The new Assembly Square in Somerville will be enlivened by shops and entertainment, and will be served by the MBTA and lined with a mix of offices, R&D space and housing.

Assembly Square, comprising almost 145 acres of land, represents one of the largest underdeveloped sites – and best opportunities to build a vital new district – in the region’s core. When she assumed office, Somerville Mayor Dorothy Kelly Gay announced that the time had come to capture the site’s potential to become a lively, mixed-use, environment that generates significant new fiscal benefits for the city. Despite the aspirations of the Mayor and community groups like the Mystic View Task Force – and a significant planning process – redevelopment has remained elusive. Like many other former industrial sites in cities across the country, Assembly Square faces many challenges. The lack of public transit access has further constrained redevelopment.

Last year Mayor Gay took decisive action to begin unlocking Assembly Square’s potential by securing city control of Yard 21 from the MBTA. Three months ago she issued an RFP for potential developers. While less than 10 acres, Yard 21 has the ability to launch large-scale redevelopment of Assembly Square, particularly when combined with adjacent sites such as those owned by The Sturtevant Partnership, a collaboration of Gravestar and Taurus New England Investments Corp. This group of parcels, a 26-acre site, represents an opportunity to build a new community, combat sprawl, and significantly enhance both the quality of life and the economy of the City of Somerville.

One of the most important steps to a significant new redevelopment project at Assembly Square is the ability to establish a new Orange Line Station that will greatly increase the site’s capacity to accommodate significant new mixed-use development. Adding transit access to the site’s other assets – including proximity to downtown Boston, Mystic River frontage, and regional highway access – will enable these 26 acres to emerge as a lively place to work, live, play, and, perhaps most importantly, add a 21st century square to Somerville’s proud tradition of civic squares that enrich the city’s diverse neighborhoods.

Unlocking this potential will also require a strong, articulated development and design philosophy that is committed to creating a new mixed-use district that is:

• an integrated, cohesive district-framed around traditional public streets, squares, and parks;
• a vibrant public realm in which a new Assembly Square is lined with pedestrian-oriented shops, cafés, and entertainment;
• a close link to the adjacent communities-extending new local streets and creating uses that draw the entire community to use and enjoy the site;
• an appropriate density-buildings that line public streets, squares, and parks at a human scale; and
• a transit-oriented district that links new development to new transit.

Assembly Square’s bright future has not always been so evident. Once a thriving industrial site with strong water and railroad connections, Assembly Square declined in the late 1950s, when the Ford Motor Co. assembly plant – from which the site took its name – shut its doors. Urban renewal efforts in the 1980s did little to revive the site, bringing multiple owners and controversial big box retail and its associated negative environmental and traffic impacts.

Working with the architecture and urban design firm of Goody, Clancy & Assoc., the Sturtevant Partnership has proposed a phased, 10-year comprehensive redevelopment plan for Yard 21 and the land controlled by The Partnership. The proposed plan will create the cohesive, truly transit-oriented development sought by the city.

The Plan
The Partnership’s proposed plans recognize and address the many real challenges and obstacles to achieving the City’s vision for this area. The Assembly Square site, like many large former industrial sites, such as North Point, the Seaport District, and others, suffers from ailments that, even in this strong economy, make redevelopment difficult: fractured ownerships, long-term leases, soil conditions, isolation from the adjacent communities, and lack of transit and other connections with the rest of the city and public access. Only a plan that addresses these critical issues will succeed.

What is needed to make the new vision for Assembly Square a reality?
• Infrastructure designed to create a new mixed-use district that reconnects to the rest of Somerville;
• sufficient density to create an active public realm and justify a new MBTA station;
• an active developer advocating for the MBTA station and
• a strong development team invested in the design and creation of a new district and MBTA station.

The Sturtevant Partnership team is proposing an approximately five million square foot development plan for Yard 21 and the adjacent parcels that:
• integrates parcels into a cohesive district and not a series of isolated developments by creating a network of address and secondary streets that lead to a new public square, Assembly Square, and new MBTA Orange Line station;
• enlivens the public realm with active ground-floor uses, the new Square and a series of smaller signature public spaces connected by landscaped streets, a new arts/performance facility, sufficient density to support an active, vibrant public realm, and pedestrian-oriented links throughout the site and to Draw Seven Park, the Mystic River and adjacent communities;
• enriches with diverse economic opportunities and fiscal benefits with block sizes and patterns that support a wide variety of office/R&D, residential, and commercial uses with internal parking structures, approximately 5,500 new permanent jobs and 12,500 construction jobs at build-out, and an annual gross tax revenue of approximately $10 million at build-out;
• can accommodate change over time with a street and block design that can grow over time throughout the entire district and a phasing plan for public realm development that keeps pace with private development;
• links integrally to life of the adjacent community through an improved public realm, enhanced pedestrian and bicycle connections along the Mystic River, below I-93, and across the Fellsway-Rte. 28, and possible extension of Assembly Avenue to East Somerville;
• enhances the area by a mix of cutting-edge design and historic-style buildings through design guidelines that encourage buildings with pedestrian-friendly ground floors and a variety of architects to design high-quality buildings;
• encourages use of the district as common ground where people from all over Somerville will live, work, shop, learn, eat, play, and enjoy the community and
• supports meaningful sustainability through transit-oriented development with a critical density and mass of development and mix of uses to create a 24-hour environment that supports a new MBTA station, reduced parking ratios with transit services, and a commitment to green architecture.

In addition to providing other community benefits, The Sturtevant Partnership is committed to working with the mayor and community members to create the right environment for this part of the city.

The Sturtevant Partnership plan is visionary and pragmatic. The development plan is ambitious with strategically phased plan that can realistically be implemented in the current market. Development that does not work towards building a community and benefiting the entire City of Somerville will be an opportunity lost.