By William C. Shelton

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

Assembly Square’s development remains Somerville’s biggest and most timely opportunity to bring jobs and expand our commercial tax base.

It is on Greater Boston’s most traveled highway and train line. The new T station will open this year. Assembly Row projects now under construction will create amenities attractive to office and lab tenants. Partners Healthcare’s 700,000-square-foot back-office project unequivocally establishes the Square as an office location.

With these hopeful circumstances, I offer stakeholders some unsolicited advice on how to maintain momentum while ensuring that Assembly Square’s development serves the people who built Somerville.

Establish enduring links with leading industry clusters

To limit the range of industry clusters deemed suitable for Assembly Square would risk suffering Telecom City’s fate. But the list would include life sciences, information technologies, marine sciences, clean energy, online education, and the creative economy.

Federal Realty Investment Trust (FRIT) is using the tenant recruitment channels available to it, as evidenced by Partners’ commitment. The mayor has delivered a presentation on Somerville’s virtues as a business location to an avid and oversubscribed Boston Society of Architects gathering.

What we need now is a careful and coordinated effort among all stakeholders—city officials, FRIT, local business leaders. Perhaps most importantly, the team should enlist enthusiastic Somerville residents who are already integrated into regional industry clusters—research universities, leading firms, trade associations, suppliers, and capital sources. These residents are not only able to open doors, but can also identify what is most important to emphasize when approaching cluster incumbents, that is, what about Assembly Square is most in their interest.

The aim should not be to win major coups so much as to maintain a sustainable stream of interest from industry incumbents and from cluster-related startups that are ready to improve and expand their workspaces.

Connect with research universities

Greater Boston’s eight research universities are essential to its industry clusters. To a surprising degree, they affect firms’ location decisions. There are several access points to these influencers: university presidents, university endowment managers who invest in real estate, academic departments related to land transformations, and those that throw off new businesses.

MIT’s alumni, for example, have founded 26,000 companies. Its new president, Raphael Reif, is launching an initiative to integrate innovation and entrepreneurship into almost every element of the university. His predecessor, Susan Hockfield, launched a $359 million effort to accelerate clean energy development, which continues to generate new businesses.

Nourish Somerville startups

Our city has become a nursery for thinly financed startups. Since I last wrote about them, they have proliferated around Union Square as well as Davis Square. Inevitably, some of them will take off, becoming candidates for new Assembly Square space. That won’t happen unless Somerville preserves and expands space that is affordable to these startups.

Recruit venture capital firms

Another essential cluster element is startup and expansion investors. To be closer to the action, some venture capital firms are migrating from Route 128 locations to the urban core. Recruiting one or more as tenants would increase Assembly Square’s cachet as a dynamic business district. And how about a Silicon Valley Bank branch?

Reach out to Somerville’s independent retailers

Although FRIT’s decision to focus on upscale outlet stores made me wince, it was a brilliant differentiation strategy in an increasingly bland regional market. But going forward, it won’t be sufficient to support the kind of office and lab development that we need.

As commercial buildings increase in height, upper floor tenants become more important to the bottom line than ground floor tenants. A key ingredient in attracting upper-floor tenants is ground-floor retail and service enterprises that interest and attract tenants’ employees. Smart developers sometime offer lower lease rates to get the right ground-floor mix.

Partners Healthcare’s 4,500 employees will quickly tire of paying the prices and consuming the fare offered by the chain restaurants slated for Assembly Row tenancy. Somerville offers plenty of entrepreneurs who are nimbler, more cost effective, and more responsive to customer preferences than are their chain competitors.

Integrate East Broadway

Similarly, Assembly Square stakeholders should view East Somerville’s main street as an important asset. Its diverse eating and drinking establishments and funky shops can offer welcome authenticity and reasonable prices to office employees out for lunch or on an after-hours exploration.

Prepare and link ‘Villens to Assembly Square jobs

So many people who grew up in Somerville can no longer afford to live here. The best affordable housing program is a job that can pay market-rate rents. Those industry clusters best suited for Assembly Square generate a wide range of jobs with advancement opportunities.

Many elements needed for an effective workforce development system that prepares and links ‘Villens to Somerville jobs already exist—the high school’s career and tech division, SCALE, Bunker Hill Community College, and private programs. The challenge is to integrate and focus them. The city took the first step last month, announcing that it will retain an agency to provide training and “promote opportunities for residents to have first access to local jobs.”

A funding source already exists. I seriously question the wisdom of a city that desperately needs commercial development imposing disincentives on commercial developers in the form of linkage fees. But if they exist, they should be dedicated to qualifying ‘Villens for the jobs that development will bring. There are better ways to finance affordable housing development.

Ensure fire protection

For fifteen years, developers, city officials, and the Mystic View Task Force have all held out a vision of an “urban village.” A village needs fire protection.

Assembly Square’s projected daytime population, along with the new T station, will generate hundreds of calls per year. Winter Hill, the closest station, is one the busiest engine companies in the city. It has a ladder and a rescue unit, but only one pumper. If the pumper is out on a call, the next closest station is Union Square. The circuitous route from Union to Assembly Squares will only become more challenging as traffic increases, particularly if Wynn builds a casino.

Defeat the Everett casino

A 400-foot-tall casino directly across the river from the Assembly Square Orange Line station, and the 22,000+ daily trips that it would generate are bad news. They would maim the Square’s development potential and reduce its property values. Stakeholders should do everything possible to oppose the casino’s development.