The City of Somerville is developing a campus plan for Central Hill, home to City Hall, Somerville High School, the Central Library, and Central Playground. Please join us on Tuesday, September 25, at 6 p.m. for a meeting in the High School cafeteria to help shape the plan. Our project consultants, SMMA, will present three ideas for the design of Central Hill for public input. These designs are based on community input from the first meeting held on May 31 and from the Veterans’ Commission on Monuments, Memorials, and Dedications, which has authority over the location of the City’s war memorials. Based on the input from the Sept. 25 meeting, SMMA will move forward to refine one concept that will be presented to the community in October.

Central Hill has a rich history: it was Somerville’s first civic space and park and it also played a significant role in the Revolutionary War. The goal of the campus plan is to make Central Hill an accessible, sustainable, welcoming, and user-friendly place that is a benefit to all in Somerville.

Some elements incorporated in all preliminary designs include:

• Improvements to multi-modal transportation around the campus,
• Better organization of the war memorials and interpretive information to help visitors understand the conflicts they represent,
• A new and improved playground at a new location on the campus, replacing the current Central Playground, and
• Strategies to make the Central Hill Campus carbon net-zero.