Green Line turnabout could be a win for Somerville
Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership Illustration
Most people in Somerville look forward to raising a glass of champagne to the Green Line extension. But as of June, the state Executive Office of Transportation was poised to drop some bitter into the sweet: Planning to put a big, honking MBTA maintenance facility in southeast Somerville.
The city’s mayor, aldermen, business groups, and transit advocates protested. Loudly. Where the state saw a garage, they envisioned a gleaming office park. They were in a stare-down.
The state blinked first. On Oct. 15, the EOT filed a draft environmental impact report that offered not one but two alternatives to the original plan, potentially freeing the 160-acre Brickbottom/Inner Belt to become another Kendall Square.
City officials were quietly negotiating behind the scenes all along, said Michael Lambert, Somerville director of transportation and infrastructure.
Bounded by McGrath Highway, Route 93, Washington Street, and train tracks, the area - one hesitates to call it a “neighborhood” - houses small factories and truck lots. A fenced-off train track slices it in half.
The state’s preferred site, Yard 8, sits in the middle of the land. The alternatives, called Mirror H and Option L, push the depot to the edge. The city hired consultants to show that Mirror H would be cheaper. (The clearest diagrams come from the Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership, which has been front and center on the issue.)
One of mayor Joe Curtatone’s successes has been simply making people realize that this part of town exists. “It’s a fantastic spot but it’s really been invisible,” said urban planner and Somerville resident Anne Tate.
In order to really see the area you have to check Google satellite maps or get on the roof of the Brickbottom live/work arts complex. From there, it’s easy to find Yard 8: It’s the only open green lawn.
And it’s smack-dab next to Brickbottom - pretty much the only residential building in the area. Green signs festoon its hallways; the residents have been constant and vocal in their opposition to Yard 8, though excited about the area’s coming Green Line stop.
It is, however, not just a NIMBY issue, said 20-plus-year resident Debra Olin. “It’s a huge amount of land that won’t be available … Somerville needs revenue.”
Tate agreed: “Somerville is a huge drain on state funding” because it has few businesses but lots of houses, which cost more in services than owners pay in taxes. Which is why the city’s eyeing Brickbottom/Inner Belt for more intensive and profitable commercial uses, like biotech. A 2006 design competition envisioned new streets, green roofs, an eco-friendly vehicle R&D center.
Everyone acknowledged that such redevelopment would take time and cost a bundle. However, objects in Mirror H are slightly closer than they appear.
It took only three years to turn Brickbottom from an A&P distribution center to artist lofts, Olin said. The owner of Yard 8 has filled his existing building with tenants, Lambert said, and is eager to build a new structure on the would-be rail yard. It could be in preconstruction within a year.
City planners are drumming their fingers awaiting the go-ahead for an economic opportunity study, which has already been paid for by federal community development block grant stimulus funds. In fact, once the Green Line stop arrives and road access issues are solved, Lambert thought interest from developers would “take care of itself.” (Though possibly not from the New England Revolution, which considered the area for a stadium. The details never got far, and Lambert said the mayor hasn’t spoken to the Revs in a good year.)
Putting the MBTA maintenance facility on Yard 8 would be “unquestionably devastating,” Tate said. It would be simpler and quicker for EOT, though, and the agency’s crunched for time.
Despite the state budget crunch and transportation snafus, the state is legally bound to extend the Green Line to Tufts by 2014, and by jingo they’re going to do it, said EOT spokesman Colin Durrant.
Still, “there’s obviously a lot of community concern,” Durrant said, so the state wanted to “give every alternative the right review.”
Lambert was optimistic the city’s preference would succeed on its own merits. Tate said, “It seems patently obvious that it would be better for the state for this land to be developable.”
There are dissenting voices to the 2006 competition’s characterization of the existing businesses as “obsolete.” Toni Smith co-owns the Independent Fabrication bike factory, a stone’s throw from the future Green Line station. She thought it was important to keep manufacturing active, saying, “If you don’t leave room for people to building things, what do you have?”
Whichever way, the public now gets to weigh in. EOT is accepting comments through Dec. 9, and there’s a public hearing Nov. 18 at Somerville High School. Excitement - and worry - will likely run high.
Contact Danielle at somervillescene@gmail.com.
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