Tough decisions will have to be made this year by Somerville Community Preservation Committee members, who heard Wednesday from the first of nine projects looking for funding.
The nine projects are asking $7.7 million, when there’s only $3.5 million available including a reserve for the committee’s open space and preservation buckets. Another $3.6 million is going toward the third aspect of Community Preservation Act funding: affordable housing.
Among the city projects being pitched were two that have been long awaited: Kennedy schoolyard renovations, which need another $1 million; and the ArtFarm park that’s been proposed for the Brickbottom neighborhood since before 2013 – when it was called Brickbottom Commons – which needs $5 million.
More projects will be heard next month for deliberations to begin in September on how to allocate too little money for everything from collections preservation at the Somerville Museum to a needs assessment at the city-owned Armory arts building, staff said.
“These are kind of our last biggies for a little bit. The Kennedy is the last schoolyard,” said Luisa Oliveira, director of Public Space & Urban Forestry, reminding the committee’s nine members of the $5 million shortfall announced at the start of Somerville’s recent budget season.
Especially with construction of a school coming to Winter Hill, “we don’t have the kind of money to dedicate to all of these projects,” Oliveira said.
Kennedy schoolyard
The tight budgets contributed to unhappiness that $1 million was being asked atop the previously granted $3 million for the John F. Kennedy School at 5 Cherry St. in Spring Hill near Porter Square. The first design grant for improvements was awarded in 2019 after years of parent complaints that a play area for grades 3-8 felt like a prison yard. “The current site is very hot. It’s just asphalt, and the kids kind of bake in the sun all day,” said Jon Bronenkant, senior public space planner for the city.
The changes, which include the city’s first playground that can be used by kids of all abilities, including those with disabilities, are in a first phase that will be done by the time school opens. Then comes winter bidding for a phase two taking place in the summer of 2027. The remaining $1.3 million feels “a little bit tight to finish” phase two, Bronenkant said. “There are a lot of expenses that are still unknown.”
Bids came in higher than expected but not unreasonably so, and there were cost overruns on green infrastructure and other elements, Bronenkant said. There are also potential problems ahead from the White House, where Donald Trump has threatened to impose 50 percent tariffs on Canadian goods.
“One of our main playground manufacturers is out of Canada, so that gives me major concerns,” Bronenkant said. Structures now priced at about $600,000 could cost 20 percent more.
The committee’s Michael McNeley was unhappy at the lack of certainty, since phase one was mainly prep work. “It looks like we just funded a giant parking lot as opposed to funding the playground half of the project,” McNeley said. “There was some heartburn from the committee to fully fund the bonding. I do want to just emphasize that the additional funds are an even harder ask.”
Oliveira pushed back, saying the cost volatility couldn’t be anticipated, and assured that if CPA funds weren’t possible the Kennedy kids still wouldn’t be left with a “dirt pile” for two years – but the final product would have to be slowed to allow for city funding and engineered to be cheaper, such as by grouping the playscape to reduce the cost of the surfacing beneath it.
“If you say no to all or some of the funds, then we need to go to the city and say the CPA said no,” Oliveira said. “We will not give up on this project, of course.”
ArtFarm
For the ArtFarm, the committee was being asked for $5 million of a total $6 million cost to transform 10 Poplar St., which once housed a trash incinerator and waste transfer station. ArtFarm will be partially over a massive, 40-foot-deep stormwater tank that is being installed to help reduce flooding in 60 percent of the city. When pump station construction is done – estimated to be next summer – creation of a park can begin with such things as a community garden, lawns for festivals, fairs and picnics, a water feature, art display spaces and a stage, said Alison Maurer, a city planner specializing in ecological restoration.
“In a city where acquiring 1 acre of land cost over $17 million, building a new 1.33-acre park is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. ArtFarm will be one of the city’s largest parks, transforming a vacant lot into a unique and vital destination for play, art, nature and climate resilience,” Maurer said.
Money needs to be in hand for a contractor bidding process this winter, but planners expect to find grants to give back some of the committee’s $5 million. Construction isn’t until the 2028-2029 fiscal years.
The plan is already smaller and different than what the community agreed on more than a decade ago in a SomerVision process.
“We knew the city’s financial picture had changed, and we were no longer able to build the nearly $11 million park that we had envisioned that included a large barn structure. We needed to make some changes to integrate a lot of the arts functions that were going to be in that building into the landscape itself,” Maurer said.
Price estimates have varied widely, up to $7.7 million, “but we have been very clear with them,” Maurer said, “we cannot go over $5.9 million.”
“It is time to finally construct our farm. We recognize this is an expensive project, and we are trying to keep those costs in check. But it is an expensive time to build a park and we have little support while the city is dealing with other other major projects like constructing a school,” Maurer said.
The project was boosted by members of the public during a comment period, and a suggestion from McNeley and other committee members as staff continued its search for grants: Emphasize the greening of the neighborhood – more than 150 trees are in the design, which will help cool Brickbottom and the Inner Belt as climate change accelerates – and the park as a regional destination.
McGrath Highway is to the west of the parcel, the Somerville Community Path leads to it and it’s near the East Somerville green line station – both fairly recent additions. “It’s a great moment to be building this park,” Maurer said, “the first in what we hope will be a spine of green spaces across Brickbottom.”
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