The new Assembly Square station

~Photo by Bobbie Toner By Jeremy F. van der Heiden On Monday, June 29th, some of the guiding minds of Somerville gathered at the Capuano Early Childhood Center Cafeteria on Glen St. in Somerville to discuss the initial plans of the new MBTA station at Assembly Square. Various members of the local City of Somerville government, as well as some from the MBTA, Mystic View Task Force, and a solid amount of concerned Somerville residents attended this meeting of minds. The mood seemed to be mostly one of excitement toward the new project that aims to make a hot spot for Somerville retail, residence and office spaces more accessible to rapid transit riders. Though, for the most part the various Somerville residents seemed concerned with not only the funding for this project as is, but also the fundamental design that members of the MBTA and other organizations spearheading the project like ACOM had come up with thus far. The station right now is projected to be a $50 million project. According to Joe Nolan, a member of the Construction Department for the MBTA, the new station at Assembly Square has gathered about $40 million in funds so far, which already leaves a $10 million gap in the initial estimate of the cost to build the station. Still, this station is in the very early stages of production. The organizations in charge of the design will take another year just to design the station. The station will be right in between Sullivan Square Station and Wellington Station, filling a gap in a now non-accessible area where a new IKEA is being built. This area will also have a tremendous amount of retail outlets, as well as over 1.75 million square feet of office space and a vast amount of residencies. The idea, according to the project leaders such as Joe Cosgro, Patrick Dunford, a traffic engineer, and Kyle Davis, the deputy design officer of ACOM, is to pick a particularly busy and emerging node of business and focus as much public transportation around it to make it grow as much as possible. This technique, if executed, can be a great step for the City of Somerville to pull itself out of this great economic crisis it finds itself in today. One of the best parts of this equation is the cost to the taxpayers of Massachusetts. As mentioned, the project has gathered $40 million in funds to go toward the design and building of this new station. The MBTA will not need to pay any of this, a very bright point considering the $27 billion backlog to repair its existing infrastructure. Instead, the Federal Transit Authority will be contributing $25 million dollars, while the Federal Realty Investment Trust and IKEA will be picking up the other $15 million. This is a big step considering the vast shortages in funds for vital projects that the MBTA has been trying to take care of for an extended period of time. During the question and answer stage of the meeting, it was clear that the majority of concerns were toward the initial designs that the project overseers had come up with. The proposed station will be state of the art, and of course fulfill all MBTA guidelines, but will only have one headhouse. This poses somewhat of a problem in the sense that only having one headhouse would not make the spaces that are the target area of new accessibility not completely optimal in accessibility. Most of the residents of Somerville asking questions, as well as the Mystic View Task Force who were represented at the meeting, seemed to believe that having only one headhouse would be a complete waste of time and money. For optimal accessibility, the station apparently needs to have two headhouses. The members of the MBTA seemed to only be able to say that right now the money is so tight, that an addition to the new Station so big, one that could come close to doubling the costs is just not in the cards at the time being. The MBTA stated that it would continue to consider this change to the design. The next meeting will be held in the fall of this year, when the initial designs should be beginning to take some shape.

Comments

[Ten Hills Homey]

"only one headhouse would be a complete waste of time and money."

WAKE UP! How can you make a statement like that when the area currently lacks a T stop all together. This will be a great addition to Assembly Square and will be able to handle more capacity that either Sullivan Square or Wellington Station. Let's get this project rolling with the one headhouse and have them be able to add a second if the capicity demands it. This is still an unproven developement that has not broken ground. The T Stop alone with one headhouse will be a great benefit to us exisiting citizens that have been waiting toooo long.

[Robert Matusik]

". . . complete waste of time and money . . . ." is a sweeping generaliztion and an unwarranted assumption proffered ex cathedra. As such, it needs to be dismissed as an illogical tantrum displayed by a voice obviously disgruntled on finding it's own dream not embodied in the developing proposal for the Assembly Square lands.
I say, let us get on with it. Over the course of time it will grow, change, grow some more and even change again. But it has to start first. The urban scene has always been a work in progress because it generates capital for further expansion and development as investment in a cash cow, which it can be.
One head house will bring people with money to spend. One head house will make it easy for people with money to spend to come from afar. It will not nececitate two head houses to begin the flow of people with money to spend to arrive at Assembly Square!