The groundbreaking ceremony at the site of the new Partners Healthcare headquarters took place last week at Assembly Row.

By Douglas Yu

Assembly Row is already one of the biggest construction projects in the state. In addition, however, Assembly Row developer Federal Realty kicked off the construction of 750,000-sqaure-foot office headquarters for Partners Healthcare on Monday, Dec. 1.

Situated between the 73-acre proposed area of development, which includes Assembly Square Marketplace, a Home Depot, a large office building and other retail businesses, and the newly built MBTA station, the new 13-floor office building will bring more than 4,500 administrative, finance and IT employees to this area within two years time.

These employees are now spread out across 14 sites that partnered with Partners Healthcare around the Commonwealth.

“Now Somerville residents can take the advantage of Partners’ career and workforce development programs,” Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone said during the groundbreaking event. “Their programs focus on youth, community members and current employees.”

~Photos by Douglas Yu

Assembly Row is one of the Somerville’s transformative areas, and the new Partners office building is a milestone for Somerville as it validates a long-range planning approach to regional economic enhancement, Curtatone pointed out.

As early as this past summer, Assembly Row looked like an underdeveloped ares, spotted with isolated buildings such as public storage facilities and the Kmart Store. One could hardly find a place to enjoy a meal. After the first grand opening, this thriving area seems more like Black Friday every day, as more than 30 nationally branded outlet shops, bars and movie theatres have been added.

The fact that the new Partners office is to be completely union-built won a round of applause from Somerville residents at the groundbreaking event.

“Just half of the Assembly Square will create more than a net new 20,000 jobs for Somerville and Massachusetts,” the mayor said.

President and CEO of Partners Healthcare, Dr. Gary Gottlieb, said the new facility is transit accessible and that it will bring a lot of convenience for the future employees. “We are going to save $10 to $ 15 million a year and be able to turn dollars to delivering healthcare rather than supporting those resources and administrations over a period of time,” he said.

Don Briggs, an executive of Federal Realty Investment Trust told the Boston Globe that the company has explored buying additional property within the adjacent 73 acres, but so far they have not found a seller yet.

In addition to the 13-floor office building, Federal Realty is also going to build a parking garage that will be attached to it. The first floor of the building will be leased out for more stores and restaurants.

When asked how the massive development of Assembly Row affects the housing situation in the neighborhood, Curtatone acknowledged the fact that there are more and more people are willing to live in urban centers.

“SomerVision outlines the plan to build an additional 9,000 units of housing in the next 20 years,” Curtatone said of the demand for more housing in Somerville. “There is not enough, so we need to do more.”