The developer proposing a tower with hundreds of apartments in Somerville’s Davis Square plans a meeting in March with updates and answers on the project, and is using one of its vacant retail properties on Elm Street for an office where it will meet the public.

After a series of public meetings in 2024, developer Copper Mill went largely silent for a year – then filed for site approval Dec. 22 under state Chapter 40B rules for projects that include significant amounts of affordable homes. That triggered a public comment period that would have expired Feb. 6, but was paused by the MassHousing agency to get its own questions answered. 

The application was for a 26-story, 502-unit apartment building at Elm and Grove streets; construction would close businesses from Dragon Pizza to The Burren, which has a deal with Copper Mill to return with a long-term lease. The deal was reported first by WBUR. 

Copper Mill has also said it’s open to alternative designs – shorter but wider – and including a parking garage with up to 100 spaces if there is public support for it. 

While 40B is a state process, “we want there to be very direct, candid, frequent, transparent, ongoing engagement among Copper Mill, the DSNC and the city of Somerville in the coming months, hopefully to work toward a project that can align the interests of all stakeholders,” Copper Mill chief executive Andrew Flynn told a Monday meeting of the Davis Square Neighborhood Council. The group has been meeting for around two years and is still moving toward formal city recognition that allows it to negotiate directly with Copper Mill for a community benefits package.

The developer wants a “friendly 40B” process that the city won’t fight, and “that gives us negotiating power,” mayor Jake Wilson said in a Jan. 6 post on Instagram. “No commitments or decisions have been made.”

Apologies and answers

Copper Mill will host a meeting at the square’s Crystal Ballroom on March 10 and tackle some bigger community questions there, Flynn said Monday. He promised some answers to the council before the end of the week.

The questions – many solicited at a meeting Jan. 26 – included whether city staff or elected officials advised the developer to stop engaging with the DSNC. When the council board and Copper Mill talked last month, “the conversation was mostly ‘Where have you been,’” president Elaine Almquist said. “We feel a trust has been broken because they have not been in conversation with us.”

Flynn apologized, Almquist said.

Now the meeting will revive community talks – and Elm Street, where some Copper Mill-owned storefronts have sat empty awaiting long-delayed development and in need of improvements to bring them up to code.

Within the next two weeks, Copper Mill will open a project office in the former Caramel patisserie at 235 Elm St., according to Flynn and council notes from Feb. 11. “We will work closely with the council to coordinate a series of rolling office hours” in the space, Flynn said. “Some might be focused on design, some might be focused on engineering. We really want it to be an interactive and fruitful opportunity for more engagement.”

Pop-ups and approvals

Copper Mill has been cleaning Elm Street storefronts in the past weeks and plans to put art in windows and offer pop-up nonprofit or business space in the former Family Dollar at 245 Elm St., according to council notes. There may be additional pop-up space on the second floor above The Burren.

The pop-ups can expect to have the space until at least Nov. 15, according to council notes.

Copper Mill said it needs major approvals on the tower project by the end of the year, but city and state approvals and “organic conversation” with the community will drive the timeline, according to council notes.

“We’ve been talking about this project for seven years now, and in its most recent incarnation about two and a half years,” Flynn said Monday. “We still have a ways to go.”