Zoning Board Votes Unanimously To Uphold Assembly Square Permits

On December 9, 2004, in Uncategorized, by The News Staff

by Brian A. McDonald

True to his word, Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone announced that renovations at one of the city’s most contested commercial real estate sites will begin before the end of the year.

Curtatone said the proposed developer of Assembly Square, Assembly Square Limited Partnership, or ASLP, hopes to begin renovating the end-cap of Assembly Square Mall, formerly leased by Macy’s and then Building 19, by the end of December.

The Mayor also said that the first prospective tenant of that space, The Christmas Tree Shops, could open its doors by summer 2005.

“This is a major, tangible step forward in the development of

Assembly Square,” Curtatone said. “Christmas Tree Shops is an extremely popular retail outlet in Eastern Massachusetts and will serve as a magnet for shoppers and for other tenants.”

Opponents of the development are not convinced that leasing the space to the Christmas Tree Shops, or any other big box retailer, will in fact mark a step forward for the city.

William C. Shelton, president of the Mystic View Task Force said that leasing the end-cap at the mall to the Christmas Tree Shops could in fact prove detrimental to the ultimate revenue potential at Assembly Square Mall.

By introducing a big box retailer into the area again, he said any number of potentially higher valued tenants will be precluded from occupying a future space at the mall.

“Class A office spaces, professional services, even upscale retailers won’t want to be located next to a big box retailer. When you create a big-box environment, upscale retailers won’t locate near it. It’s death to their image,” he said.

Curtatone disagreed with the assertion that big box retail is incompatible with mixed use development.

“I respectfully disagree,” he said. “A mix of uses of high quality residential buildings, hotels, restaurants, business offices, R&D and retail is a proven model in use across the country,” he said.

Curtatone said the mix of developments, including retail, will in fact attract people and other businesses to the area.

“The uses work together and complement each other,” he said.

MVTF has been a proponent for smart growth at

Assembly Square mall from day one and maintains that the plan, despite its promise of intelligent development and increased tax revenues for the city, is hamstrung by a lack of thought about key issues.

While the Mayor asserts that the planned retailers will work in conjunction with mixed use development and indeed even spur further development, Shelton said certain elements of urban planning are being overlooked.

In addition to forestalling future revenue generators at the mall, Shelton said he feels that the glut of traffic created by big box retailers is not being taken seriously enough.

“The traffic generated by The Christmas Tree Shops will use up a great portion of the roadway capacity at Assembly Square Mall, making future development very difficult,” he said.

Curtatone has chosen to move forward. In a grand vision of urban development, Curtatone said he foresaw Assembly Square on the cutting edge of urban development in the near future.

“We are going to make this a 24 hour destination, where it doesn’t shut down. People eating here, sleeping, working living, a mix of uses,” he said.

While some in the city have criticized the current plan, deriding it for a lack of foresight into such matters as traffic capacity, public transit and real tax revenues generated, Curtatone said his administration is wholly committed to the idea of smart growth at Assembly Square.

“This will be a model for smart growth development. It will be an exciting mixed use village,” he said.

All plans aside, The Mystic View Task Force, of which Shelton is president, currently has an outstanding suit against the tenanting of the mall.

The suit which, if decided in favor of MVTF, would quash the administration’s hopes of re-tenanting the mall, has exhausted all administrative remedies and now requires judgment.

The suit claims that the zoning ordinances passed by the board of alderman in April, under which the permits were issued to begin construction at the mall, were drawn up in direct violation of Massachusetts General Law.

“According to Massachusetts General Law 40-A, the ordinance that was passed to allow the permitting at

Assembly Square is illegal,” Shelton

said.

Massachusetts General Law section 40, which Shelton

said allows towns the responsibility for zoning their own land, carries in it a stipulation that those towns abide certain rules.

“Specifically, what the alderman voted on conflicts with the uniformity section of that law,” Shelton said. “That section states that a city or town must treat everybody the same when zoning.”

By passing the zoning ordinances in question, Shelton said the city is treating some developers differently.“Basically the new ordinance says if you are ASLP you can do things other people cannot.”

Shelton said he acknowledged the decision might go either way and that MVTF is hurrying towards a conclusion in an effort to block the re-tenanting of the mall.

“If the summary judgment is not quickly forthcoming, we will ask for an injunctive relief,” he said.

Injunctive relief would prevent ASLP from further development at the site other than the end-cap renovations.

Those renovations and the prospective re-tenanting can move forward unimpeded, he said.

“Re-tenanting the end-cap is not a change of use, so it is grand fathered under the older zoning ordinances. They can build that without fear of legal challenge,” Shelton said.

Shelton said that the summary decision marks the end of one of two lines. Either the re-tenanting of the mall will move forward as ASLP and the administration envisions it, or it will be put to a halt and new plans for the Mall will have to be devised.

“If we were to lose the summary judgment it would enormously reduce any potential Assembly Square has to improve the financial situation of the city,” Shelton said.