Andrew Howard of Better Block presented development ideas at the meeting attended by interested Winter Hill residents. — Photo by Josie Grove

By Josie Grove

Ten years ago, the narrow one-story building at 328 Broadway Ave. housed a local realty firm. Once that business closed, the building was home to a retailer of prepaid cell phones. Within a year, it will be transformed into Winter Hill Brewing, a coffee shop/brewpub that will serve experimental beers, small plates, and high-quality coffee. Patrons will look across the street to a new five-story residential building.

In many ways, the building at the busy intersection of Broadway and Temple is the vanguard of a changing Winter Hill. Last Monday, the space hosted the first meeting between the City of Somerville, and the Dallas-based consultants Better Block Project, and Winter Hill residents to plan a pop-up event space.

The city’s planning department is in the process of writing a neighborhood plan for Winter Hill. The plan will guide the city’s investment and private development of the area, and has been the subject of several community meetings. With the Green Line extension scheduled to serve the area by train by 2020, change is quickly coming to the neighborhood.

On Monday night, Melissa Woods, Senior Planner with the city said, “We want to contribute to the momentum by bringing Team Better Block to Winter Hill.”

With a strong emphasis on the project’s roots in an overlooked Dallas side street, Andrew Howard of Better Block explained the concept of a Better Block to the dozens of people packed into the unfinished building.

Howard thinks city development can be too slow, and said that a Better Block project was a way to circumvent the process of proposals, meetings, and designs that characterize city planning. Instead, says Howard, Better Block allows for iteration, experiments, and low-stakes trial runs. The company’s website describes the events as “living charettes,” ways to test design or business ideas off the page.

Union Square experimented with a Better Block in 2014 to test bike lanes, crosswalks, and other changes to the streetscape, said Howard. The Better Block in Winter Hill will be different, with a stronger emphasis on programming.

“Great places are programmed,” said Howard. He envisions a winter market on the Broadway Street parking lot. The idea comes from Europe. Many European cities host outdoor markets all winter, setting up ice skating rinks, and providing space to vendors selling food, drinks, and gifts. “You feel warm and cozy,” said Howard of his experiences in European winter markets. “Maybe it’s going to change some social norms on winter.”

Better Block will be planning the event for the next three or four months. There will be several more meetings in Winter Hill to get input from residents, and to recruit neighbors to bring the vision to life. Howard challenges residents to think about what the neighborhood is missing, and hopes the Better Block will provide an opportunity to give entrepreneurs a test-run at a business in Winter Hill. Better Block does not collect data on how many Better Block test businesses become permanent fixtures, but Howard is confident that the projects were catalysts for neighborhood development.

Andre Green hung back as the group walked through the Winter Hill Brewing parking lot last Monday. As Howard described the winter market, Green was skeptical. “We all want a nicer area, but I’m always concerned about these types of things,” he said. “I want a nicer Winter Hill for the people who actually live here.” He worries that the city and Better Block are not doing enough to reach residents who are not able to attend planning meetings, such as second shift workers. “It’s not a very diverse group here,” said Green of the predominantly white group gathered at Winter Hill Brewing.

Alderman Tony LaFuente echoed some of Green’s concerns. “We have a very good planning department. But whatever we do here, it has to come from folks that live here, not just planners.”

The alderman was more optimistic about Better Block’s potential to help long-neglected Winter Hill. “If it helps in a process of determining what happens here long-term, and it’s been decades since anything has happened here and it’ll be decades before anything happens here again, we want to get it right,” said LaFuente.