A view of Somerville’s Innerbelt from the roof of the Holiday Inn. Mayor Joseph Curtatone hopes to turn 125 acres of warehouses, vacant lots and older industrial buildings into a mini-city.
Could Somerville become the Bay State’s new biotechnology capital?
If Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone gets his way, 125 acres behind the Holiday Inn on the city’s east side will be center stage for Gov. Deval Patrick’s life sciences initiative. The mayor is seeking the state’s help to pay for infrastructure improvements that would pave the way for redevelopment of underused parcels in the Innerbelt and Brickbottom districts.
Curtatone’s vision includes housing, small retail and 7 million square feet of office and research-and-development space linked to Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tufts University. The combination of warehouses, vacant lots and older industrial buildings would be replaced with a mixed-use development served by stops on the MBTA’s Orange and Green lines.
“Where else can you find this much developable land within minutes of downtown Boston and [Cambridge’s] Kendall Square?” asked Curtatone. “There’s no greater potential than right here. When we think of the governor’s priorities for life sciences and biotech, Somerville is well-positioned. It’s just a question of planning and capitalizing on it.”
Last spring, Gov. Deval Patrick unveiled his plan to make Massachusetts the global leader in life sciences. The 10-year strategy would coordinate efforts among industry, academic research hospitals, and public and private colleges and universities to spur new research, strengthen investments, create jobs and produce therapies for a better quality of life.
While the project is in its infancy, Somerville is preparing to launch a master-planning process for the Innerbelt and Brickbottom, a pair of neglected sections of the city bounded by Washington Street, Interstate 93, the McGrath Highway and the Gilmore Bridge. The public process would result in land use regulations that dictate how much housing, retail, office and R&D would be built.
Gregory P. Bialecki, assistant secretary of the state Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, said he has met with Curtatone and the two have discussed the possibility of state funding.
“The mayor told me he has 100-plus acres and that he’d love to do something that’s good for the city and good for the commonwealth, to which we said, ‘Absolutely,'” he said. “But like many communities, they don’t have the money to do it on their own. We’re still trying to determine the scope of the infrastructure that would support a robust mixed-use program, how much it would cost and how to pay for it. No conclusions have been reached, but it seems like it would be crazy for the state not to consider it.”
The Innerbelt makes sense, Bialecki said, because it’s located near Kendall Square – which he described as the biotech hub of the universe – and close to downtown Boston. It seems like an obvious place, he noted, where there ought to be smart growth by utilizing former industrial land located near several soon-to-be-built T stops.
“How do we get a car from Kendall Square to the Inner Belt?” he asked. “A bridge? A tunnel? Those are the kind of conversations we’re having.”
‘Last Frontier’
Stephen Mackey, president of the Somerville Chamber of Commerce, noted that public transit already has been approved and funded to serve the Innerbelt and Brickbottom, as well as nearby Assembly Square.
In November, Gov. Patrick filed a transportation $2.9 billion bond bill that will fund the $600 million Green Line extension project into Somerville. The project will be an extension of existing MBTA transit service from Lechmere Station with as many as six new stops, including the Brickbottom and Innerbelt districts, Union Square, Gilman Square, Magoun Square, Ball Square and Tufts University.
In 2006, Ikea and Federal Realty Investment Trust agreed to invest $15 million to help build an Orange Line stop in Assembly Square between the Sullivan Square and Wellington stations as part of their 145-acre project. The federal government also earmarked $25 million toward a T station expected to cost $40 million.
“The opportunity exists to redevelop these sites because the state is investing millions in the Green Line extension and that’s a tremendous change agent, and it could happen as early as 2014,” Mackey said. “By the time we have a Green Line station in the Innerbelt, we should have devised an economic development plan and new zoning. This is truly Somerville’s last frontier.”
Wig Zamore, a founding member of the Mystic View Task Force, the group that battled in court for a decade for denser development at Assembly Square, said the Innerbelt project is something everyone can support.
“Everyone agrees that we have to use the Innerbelt for not only Somerville’s benefit, but the benefit of the leading edge economy of the region,” he said. “It’s an unbelievable opportunity for the region that should not be overlooked.”
Peter Bekarian, a commercial broker at Jones Lang LaSalle, said Somerville’s plan is a viable option for growth.
“Cambridge may be the center of the biotech world, but it’s no secret that it’s a challenging place to get projects permitted and built,” he said. “In Somerville, Mayor Curtatone has created a friendly environment toward business and development and it’s one of the few places to expand.”
