Friday, August 17, 2012
The "2012 Union Square Revitalization Plan" calls for the city acquire up to roughly $26 million worth of parcels in Union Square for disposition to developers.
The city has released a plan that would pave the way for major redevelopment of Union Square over the next few decades. The plan designates nearly 117 acres of Union Square as a revitalization district, and it calls for the city to acquire seven key "development blocks"—currently assessed as being worth around $26 million, in total—for future disposition to developers. The development blocks include parcels of property held by approximately 29 different owners, not including those already owned by the city of Somerville and the Somerville Redevelopment Authority. Many of the properties are used for auto repair businesses or warehouse and industrial space, though some are shops and restaurants, and two are homes. You can read the whole …
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
The plan will likely involve proposals for the Union Square Green Line station and a new library.
The Somerville Redevelopment Authority was scheduled to meet Wednesday evening to discuss a measure called the "2012 Union Square Revitalization Plan," according to an agenda for the meeting. The plan is likely connected to an effort by the city to purchase parcels of land in Union Square for the construction of the Green Line Extension's Union Square Station. Earlier this month, the city announced a memorandum of understanding with the MBTA to purchase land in Union Square and provide a permanent easement to the transit authority so it could build and operate the station. In return, the MBTA agreed to make the station operational by late 2016 or early 2017. When the city made the announcement, it said the Somerville Redevelopment …
42.37698
-71.09558
Webster Ave & Prospect St, Somerville, MA
/articles/somerville-redevelopment-authority-to-consider-union-square-revitalization-plan-wednesday
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42.37952
-71.09368
Ricky's Flower Market
238 Washington St, Somerville, MA
/articles/somerville-redevelopment-authority-to-consider-union-square-revitalization-plan-wednesday
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Tuesday, April 17, 2012
James Campano has spent his life keeping the memory of Boston's West End, lost to "urban renewal," alive.
In February and March, the West End Museum in Boston put on an exhibit called "25 Years of the West Ender Newsletter." It may seem strange to dedicate an entire exhibit to a newsletter, but The West Ender is something special. It's been written about in the Boston Globe and mentioned in the Wall Street Journal, and it's credited with holding together a community of people whose homes were bulldozed to the ground during the now infamous "slum clearance" of the West End in the late 1950s. In that episode of Boston's history, the city tore down a diverse immigrant neighborhood of mostly Irish, Italian, Polish, Russian and Jewish working class people and replaced it with apartment developments and offices. The people who lived in the West End …
Warren Dew
7:19 pm on Saturday, August 18, 2012
So are these plots going to be taken by eminent domain? That seems reasonable for the T station, but not so much for "development". more ›