because those are the really big employment sectors where, if you want to live somewhere close to work, you want to live in one of those two areas.”

200 units of housing are currently under construction at the former Billerica Mall site, but Maynard stresses that the biggest challenge is the lack of “missing middle” housing including downsizing options for older residents and entry-level homes for young families.

Billerica remains more affordable than many nearby communities, with median home prices sitting around $650,000.

“The way that this suburban community has been built out is a home on an acre of land,” Malgieri points out. “If you were to look at other towns in the Boston metro area, you don’t get an acre of land for even $800,000.”

Billerica continues to invest in critical infrastructure, expanding the municipal sewer system to cover nearly 88 percent of the community over the last decade. Additionally, a twenty-year capital water improvement plan is in place, funded at $3 million annually, with strong support from the Select Board. Road maintenance is another priority, with about $4 million invested each year from a mix of state and municipal funding. “There’s over 26 square miles in Billerica, so we have a lot of roads to pave. That $4 million allows us to put a big dent in it every single year, which is great,” Maynard acknowledges.

Billerica is also investing in a new Department of Public Works facility, a recreation center, and a fire station in the northern part of the community. These follow other major investments in recent years, such as the new high school and a fire station in the southern part of town. “There’s a lot of large-scale capital investment going on right now to try to bring Billerica up to that 21st Century level of what we all expect from the government,” remarks Maynard.

Looking Ahead

Over the coming months, Maynard says Billerica will explore zoning changes in an area known as Technology Park, to encourage more commercial development and create a more vibrant district. “That is what has me most excited to come to work, because of the possibility of what that could be someday,” he admits.

“We’ve been meeting with the business owners over there, and we’ve been having internal conversations about how we can adjust the zoning to attract a developer to come in and actually build what we want. I’m really excited to see where those conversations lead to.”

As for what he sees as Billerica’s greatest strength, Maynard states, “I don’t know of a community that has residents who are as passionate about the community as the folks who live here. They care about their town. They love their town.”

For Cronin, Billerica’s location is a selling point. “It’s close enough to the city that it can take advantage of everything the city has to offer,” she portrays.

Malgieri reflects, “I love how big this town is and how much potential it has. We have all this space. We have these forests and rivers, kind of dividing neighborhoods into smaller pockets of community but we still have big community perks. I just love that about us.”

At a Glance

Name: Billerica Massachusetts

What: A thriving New England town with a population of 42,000

Where: Middlesex County, Massachusetts

Website: www.town.billerica.ma.us