With around a week left for developers to express interest in developing a lot that’s cost Somerville around $35.3 million, members of the Somerville Redevelopment Authority were dismayed on Wednesday to find the property assessed by the city at $3.8 million.
The city seized the land at 90 Washington St. in 2019 for a new public safety building, paying $8.7 million for 4 acres, but in October 2024 was told by an appeals court that the owners of the former Cobble Hill Shopping Center land were owed $26.5 million more – or nearly $30 million more with interest.
One of the goals of a city plan for the site is to make the money back with a sale by mid- to late 2027 to a developer interested in delivering a mix of uses: commercial ones such as retail and restaurants; dense, transit-oriented housing affordable to a range of incomes; public green space; and places for community organizations. The site is close to the East Somerville MBTA green line station that opened in December 2022.
“Would we all agree that that’s probably a very low assessment given the judgment value and the hopeful compensation?” authority member Christine Stone said. “I’m just shocked at how low that number is.”
The former owners of the shopping center sued the redevelopment authority in 2019 to argue that they expected the land to be used for a 200,000-square-foot lab complex, making it worth far more than what the city paid during its eminent domain seizure. A judge agreed, despite there being no market for lab construction: By recent estimates, there’s between 14 million and 16 million square feet of lab space available in Greater Boston.
There was a suggestion among authority members that a different value had been set by the court case judgment and the development exploration, called a request for proposals. “We honestly don’t know what the market value is today. This RFP process essentially will allow us to determine that,” Stone said.
The request for proposals was released Jan. 16 and is open until April 10, when whatever bids come in will be assessed by a real estate consultant to make sure they meet the minimum requirements. The bids then go April 22 to a 90 Washington Street Civic Advisory Committee review process. That group will identify the top two bidders, which will go onto a City Council process in May and come back in July to the redevelopment authority – which has the right to reject all proposals. City councilor Ben Wheeler is an appointee to the SRA and advisory committee.
Proposed change in Union Square
The authority also returned Wednesday to the topic of a stalled development in Union Square, where The Hamilton Co. filed Feb. 10 for a zoning change on land within a 20-acre, $2 billion project controlled by master developer USQ. In an all but comatose commercial leasing market, Union 2 Associates, which is owned by Hamilton, wants to drop plans for the five-story office building that was agreed upon as part of the master plan and build up to six stories of housing instead.
Zoning changes are decided by the City Council with recommendations from its Land Use Committee and Planning Board – which plan a joint April 16 hearing on the proposal – but on Wednesday the idea was greeted with disfavor by USQ president Greg Karczewski and city staff, as represented by economic development planner Ben Demers.
“The zoning of each parcel within Union Square and in this area was the result of a very extensive community engagement process and a long neighborhood planning process to create the Union Square Neighborhood Plan, and then to upzone based on that plan. The city is still committed to honoring that process and to seeing commercial development on this parcel,” Demers said.
The original proposal came about through an interest in increasing Somerville’s commercial tax base. The height of the specific building on the “D6” parcel at Prospect Street and Somerville Avenue made sense because of its proximity to Union Square Plaza, where the zoning process wanted to see heights taper, Demers said.
Member Patrick McCormick recalled of the process around the D6 parcel that “there was a lot of resistance to heights. And in fact this [five-story proposal] was seen as higher than some would have liked.”
While Stone said she could understand why Hamilton wanted the zoning change at a time office space has become “a four-letter word,” not everyone seemed aboard: McCormick cued Karczewski up with a question about whether USQ could switch developers on the parcel to one who agreed to follow the original intention for offices.
Its agreement with the redevelopment authority, Karczewski said, “does include a process by which another development team could partner with us.”
About The Author
