By Diana Brown
Globe Correspondent, 1/23/1999

''Sometimes you have to go through hell to get to heaven,'' said Cashell, Woburn's planning director, who is overseeing nearly 1.5 million square feet of development that includes the former Superfund site adjacent to Interstate 93.

The first of the country's top 10 worst toxic waste sites to go back onto the tax rolls, the parcel includes state-of-the-art corporate developments that are 75 percent occupied, and is just north of the junction of two major highways, I-93 and Route 128/Interstate 95.

''For once, Woburn is coming out smelling like a rose,'' Cashell said.

New office buildings, to house companies including ArQule and GTE Internetworking Corp., a hotel, and retail stores such as Target are going up along the highway's southbound side as part of the 265-acre MetroNorth Corporate Center and Presidential Way Park.

Connecting this new development will be the James L. McKeown Interchange, the first new exit ramp off I-93 in nearly 20 years. It is expected to open in July. State highway officials hope the $14 million interchange will also ease traffic congestion at the intersection of I-95 and I-93.

A $20 million regional transportation center also will be built as part of the complex. Envisioned to help reduce traffic bottlenecks into Boston, the center will offer direct commuter rail access to downtown Boston, bus service to Logan Airport and Haymarket Square, and Caravan commuter vans to area companies, and will have 2,400 parking places. Cashell said he expects the center, not yet under construction, to open next year.

A new road will also be built through the development, connecting Commerce Way to two new streets, MetroNorth Drive and Presidential Way, and to New Boston Street at the Wilmington line. Woburn received $1.9 million from a state public works economic development grant to help pay for the road.. The developers are contributing an additional $1.1 million.

''I don't think that at any one time as much commercial development has gone on in Woburn,'' Cashell said.

In November, ArQule, a pharmaceutical research company, moved most of its operations from Medford into its new 130,000-square-foot headquarters in the MetroNorth complex. The company has an option to build a second building of the same size there.

Burlington-based GTE is expanding into Woburn by building a 235,000-square-foot, five-story brick and glass building that is expected to open in July. A second, 200,000-square-foot, five-story building is expected to open in February 2001. The company also has plans for a third, 235,000-square-foot building.

Paychex is completing a 75,000-square-foot building in the MetroNorth park. The company will use about 50,000 square feet for offices and plans to lease the remaining space, according to officials.

Target is expected to open its 137,500-square-foot store, at the end of the new exit ramp, in July. Dayton-Hudson Co., Target's parent corporation, also plans to lease an additional 40,000 square feet of retail space.

Starwood Suites, a hotel chain, had planned to build a 120-room hotel along the highway in the industrial park but pulled out in the fall of 1998. Another chain is being courted.

About 75 percent of the two developments has been filled, leaving about 355,000 square feet of office and hotel space still available, according to Bryan Clancy, a vice president at National Development of Newton, which is managing both projects.

For most companies, access and location are the main selling points. That is what sold ArQule, according to Stephen Hill, its chief operating officer. ''Woburn is relatively central to our employees,'' Hill said, and the location's past problems were ''a nonissue.''

''As land becomes less available, more and more developers and companies are taking a second look at sites that were previously undesirable or unavailable,'' said Harold DuLong, a lawyer for National Development.

Being in the middle of a major new infrastructure project also helped attract companies. Landing GTE and ArQule for the location was a coup that will likely attract more big-league companies to the area, Clancy said.

The process of cleaning up the Superfund site took nearly 20 years and cost more than $70 million.

When marketing the development now, Clancy said, he has to inform all potential clients of the land's history as a former hazardous waste site, made more well-known by a book and film, ''A Civil Action.'' But he said no company has rejected the chance to move there because of its history.

''We've all done a good job at repositioning assets and looking at what the future can be and not what it was,'' he said.

All of the new office buildings are going up on what is considered ''clean'' soil. Target, the transportation center, and some of ArQule's and GTE's buildings are being being built on the former hazardous waste site, which has been completely remediated, officials said. The cleanup process ended last year.

A large portion of the former Superfund site is fenced off and capped with more than 18 inches of soil and a special fabric cover as part of the cleanup measures mandated by state and federal laws.

There is no longer any problem with odor, and all drinking water for the area comes from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority or from Horn Pond in Woburn, not from the local groundwater, officials said.

''There aren't any skeletons in the closet or problems hidden in the property,'' Cashell said. The city knows so much about that land now because of the exhaustive studies done before it could be developed, he said.

For Woburn city leaders who fought to correct the problems and to move on, MetroNorth Corporate Center and Presidential Way Park signal a new age.

''We have now turned the corner,'' said Paul Meaney, executive director of the Woburn Business Association. He was a city alderman from 1970 to 1982, during much of the tumultuous time when the process of cleaning up the site was begun.

By 2005, Meaney predicts, there will be no more room for companies in the area because it is such a hot location. He estimated that the new companies will generate 16,000 jobs and $8 million in annual tax revenues for the city by then.

''This is the future we want to create for Woburn,'' Cashell said.

With several school construction projects underway in Woburn, Mayor Robert Dever said the new developments and their resulting tax revenues for the city ''couldn't come at a better time.''

''It's really heartening to see the actual results happening,'' Dever said.

Cashell and Meaney both said they hoped the lessons learned in Woburn can help other communities grappling with converting former Superfund sites into developments.

''No matter what the situation is, you have to look for the silver lining,'' Cashell said. ''With this, it was a difficult thing for Woburn to go through for two decades, but Woburn officials never gave up. ... And here we are today.''