Assembly Square, the Back Story
Part 12:  IKEA vs. City Government

A commentary by William C. Shelton

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

    While the former owners of the mall deceived and manipulated to avoid regulatory requirements, IKEA undertook every regulatory process required of them.  Yet, they initially encountered more resistance from city government than did the mall developers.
    The world‚Äôs largest furniture retailer, bought 17 acres of waterfront property in 1999 for $19.5 million.  The company submitted plans for their typical sprawling, windowless, blue box, but the mayor and her staff rejected them.

    IKEA offered new plans in June, 2000.  They called for a larger store, but reduced its footprint from 200,000 to 160,000 square feet.  The blue box would become cream-colored brick, and IKEA would build a little league field next to the store.
    Publicly, the mayor‚Äôs spokesman said she was ‚Äúpleased with IKEA‚Äôs revisions, but she would like to see more.‚Äù  Privately, administration officials were amazed that IKEA imagined it could balance its enormous community impacts with a baseball diamond.
    Six months later, IKEA submitted its ‚Äúfinal proposal.‚Äù Mayor Gay rejected the plan because, ‚Äúit did not include sufficient mixed use on their vital waterfront acreage.‚Äù
    At the same time the Board of Aldermen was considering three ‚ÄúInterim Planning District (IPD)‚Äù proposals to make Assembly Square‚Äôs zoning more conducive to high-value development.  IKEA publicly threatened to sue the city if the legislation blocked its plans. 

   Alderman Bill White responded that if IKEA pursued litigation, he would participate in a campaign, ‚Äúinviting the world-wide press to see what IKEA is doing.‚Äù  Alderman Joe Curtatone was equally steadfast.  He said, ‚ÄúAs a landowner and a new purchaser of land, there is an inherent risk that zoning may change when you purchase the land.‚Äù  Unfortunately, he would later work successfully to weaken zoning when the landowner threatened by zoning enforcement was the mall owners.
    The following week, IKEA filed a legal challenge, requiring that passage of any new IPD require eight, rather than six, votes from the eleven aldermen.  The Board subsequently passed the IPD drafted by the mayor‚Äôs staff.  It did not block IKEA.
     The company submitted new plans in June, 2001.  They called for a 250,000 square-foot store, 203,000 square feet of office space, and 22,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space.  Mayor Gay was pleased, but said that IKEA still had a ‚Äúa little ways further to go‚Ķ.They have a yellow light, not a green light.‚Äù
Over the following four months, IKEA worked on its plans, culminating in two days of intense discussions with city staff.  The parties emerged the last week in October and jointly announced that IKEA would build a 250,000 square-foot store.  The agreement required IKEA to promise that it would build an additional 225,000 square feet of office, retail, and restaurant space, although it did not require IKEA to actually build it.
The city‚Äôs orientation had been to essentially accept the use that IKEA proposed, but to (1) mitigate its harmful impacts as much as was possible, and (2) obtain substantial compensatory benefits.  As Mayor Gay said, ‚ÄúI aim to get the very best deal for the city, and as you saw, I have sent them back to the drawing board many times.‚Äù 
Indeed, her staff fought long and hard, getting more concessions from IKEA than most other host cities had achieved.  Considering the enormous pressure that she was under to immediately produce new tax revenue, she took and held a courageous position.
Her critics reasonably asked whether it was a well-informed position.  It is natural to imagine that IKEA‚Äôs impacts are those of any other big box‚Äîlike a bigger Home Depot or Wal-Mart.  In fact, IKEAs‚Äô traffic congestion is unique.  From Emeryville to Stoughton, cities that accept an IKEA don‚Äôt realize what they are in for until it is too late.
In the U.S., city after city that does realize this has blocked IKEA developments.  In the U.K., Deputy Prime Minister Prescott banned new IKEA developments, including three that were already in progress.  IKEA challenged him in court and lost.

The orientation of activists like the Mystic View Task Force was that an IKEA store‚Äôs traffic impacts were fundamentally incompatible with Somerville‚Äôs best interests.  Therefore, IKEA should not receive a permit unless it was willing to develop a new model for doing business in an urban setting, as IKEA is now doing in England.
Mayor Gay had explicitly told IKEA officials to have no contact with Mystic View.  But after their agreement with the city, IKEA‚Äôs development officers solicited the activists‚Äô views.  The parties met three times, and IKEA staff and their architects acknowledged that a number of Mystic View‚Äôs suggestions would improve the project‚Äôs design.  In the end, IKEA concluded that it was too late in the process to make changes.