Malden Advocate | Jan 4, 2019 | by Barbara Taormina

Three years ago, 71 percent of the residents who went to the polls for the local election voted in favor of the city acquiring the Malden Hospital site, and although it has taken some time, a plan is now in the works.

The nonprofit group Friends of Fellsmere Heights has teamed up with Boston Architectural College to develop a conceptual community-based plan for the 18-acre site that straddles the border of Malden and Medford. Hospital site review committees from both cities hope the plan will help open negotiations with the site’s owners, MelroseWakefield Healthcare, formerly Hallmark Health, and provide the information needed to tap state grants and other funding opportunities.

It all started with a phone call. And the rest, they say, is history. Board liaison Leah Emerson was looking for resources online for capacity building and support of FoFH's mission to bring community-based redevelopment options and planning expertise to the former Malden Hospital. Joy Pearson of FoFH wasted no time in calling the Boston Architectural College (BAC) directly to follow that lead. She got Ben Peterson, the BAC's Gateway Initiative Director, on the first ring. Learning the brief history of the property and about the adjacent Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot designed Fellsmere Park, Ben was intrigued.

Malden Advocate | May 4, 2018 | by Barbara Taormina

The great-great-grandson of the city’s first mayor and benefactor extraordinaire, Elisha Converse, was in Malden this week to show support for the proposal to preserve the Malden Hospital site for community projects and open space. Peter Converse made the trip from his home in Jamestown, R.I., for a presentation by the Friends of Fellsmere Heights to the City Council on the group’s 16+2 proposal, which would preserve 16 acres of the 18-acre site for the public with the remaining land being used for some type of development. The Friends have developed their plan as an alternative to the Fellsmere Housing Group’s proposal to build a residential complex of 214 condos, 18 townhouses and 18 single-family homes on the site.

Converse told councillors that he was speaking on behalf of 25 members of the Converse family who support the Friends’ plan to conserve the hospital land, which was donated to the city, in part, by Elisha Converse and his wife, Mary.