Bargain store looks to rent vacant Winter Hill Star Market

By Danielle Dreilinger, Globe Correspondent

A big plot along Broadway in Somerville could be tied up for years to come. Ocean State Job Lot is looking to rent the empty Star Market space on Winter Hill in Somerville. Landlord representative Robert Allen held a community meeting June 30 to introduce the company to the neighborhood.

Job Lot, a big-box bargain store, doesn't exactly fit the city's vision of dense mixed-use properties along the thoroughfare. In the nearly three years since Star moved out, neighbors have agitated for a new supermarket, preferably a Trader Joe's.

Allen told the room the building is simply too small for a modern-day supermarket, according to Alderman at large Bill White, but too big for a small store. White questioned why the owner didn't divide the building and find two smaller, compatible tenants that would serve the neighborhood.

With a Green Line stop planned for about a 10-minute walk down the hill, the city has envisioned this site as a magnet to draw people to Broadway, White said. That said, with the neighborhood's anchor site vacant for so long - and attracting people to drink on the premises late at night - "There are people who would welcome anything physical in there," White said. He and Ward 4 Alderman Walter Pero will be directing a police patrol there overnight for the summer.

But it's not just Job Lot - the owners dashed some residents' hopes that they might just tear down the Star and adjacent Rite Aid and build something nicer. At the meeting, "the owner disclosed that he had renewed the Rite Aid lease to 2025," White said. He hadn't seen the lease, but said typically they include provisions not to eliminate parking or change the use of the rest of the lot. So the site's "tied up now for another 15 years," White said.

Allen could not be reached for comment by press time.

Under new zoning rules, there has to be a public hearing before the Planning Board in order to change the use of the building from a food market. That could happen as soon as July 15.

One wonders whether the Job Lot reps will fix their Powerpoint before then. According to White, they misspelled the word "Somerville."