Are blue collar jobs pass? in the new Somerville?
by Frank Lee Bacon, March 2008 "Bridge"
Politicians are always sounding off about the decline of blue-collar jobs in the city. But given a choice they will favor luxury condos and research labs over factories and warehouses.
A case in point is the the 125-acre ?Inner Belt? area of Somerville, off Washington Street behind the Holiday Inn and Cobble Hill Apartments. This is the larger of Somerville?s two ?industrial revitalization? areas. The smaller one is Boynton Yards, on the south edge of Union Square.
Inner Belt Industrial Park was developed around fifty years ago, on top of an older industrial land fill. It has been occupied mainly by factories, warehouses, and facilities like Verizon, UPS, and Mass General?s transport unit.
The main drag is Cobble Hill Road. It is also called Inner Belt Road. The original Inner Belt was a 1950s highway plan that was backed by Somerville's mayors, but scrapped by popular demand in the 1960s.
In the 1990s the park?s landlord-operators tried to jump on the Dot-Com bandwagon. They renamed their property InnerTech Park. Millions of dollars were spent laying down fiber-optic cable and the former Filene?s warehouse was converted into a ?server hotel.?
But the internet business never came. Vacancies rose after the Dot-Com bubble burst. A big new building on the west side of the park went unleased.
After awhile, new users moved in. A laundry plant replaced the former Sweetheart Cup factory. Brazilian Pentecostalists converted a former warehouse into a church.
Today it seems as though every state in the union is trying to become the future center of a burgeoning biotech industry. Governor Deval Patrick has a $1 billion initiative meant to lure biotech investors by offering free infrastructure upgrades as well as 25-million-dollar dollops of tax credit.
In the February 18 Banker & Tradesman, Thomas Grillo reported that Patrick?s development and permitting chief, Gregory Bialecki, has been meeting with Mayor Curtatone about getting some of that loot for an Inner Belt ?vision? of ?housing, small retail and seven million square feet of office and research and development space linked to Harvard University, MIT and Tufts University.?
Before joining the Patrick administration, Bialecki was the lead attorney for the developers of the massive NorthPoint project, which is centered in Cambridge but includes a small part of Somerville that happens to abut on the Inner Belt Revitalization Area.
Extending the Inner Belt/Cobble Hill Road another few hundred feet would bring it into the Cambridge part of NorthPoint. Permission to pass over or under the railyard is no obstacle: B&M Railroad is part owner of NorthPoint.
The MBTA Green Line extension is already projected to pass through on its way to Union Square and beyond. In November, the Governor filed a transportation bond bill that includes funding for the Green Line project. He also signed a bill to ?streamline? development by scuttling environmental oversight in tidelands zones?including both NorthPoint and InnerBelt.
Recently the City of Somerville rezoned Union Square, so far with few concrete results. Soon the Inner Belt area will go through a similar rezoning process. Perhaps the financial and business climate will spare the existing jobs and businesses. City Hall probably hopes not.
http://bridgenews.org/bridge_news/032008/are-blue-collar-jobs-passe-in-the-new-somerville
by Frank Lee Bacon, March 2008 "Bridge"
Politicians are always sounding off about the decline of blue-collar jobs in the city. But given a choice they will favor luxury condos and research labs over factories and warehouses.
A case in point is the the 125-acre ?Inner Belt? area of Somerville, off Washington Street behind the Holiday Inn and Cobble Hill Apartments. This is the larger of Somerville?s two ?industrial revitalization? areas. The smaller one is Boynton Yards, on the south edge of Union Square.
Inner Belt Industrial Park was developed around fifty years ago, on top of an older industrial land fill. It has been occupied mainly by factories, warehouses, and facilities like Verizon, UPS, and Mass General?s transport unit.
The main drag is Cobble Hill Road. It is also called Inner Belt Road. The original Inner Belt was a 1950s highway plan that was backed by Somerville's mayors, but scrapped by popular demand in the 1960s.
In the 1990s the park?s landlord-operators tried to jump on the Dot-Com bandwagon. They renamed their property InnerTech Park. Millions of dollars were spent laying down fiber-optic cable and the former Filene?s warehouse was converted into a ?server hotel.?
But the internet business never came. Vacancies rose after the Dot-Com bubble burst. A big new building on the west side of the park went unleased.
After awhile, new users moved in. A laundry plant replaced the former Sweetheart Cup factory. Brazilian Pentecostalists converted a former warehouse into a church.
Today it seems as though every state in the union is trying to become the future center of a burgeoning biotech industry. Governor Deval Patrick has a $1 billion initiative meant to lure biotech investors by offering free infrastructure upgrades as well as 25-million-dollar dollops of tax credit.
In the February 18 Banker & Tradesman, Thomas Grillo reported that Patrick?s development and permitting chief, Gregory Bialecki, has been meeting with Mayor Curtatone about getting some of that loot for an Inner Belt ?vision? of ?housing, small retail and seven million square feet of office and research and development space linked to Harvard University, MIT and Tufts University.?
Before joining the Patrick administration, Bialecki was the lead attorney for the developers of the massive NorthPoint project, which is centered in Cambridge but includes a small part of Somerville that happens to abut on the Inner Belt Revitalization Area.
Extending the Inner Belt/Cobble Hill Road another few hundred feet would bring it into the Cambridge part of NorthPoint. Permission to pass over or under the railyard is no obstacle: B&M Railroad is part owner of NorthPoint.
The MBTA Green Line extension is already projected to pass through on its way to Union Square and beyond. In November, the Governor filed a transportation bond bill that includes funding for the Green Line project. He also signed a bill to ?streamline? development by scuttling environmental oversight in tidelands zones?including both NorthPoint and InnerBelt.
Recently the City of Somerville rezoned Union Square, so far with few concrete results. Soon the Inner Belt area will go through a similar rezoning process. Perhaps the financial and business climate will spare the existing jobs and businesses. City Hall probably hopes not.
http://bridgenews.org/bridge_news/032008/are-blue-collar-jobs-passe-in-the-new-somerville
