Hotel plan meets heavy local traffic

A former gas station on Beacon Street could be the site of a 35-room boutique hotel and 60-seat restaurant. (Khalsa Design Inc.)

In Somerville, you can't dig up an unused lot without unearthing controversy. This time, it's along Beacon Street near Porter Square. Residents are concerned that a proposed new boutique hotel would make existing traffic snarls even worse.

On Jan. 22, owner George Makrigiannis went before the city's Design Review Board with plans to build a 35-room hotel and 60-seat restaurant on the site of a closed gas station. He needs to get a special permit to change the plot's use.

Word of the project got around. Ward alderman Maryann Heuston convened a community meeting on Feb. 24. The key issues, she said: the impact on traffic and parking - which in Somerville go together like picnics and ants.

Already, Heuston said, "Traffic patterns are pretty bad."

The site sits at the Porter Square end of Beacon Street adjacent to a bridge that leads to Somerville Avenue and opposite a sharply angled intersection with Oxford Street. Also stemming off the complicated crossroads is Roseland Street, which is often used as a cut-through to the Mass. Ave. commuter rail tracks that run under the adjacent bridge and behind the plot.

Long lights and confusion over who goes where cause frequent backups at the site, said Seth Goodman of Somerville, 47, a member of the Porter Square Neighborhood Association. He noted that Beacon Street is also popular with cyclists.

To top it all off, the pavement is in rough shape. "It's like driving on a dirt road in Afghanistan," Goodman said.

Goodman said he feared that adding a hotel would "make a real bad mess of things."

"You look at it," he said about the hotel plan. "Anybody can tell there's going to be some problems."

Makrigiannis hired a traffic consultant who found that the hotel wouldn't make much of an impact, said his lawyer, Rich DiGirolamo. "The vehicle trips that are generated by a hotel are only slightly higher than they would be for a gasoline station."

Goodman was skeptical, especially since the report based some of its findings on the experience of a boutique hotel in nonresidential Kendall Square.

Parking near the proposed hotel site already gets tight as well, Heuston said. Since Beacon Street doesn't require resident permits, it draws some cars from nearby permit-only Cambridge.

With the street so temptingly close to the city line, Goodman questioned whether the hotel's planned 28 underground parking spaces would suffice - especially with a restaurant in the building. The city line crosses Oxford Street less than half a block from the hotel intersection. DiGirolamo said the proximity to the Porter Square T stop would reduce car trips.

It's not the first time Cambridge cars have crossed to the Somerville side.

In particular, Heuston said Cambridge's one-way streets and the timing of the traffic lights at Inman Square put extra cars onto Beacon Street.

"Things that happen in Cambridge have a vast impact on my ward," Heuston said, noting that residents from both cities attended the meeting.

Given the proposed hotel's location, "it's very important that whatever Somerville does, they do it with some kind of coordination with Cambridge," Goodman said.

Susan Clippinger, Cambridge director of traffic, parking and transportation, said she was keeping an eye on the project and generally had a collaborative relationship with neighboring towns, according to city spokeswoman Ini Tomeu.

The biggest gripe may soon be solved. The original plan put the drop-off spot for cabs right on Beacon Street. "We're in the process of trying to rectify" that, DiGirolamo said.

City officials "are working with the applicant to come up with a traffic plan that works for everyone.

Ensuring safe pedestrian and bicycle access on all of our streets is a high priority for the mayor," wrote city planning/community development chief Monica Lamboy in an e-mail.

As for the underlying problems, Heuston hoped a Mass. Highway redesign of Beacon Street slated for 2011 would save the day. She has already been looking at interim improvements.

Makrigiannis has delayed his next steps with the city to allow more time for community talks, DiGirolamo said. Heuston has tentatively scheduled the next informal meeting for 7 p.m. tomorrow at 141 Oxford St., Cambridge.