Slowly but surely, Grafton State Hospital turns to dust to make way for transit village

It was somewhat shocking to see what lurked inside the woods at 8 Pine Street — a campus of crumbling Grafton State Hospital buildings, abandoned since the former farm colony was shunted in 1973.

Seven months later, the future site of the transit-oriented mixed-use Village at Grafton Woods is a dusty expanse of foundations piled with crumbles of concrete, with only a few buildings remaining.

The 8-acre parcel at 8 Pine Street was awarded by the town in June 2020 for $1,725,000 to GSX Ventures to construct a transit-oriented village, taking advantage of its location across the street from the MBTA Commuter Rail station.

Back in August 2019, Grafton entered a sales partnership with the state, which was selling off small parcels of land for development. With a key location beside the commuter rail station, down the street from Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, and just off Rte. 30, it was seen as a perfect location to develop apartment housing with a retail component.

A few buildings are still being dismantled on the property and it is unknown when the site will be ready for construction.

The complex will have 317 apartment units in a 325,190 square-foot four-story building and a 11,340 square foot footprint, two-story retail village. Developers have said they hope to bring in locally owned restaurants and shops that would meet the needs of commuters, as well as national chains. Twenty-five percent of the housing units, or a total of 79 units, will be restricted as affordable housing for income-eligible tenants.

This is the last undeveloped piece of the former Grafton State Hospital, which housed 6,410 patients at its height. The “farm colony” treated patients deemed chronically insane from 1901 until 1973, when it was the first to be shuttered under the state’s “deinstitutionalization” process. 

In the late 1970s, Tufts University acquired the bulk of the former grounds to establish what is now the Cummings School for Veterinary Medicine, rehabbing many of the former hospital buildings. Other buildings were rehabbed for the Grafton Job Corps.

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