By Joe Lynch

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

Four years ago, I got a call from Mayor Curtatone’s office asking me to attend a meeting with a developer who had recently purchased the five acre MaxPak site just down the street from my home. I had heard through the grapevine that the property would be developed, that a member of the Kennedy family bought it and that the developer was proposing 350 condominiums for the site.

That meeting was also attended, in shifts, by many city department managers, each being given a very high level overview of the proposed project. I had nothing to say (hard to believe, I know) until at the end of the meeting – when I was asked by the Mayor what I thought. My first public comments to the developer and the Mayor went something like this: I would support the development if it was used for residential use only, if the developer and the administration made extraordinary efforts to include the residents who live around the site in the decision making process and if the traffic and parking impact that the site would eventually generate was acceptable to the existing neighborhood residents.

Then, in typical Lynch fashion, came the bombshell. I directly addressed Stephen Kennedy Smith the principal developer and owner of KSS Realty Partners, and in no uncertain terms told him I would not support any proposal that called for anything over 200 housing units.

Then I started with the questions. How did he propose to integrate the extension of the Community Path and the possible location of a rapid transit Green Line station adjacent to his site? How did he propose to mitigate traffic on Lowell Street if he needed another means of access? (Magoun Square redo ring a bell with anyone?) How did he propose to accurately measure the expected Lowell Street traffic when the Lowell Street Bridge had been closed for six years? I did not expect concrete answers that early in the game, but those questions had already been asked by many neighbors in anticipation of such a large-scale development of the site. I wished Mr. Smith well with his project, thanked the Mayor for the courtesy of the invite and got up to leave. Then, I just could not help myself – there was one more thing. If Mr. Smith chose not to reuse any of the existing buildings (and from the plans I saw that day four years ago, reuse was never on the drawing board) could KSS, as a gesture of good faith to the neighbors, quickly demolish the existing buildings and clean up the site? There was no response.

And so here we are four years later. The administration and the developer have, to their credit, includedthe neighbors in an extensive planning process, paid for in large part by the developer. The Lowell Street Bridge quickly received state money for its reconstruction and has been open for almost two years. The site was rezoned for residential use only and will have no more that 199 condominiums. The developer has conducted, at his expense, several traffic studies and is now bound to provide close to $175,000 in traffic mitigation to the surrounding neighborhood city streets.

But the buildings on the site still stand – barely.

The Curtatone administration missed a golden opportunity last month when KSS and Mr. Smith presented the Maxpak Master Plan to the Planning Department and Planning Board for approval. As I stated in my public comments to the Planning Board, the unsafe condition of the existing buildings and the associated negative public health and safety consequences should be reason enough to mandate the immediate demolition of the buildings and clean up of the site as a condition of the Master Plan approval. Neither the Mayor, nor his planning staff, nor the Planning Board, nor Ward 5 Alderman O’Donovan chose to push the issue. 

I think you and I know that the real estate market today is not exactly starving for new $500,000.00 condos so it leads me to believe that the Maxpak site could potentially remain in limbo for some time to come. And given the fact that this city and its public safety resources will continue to be called on, as it has dozens of times in the past, for trouble at the MaxPak site, I think it is time to say good bye to the buildings on the five acre site. Now.

Joe Lynch is a member of the Magoun Square Neighborhood Association, was a member of the Design and Development Review Committee for the MaxPak development and a former Ward 5 Alderman candidate.