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In March of 2025, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts announced that the state police had selected Marlborough for the site of a new crime lab. The new lab will absorb operations from nearby Sudbury and Maynard according to reporting from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. At the time, neither the state police nor the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM) indicated what was in store for the land or lab facility in Sudbury.
At the latest meeting of the Sudbury Housing Trust, members discussed the property at 59 Horse Pond Road. (Outlined in yellow below)
The Sudbury Housing Trust’s role is to “provide for the creation and preservation of affordable housing in the Town of Sudbury for the benefit of low and moderate income households.” While they discussed the parcel as a potential Town land acquisition, no specific plans were discussed regarding development of affordable housing on the land. However, the Healey-Driscoll administration has prioritized making state-owned land available for housing development as part of its broader housing strategy in recent years. While significantly larger in size and scope, the future of nearby MCI Concord is subject of a robust planning exercise as part of a collaboration between the Town of Concord and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
One of the challenges with the crime lab property is that it land-locks Town-owned land behind the crime lab. The roughly two-acre parcel of Town-owned land is home to a little league baseball field that is regularly used by Lincoln Sudbury Youth Baseball. Baseball groups park at the crime lab to access the field for practices and games. Should the state change the use of the facility, or sell it to a third party, they may create new access challenges for the Town-owned parcel. Below is an image of the lab and field from the Town of Sudbury’s mapping system. The field is to the right of the lab in this image, and the infield is in the top-right of the open grassy area:
Sudbury Weekly asked the State Police media contacts for additional information about plans for the property, but did not receive a response by the time this article was published. The Commonwealth has not announced any plans for the property once the Marlborough lab opens.
The crime lab building was originally a Sudbury elementary school. After a stint of use by the Massachusetts Firefighters Academy in the 1980s, the crime lab opened in 1995. With the new lab expected to open in Marlborough in 2026, the Sudbury lab will have been in service for over three decades.
The news, as well as the questions about access to the Town-owned field, come as the Town is completing a Fields Needs Assessment. That assessment included evaluation of the Crime Lab Field as one of the assets actively used by Lincoln Sudbury Youth Baseball. The draft assessment identified the need for more baseball fields in Sudbury. (Fields Needs Assessment embedded below)
The town is also expected to begin development of an Open Space and Recreation Plan in the coming months. That plan could contemplate a variety of future uses for the crime lab land, though it’s too early to know if it will include the property in the plan. The Fields Needs Assessment did not contemplate a potential change in use to the building, or to ownership of the crime lab parcel.
The Sudbury Housing Trust discussion can be viewed at timestamp 42:00 below.
[Feature Image: Google Maps]