Public Safety Building/Cobble Hill Redevelopment | 90 Washington Street | Somerville

[Equilibria]

Breaking this out from the Union Square Infill thread, partly because there are actually three development parcels here.

To the points on the previous thread - I'm not sure it would have been possible to site the community room on the first floor - the only spaces on the first floor at present are the fire truck garage, the front desk, and the booking/detention area. The community room is the first thing you hit in the office spaces.

Public Safety building...design malpractice, more incoherent than not.

Project website (with public comment): https://voice.somervillema.gov/public-safety-building#folder-29823-8362
November meeting presentation (with floor plans): https://voice.somervillema.gov/9625/widgets/29823/documents/25343
August meeting presentation (with renderings and facade treatments): https://voice.somervillema.gov/9625/widgets/29823/documents/23136

Site plan (note that this is on the back of the site - realigning New Washington Street creates two new development parcels fronting Washington Street).

 

[Equilibria]

Summary presentation from Somervision on the Brickbottom neighborhood, which this is sort of in:

https://www.somervillebydesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Brickbottom-Workshop-2-20211020.pdf

 

[kingofsheeba]

Ambitious…but not too shabby. Of course, this project probably spells the end for those adjacent Cobble Hill Apartments.

 

[Plen-T-Pak]

Those concept sketches are encouraging. I'd like to see more emphasis on the Washington St corner since that's a key piece in bringing that commercial corridor across McGrath. I'd love for Washington to become more like Cambridge St or Mass Ave, providing solid connections between squares, in this case Union and Sullivan.

 

[Equilibria]

10/6/2022 Community Presentation: https://voice.somervillema.gov/13595/widgets/41480/documents/36037

 

[Dr. Rosen Rosen]

Something happening here?

 

[Equilibria]

Apparently, snow storage and equipment staging...

 

[shmessy]

Something happening here?

View attachment 35652

What it is ain't exactly clear.........

 

[Banker & Tradesman]

Last night, the city announced its abandoning plans for this public safety complex after losing an eminent domain case over the property.

Facing $39M Bill, Somerville to Sell Public Safety Site for Housing

Somerville Mayor Katjana Ballantyne abandoned a plan to develop a new public safety complex outside Union Square after the city lost a legal battle over an eminent domain taking of the 90 Washington St. property.

bankerandtradesman.com

In October, the state Appeals Court upheld a Middlesex County jury award of $30 million to developer Corcoran Mullins Jennison, the owner of a former shopping center on the 4-acre property.

The Somerville Redevelopment Authority took the property by eminent domain under former mayor Joe Curtatone in 2019 and gave the property owners under $9 million. The city later tore down the shopping center’s buildings, leaving a triangle of asphalt and concrete.

In an announcement Wednesday evening, [Mayor Katjana] Ballantyne said the city will seek to offset the cost by selling the property to a housing developer for a project that will include affordable and market-rate units, ground-floor retail space and a potential new location for the fire department’s Engine 3.

(Edit: the big delta in what the SRA offered and what the jury said it was worth was caused by different estimates of "highest and best use": labs, or not?)

The city's announcement included this photo of the land in its current state: