Assembly Square, the Back Story
Part 4:  A New Vision

A Commentary by William C. Shelton

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

A new way to think about developing Assembly Square emerged in the late 1990s.  It did not come from those who were usually charged with thinking about such things.

Unrelated to Assembly Square, grant writers who worked for the city and for its nonprofit organizations began to meet regularly. Their work had acquainted them with several realities.

First, Somerville then received a share of charitable grants that was disproportionately small in comparison to what its neighbors received.  Second, in virtually every area of education, social services, health, recreation, and open space, Somerville‚Äôs needs were disproportionately large.  Third, Somerville had extraordinary potential as a community, home, and workplace.

In April, 1998, they invited residents to discuss that potential at ‚ÄúSomerVision,‚Äù a citywide event.  With attendees from economic development, real estate, business management, and environmental backgrounds, they considered three more realities.

First, the best way to meet many of Somerville‚Äôs needs was full employment.  But while Boston and Cambridge had two jobs for every resident, Somerville had two residents for every job.

Second, regional grant makers‚Äô generosity could only meet a fraction of the city‚Äôs needs.  The economic causes for Somerville‚Äôs lack of jobs also denied it a strong tax base and put the tax burden disproportionately on homeowners.  Third, the only land left that could accommodate development adequate to produce needed jobs and tax revenues was Assembly Square and the Inner Belt.

One attendee, Pat Jehlen, had heard a talk on ‚Äúsmart growth‚Äù and the ‚Äúnew urbanism‚Äù given at the State House by Somerville resident and national expert Anne Tate.  Representative Jehlen‚Äôs staff organized a public meeting at the City Club in late spring.  Eight months pregnant, Professor Tate gave a compelling slide presentation on how the built environment encourages or discourages economic vitality, a sense of community, crime, and environmental health.

Those attending were inspired by the solutions that wise development offered for Somerville‚Äôs challenges.  Over the next year, they met with public officials, business people, community groups, clergy, and neighborhood associations, asking what the goals for new development should be.  They consistently heard that development should increase tax revenue, jobs, and usable open space.

At the same time, they investigated the benefits and burdens associated with different development patterns and analyzed those patterns‚Äô economic requirements, market potential, and environmental impacts.  They discovered some things that surprised them.

¬ß Assembly Square is the best development site left in Greater Boston for high-density development.  Its $6 billion in infrastructure investment, second only to Boston‚Äôs financial district, includes the Orange Line, three commuter rails, Routes 28 and 38, the Mystic River, and I-93.  It‚Äôs less than 15 minutes from downtown, the airport, financial centers, and the economic engines of Harvard and MIT.

¬ß Developed only as parkland, Assembly Square would be a permanent fiscal burden.  Housing development would create a greater burden, as new city costs would be more than new tax revenues.  Large retail stores would create the greatest burden.

¬ß Office development can create about four times the amount of jobs and taxes per thousand square feet of building as retail can, and ten-to-twenty times per acre of land.  Yet offices create only about one-tenth the traffic.

¬ß Developed as an office-based urban district with supporting housing, retail, a hotel, and cultural facilities, Assembly Square could produce $30 million in net taxes and 30,000 new jobs.  Because office buildings can afford more public amenities, it could also produce 30 acres of new open space.

¬ß Developers who can do land transformations can‚Äôt take on projects of much more than 25 acres.  But they won‚Äôt undertake these projects unless they have assurance that surrounding properties will be well designed, have sufficient transportation infrastructure, and not include uses that would undermine their investment.  They require a master plan, and only a city can create one.

Somewhere along the line, the citizen activists chose for themselves the awkward name ‚ÄúMystic View Task Force.‚Äù  No one remembers who came up with it.  Or perhaps, no one is willing to admit it.

As they developed their analysis and began to formulate a vision, they shared it with elected officials.  During the special election to replace Mayor Capuano, candidates Dorothy Kelly Gay and Joe Curtatone both endorsed the vision.

In May of 1999, Mystic View invited Somerville residents to a half-day public event at Good Time Billiards, where they presented what they had learned.  Hundreds of attendees broke up into groups, where they proposed ideas on how to turn this information into a physical design for the site.

Dorothy Kelly Gay had been elected Mayor four days earlier.  She attended and endorsed the Mystic View vision.  Things were looking up.