Copper Mill Development | Elm Street and Grove Street | Davis Square

as02143 said:
This is development wagging the tail. Torono and Vanc can only build this high because affordability has been thrown out the window. They concentrate height near the heaviest polluting streets and near stations (which are almost always on heaviest polluting streets) without upzoning farther into the neighborhoods.

Allowing any small apartment building to be built in any residential district (2 or 3 floors of studios even) would do so much more for affordability than the linear Torono and Vanc land use plans.
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I agree both those cities need broader upzoning through all resi neighborhoods. It's a both and situation!
 
Saw this in Davis 🙄
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https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/10/metro/davis-square-tower/

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The developer says that he’s taken it to heart that people don’t want it to look like the seaport. Pretty laughable. His rendering is about as Seaport as you can get.

Agreed with one of the comments in article: “Just once I want a developer to not build out all the way to the sidewalk on the ground level. Create covered outdoor/public space, like a colonnade. Give people shade in the summer and protection from the rain throughout the year. This is really the only ingredient you need for creating successful public space.”

Covered outdoor space on the ground level is something e.g. that would have added a lot to the Union Sq tower and lab buildings. Imagine the Burren 2.0 that had covered sidewalk space for bands to play under!

Honestly from a public space point of view I don’t even care what gets built above or how high, it’s what happens at sidewalk and what amenities you give people for free there that makes a space public.
 
Dr. Rosen Rosen said:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/10/metro/davis-square-tower/

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The developer says that he’s taken it to heart that people don’t want it to look like the seaport. Pretty laughable. His rendering is about as Seaport as you can get.

Agreed with one of the comments in article: “Just once I want a developer to not build out all the way to the sidewalk on the ground level. Create covered outdoor/public space, like a colonnade. Give people shade in the summer and protection from the rain throughout the year. This is really the only ingredient you need for creating successful public space.”

Covered outdoor space on the ground level is something e.g. that would have added a lot to the Union Sq tower and lab buildings. Imagine the Burren 2.0 that had covered sidewalk space for bands to play under!

Honestly from a public space point of view I don’t even care what gets built above or how high, it’s what happens at sidewalk and what amenities you give people for free there that makes a space public.
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Well, the developer also said at the meeting he agreed it looked too much like Seaport or Kendall, whatever that means. There are a lot of good looking buildings in Seaport and Kendall, and many of the ones that look bad are because the proportions are squat and fat due to height restrictions!

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What a terrible experience for the CBT design team. To go to a community process with something your client approved of, only to have them bash it in front of everybody. This will gain Flynn some points with the community in the near term as he comes off as "this project is terrible", but in the end he still wants to build something much larger than those same people think is appropriate. The end result is likely similar, except some neighbors might have felt 'heard' for a couple weeks only to be let down later. I do think the design iterations will result in something likely a bit better/different architecturally.
 
sm89 said:
What a terrible experience for the CBT design team. To go to a community process with something your client approved of, only to have them bash it in front of everybody. This will gain Flynn some points with the community in the near term as he comes off as "this project is terrible", but in the end he still wants to build something much larger than those same people think is appropriate. The end result is likely similar, except some neighbors might have felt 'heard' for a couple weeks only to be let down later. I do think the design iterations will result in something likely a bit better/different architecturally.
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Doesn't feel like CBT and Developer are on same page at all. Im sure CBT has its A and B teams but this was like a C-team effort.

Im a fan of this project but a glass podium is a terrible fit for the area. There's plenty of good examples of podiums in Boston but CBT chose to ignore all of them.
 
There's also potentially a strategy at play of:
  1. Initially propose something you know is shit
  2. Agree with the community that it is shit and throw it under the bus
  3. Redesign it to what you actually wanted all along
  4. Community likes your redesign and agrees to it, making you seem like a good developer
If you know that whatever you propose is gonna get push back, better to have the push back go against something truly bad in the first place.

Similar to: if you want a 5-story building and propose a 5-story building you'll be pushed to "compromise" on 4. But if you want 5 and propose 7 you can "compromise" on 5.
 
JumboBuc said:
There's also potentially a strategy at play of:
  1. Initially propose something you know is shit
  2. Agree with the community that it is shit and throw it under the bus
  3. Redesign it to what you actually wanted all along
  4. Community likes your redesign and agrees to it, making you seem like a good developer
If you know that whatever you propose is gonna get push back, better to have the push back go against something truly bad in the first place.

Similar to: if you want a 5-story building and propose a 5-story building you'll be pushed to "compromise" on 4. But if you want 5 and propose 7 you can "compromise" on 5.
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Bingo. This seems like it. The developer probably wants a 10 story and knew the populace would have a fit over THAT in Davis. This has "opening gambit" written all over it. The only misstep is that he went way overboard and didn't even make it look somewhat serious. It's like handing in homework done with crayon.
 
JumboBuc said:
if you want a 5-story building and propose a 5-story building you'll be pushed to "compromise" on 4. But if you want 5 and propose 7 you can "compromise" on 5.
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Mhm the stupid game you have to play here.
 
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Dr. Rosen Rosen said:
Create covered outdoor/public space, like a colonnade. Give people shade in the summer and protection from the rain throughout the year.
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The colonnade or arcade concept works best when it is employed by all of the buildings along a block, so that the street wall is consistent. Most buildings like this in Boston have the covered walkway offset from the sidewalk, which is to say not as part of the existing pedestrian flow. The result is that nobody actually uses the shelter.
 
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I'm confused by the use of the word "pause" here. Copper Mill told the general public a month ago that they would have updated designs in a month to present. Here we are, and here they are presenting updated designs tonight... what exactly is paused?

Also...
The DSNC has not taken a position on the project as of Tuesday. As a next step, the DSNC will form a Community Benefits Committee, which will hold a public meeting for community input before beginning to negotiate a Community Benefits Agreement with Copper Mill. The agreement, like one executed for Somernova last summer, will set various rules governing the development’s engagement with the community.
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We are incapable of building anything anymore without pointing to a committee to make a decision, but that committee has to go and form another committee.
 
Part of the confusion is the multiple separate processes.

1) 40B application (what the CD article is referring to) got kicked back this week saying they need to revise based on community feedback
2) Somerville has technically not reviewed the project yet, but is deferring to the DSNC for whether they will support it. However they will have their shot at reviewing the development eventually.
3) the DSNC itself is having a board election *today* lol which will determine who is in charge. That is who the developer has been meeting with along with hosting a couple public meetings

So basically it is a lot of hiding the football
 
Longfellow said:
3) the DSNC itself is having a board election *today* lol which will determine who is in charge. That is who the developer has been meeting with along with hosting a couple public meetings
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I hate the proliferation of non-elected boards, even our elected boards, as Plato says tend toward oligarchy. This is "boys club" "democracy" being remade into "upper-middle class interest" "democracy".
 
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Another aspect is that this neigbhorhood council is not actually recognized by the city but will be soon after these elections. Somerville city law provides for official recognition of these councils and, if they are recognized, requires developers to negotiate directly with them.
 
I like how they barely compromised on height across all alternatives. I was expecting it to come back significantly shorter, maybe 12-18 stories (or worse!) instead of 24-26.
 
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