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The future of the former Star Market property at 299 Broadway is once again uncertain in light of revelations of the presence of asbestos on the site.
By Mina Rose Morales
The building plans for the former Star Market might cease after developers found asbestos where they planned to build underground parking.
On Thursday, July 21, at 6:00 p.m., the city held a virtual neighborhood meeting regarding the latest news of the development plans for the former Star Market on 299 Broadway. About 50 people attended the online webinar. Audio translation services were offered in Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole, and English.
The city attained eminent domain of the former Star Market, which is in ward four. The market was owned by Jim Cohen. He wanted to replace Star Market with an Ocean State Job Lot. “The neighborhood was extremely dismayed when Cohen tried to bring an Ocean State Job Lot,” according to Jake Wilson, City Councilor At-Large.
Cohen sued the city of Somerville over a zoning decision, he lost, he appealed, and he lost again. The state of Massachusetts gave the city eminent domain of the building to implement an urban renewal plan.
“Urban renewal is a strategy for redeveloping and revitalizing substandard, decadent and blighted open areas for residential, commercial, industrial, business, governmental, recreational, educational, hospital or other uses. Under M.G.L. Chapter 121B, urban renewal agencies are authorized to take a range of actions to address disinvested and underutilized neighborhoods and substandard, decadent and blighted conditions in order to create the environment needed to promote sound growth and attract and support private investment in designated urban renewal areas.,” according to the Massachusetts government website.
“That neighborhood gets overlooked a lot in Somerville,” said Wilson. “It’s one of the poorer wards of the city.”
Mark Development LLC is the developer for the former Star Market. They plan to create an inviting, open space for the community, according to Tim Love, an architect for the project. Some of the features of the new space, if completed, will include a community space, retail spaces, and residential units.
“On this plan, I like it, it’s very exciting to have almost 50% affordable housing,” said Jesse Clingan, Ward 4 City Councilor.
During the latest neighborhood community meeting, Mark Development LLC revealed their plans for underground parking cannot proceed. They plan to request a waiver from the Zoning Board of Appeals for a percentage of future residents to gain on-street parking. They found asbestos where they planned to build the underground parking. Without approval of the on-street parking, the current development plan might come to an end.
“The dirty secret of all this is most developers would be fine with doing zero parking, not having even an option for their residents to get a permit. The problem is the people who finance, the financiers of development, tend to be old fashion. They’re operating with an outdated mentality. They don’t understand the changes that our society has undergone and people willing to live without cars and use public transit. And so, they are sort of enforcing an outdated mentality in terms of insisting on parking,” said Wilson.
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All the more reason why the MBTA needs to keep running the 89 bus along Broadway!
This piece raises more questions than it answers.
The Star Market has been closed and derelict for more than a decade, since 2007. Are we to believe that this is the first time in all those years that a soil sample has been taken and analyzed? Really?
Where was the sample taken? How many were taken? How widespread is the hazardous material? What other toxins are in the soil? How many other neighboring properties have hazardous materials in the their soil? Is it under the parking lot? How did it get there?
This smells like an excuse for something else that isn’t being discussed in this piece.
I’m all in favor of transit-oriented development near T stations (although the current status of the MBTA raises its own tough questions), but are residents of this contemplated development going to walk a half-mile each way every day to work? What grocery store would they walk to?
Living without a car in Winter Hill is a bad joke. There is nothing “outdated” or “old fashion[ed]” about demanding that parking be provided for new residences built on this site. The people who live there WILL have cars, like it or not. If parking is not provided on-site, those cars will end up parked on the already overcrowded side streets.
People who live in Winter Hill own cars. People who move into Winter Hill will own cars. More residences in Winter Hill means more cars on the streets of Winter Hill.
I wish that our city leaders and journalists would pay more attention to actual feet-on-the-ground reality and less to exciting “progressive” slogans.