Future finally brightens for Assembly Square

Construction to begin in fall on $1.5 billion mixed-use project

June 09, 2011|By Casey Ross, Globe Staff

Office buildings, a hotel, and Ikea store and hundreds of apartments are… (Essdras M Suarez/Globe…)

After years of false starts, the developer of the $1.5 billion revitalization of Assembly Square in Somerville will begin construction this fall on hundreds of homes, stores, and an expanded park along the Mystic River.

Executives with Federal Realty Investment Trust said the work will launch a sweeping transformation of 60 acres of industrial property that will eventually contain several office buildings, a hotel, and an IKEA furniture store.

This fall’s work will also include construction of the Assembly Square Orange Line station and the revitalization of a large section of the Mystic River Reservation, which will be updated with new connections for bicycles and public transportation.

“We’re undoing the mistakes of the past through this project,’’ said Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone, a fervent advocate of Assembly Row for more than a decade. “This is going to improve the quality of life for people who live … in East Somerville and up to the Mystic housing projects and provide better access to a waterfront many people didn’t realize Somerville had.’’

Initially conceived in the late 1990s, the project now known as Assembly Row has suffered through several delays, at first due to community opposition to a prior version and then because the economic downturn dried up funding for large-scale commercial developments.

But a key catalyst to getting the construction started this fall was the appropriation of $104 million in federal and state funds by the Patrick administration for an access road and other site-prep work, as well as money for the T station. Somerville also provided $25 million in bonds to pay for road work and utility upgrades.

“We’ve had a bad habit in this state of stepping away from these investments and telling private developers they need to find a way to make it happen,’’ said Gregory Bialecki, Patrick’s economic development chief. “This is a dramatic change in that model where we’re now saying we are prepared to pay for the public infrastructure needed for these projects.’’

AvalonBay Communities Inc. will begin construction this fall on the first two residential buildings on the site. The buildings, which will contain retail stores on the ground floor, will be built along the Mystic River and include 450 apartments.

An executive with AvalonBay said one of the buildings will contain studios and one- and two-bedroom apartments that the company hopes to rent for $1,500 to $2,000 per month.

Federal Realty itself will begin construction in the fall or early 2012 on a separate 280,000-square-foot retail building that will include a theater, restaurants, a few large retailers and smaller shops. No tenants have been signed for the building.

READER COMMENTS »

View reader comments » Comment on this story »