Image courtesy of Alexandria Real Estate Equities
Alexandria Real Estate Equities’ proposed 1 million-square-foot redevelopment of the Watertown Mall property includes a transportation management plan designed to cap the percentage of single-vehicle commuters at 60 percent.
The nation’s leading life science developer is proposing four office and lab buildings totaling 673,600 square feet, two amenity buildings, a new retail building and two parking garages as it repositions the aging shopping mall property.
As a condition of leases, Alexandria will require tenants to offer monthly unlimited bus or subway passes to all employees who commute by non-single-occupancy vehicle at least three days a week, according to master plan documents submitted to the Watertown Planning Board.
Developers plan to join the Watertown Transportation Management Association, and pay for a proportionate share of new shuttle services offered free to employees including potential service to the MBTA’s Newtonville and Boston Landing commuter rail stations, Harvard Square and Kendall Square.
“The project has been thoughtfully designed to provide a new dynamic mixed-use development with numerous public realm improvements,” the submission states.
The plans also include an 1,800-foot-long shared-use path for bicyclists and pedestrians, which would connect to the Watertown Greenway. Developers are seeking to reduce single-occupant vehicle trips to 60 percent, or 25 percent lower than 2010 U.S. Census data on commuting patterns to Watertown.
The master plan would demolish all of the existing mall except for the Target store, which anchors the eastern end of the property. The development would bring the total square-footage of buildings on the property to over 1 million square feet, adding to the growth of the Watertown life science cluster including two new lab buildings at Alexandria’s Arsenal on the Charles complex and a pair of life science buildings at Arsenal Yards.
The transportation demand management plan is designed to complement the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s Arsenal Street Corridor Improvement program. The town of Watertown received a $3.4 million MassWorks infrastructure grant in 2021 for an initial phase that includes reconstruction of Arsenal Street, creation of bike lanes and new MBTA bus stops and shelters.
