I live in Gilman Square and can attest that the active members of the neighborhood see the station as a catalyst for the area's identity. A very brief history:
- Somerville's first ever neighborhood plan, as a part of their Somerville by Design process,
was done for Gilman Square. The reason being that, circa 2013, the area was seen as a clean slate with no strong neighborhood identity or advocacy. (Compare that to Union, Davis or even Ball). The city saw it as the easiest way to experiment with the neighborhood planning process and then take lessons learned to the other neighborhoods. You can see all those plans at somervillbydesign.com.
- After that neighborhood plan was done (with the a random and rotating assortment of community members at numerous charrettes), I and other neighbors created a new Gilman Square Neighborhood Association to redress the lack of consistent and unified community feedback that went into creating that plan.
- A separate though kissing cousin neighborhood association exists for Winter Hill--
as does a separate planning document.
- Now, granted, associations and plans don't make a neighborhood. But politically active community members and city officials recognize the neighborhoods as distinct though with a bleeding edge. The heart of of Winter Hill is the vacant Star Market lot on Broadway. The heart of Gilman Square is the vacant Homans building lot on Medford St a quarter mile to the south.
The expectation is that the station and subsequent development will do on a more modest scale to Gilman what it did to Assembly: If you build it, they will brand.
