So Watertown is planning this:
First Details of Redevelopment of Watertown Square Parking Lots Revealed, Including Garage & Residential Project
Monday night, the public got the first glimpse of a possible future for the parking lot behind CVS, the Armenian Museum of America and other businesses in Watertown Square, and it may include a multi-story garage built by the City and a residential building constructed by a private developer...www.watertownmanews.com
Tomorrow is an Open House meeting.
I guess I have to reveal something. For those who remember me from years ago, like that meetup a long time back, I used to work in tech, and that’s probably still the background most of you associate me with [edit: or perhaps more recent is when I mention in some posts in trying the join the MBTA back when they were in massive crisis and seem like they can use anybody - I failed to be hired for any position]. That’s no longer my life. I’m now involved in various businesses ...including the laundromat specifically mentioned in this article.
This space generally leans urbanist / pro-housing / pro-development, and I think most of you have a general sense of where I usually land. But it’s a lot harder to talk in the abstract when you’re on the receiving end of a plan that may seriously damage or wipe out your business depending on how it’s actually carried out.
And honestly, part of the weirdness here is that this is not even some clean urbanist vision. A parking garage is still a parking garage, even if it is part of a broader redevelopment plan. So I’m not just struggling with development in general. I’m struggling with the idea of being asked to take a serious financial hit for a plan that is itself a compromise.
So I’m genuinely asking: how should people think about this? I want more housing. I’m not against change. But if the real relocation details only get worked out after approval, then I can’t just take vague promises on faith. I can’t support a plan, even in principle, if it may well leave me financially wrecked.
I may end up, on this issue, in uneasy alignment with the usual local anti-development types, which is not a sentence I expected to write. But here we are.
Thank you for that close-in perspective.
I hear you and empathize. My question from 10,000 million miles away, is what kind of remediation Watertown/developers give you?? Would they help with a temporary location and then have your laundromat on ground floor of a multi-story residential tower with many more possible clients??? Before that is known, it's hard to quantify the net effect to your business. I wiould definitely side with you that it should be Watertown/developers next move to at least be upfront with you as to the effects.