Mystic View Task Force
Somerville, Massachusetts
Founding member of the task force to develop a comprehensive master plan for a 140-acre waterfront parcel of over 10M sf.
This community-driven initiative transformed a very limited, short-term plan for the site that would yield $3M in tax revenue from a big-box, power center into a 20-year plan that would generate $30M in new tax revenue to the City of Somerville and create more than 30,000 skilled jobs.
The planning forum conceived and facilitated by John M. Rossi in May, 1999 engaged more than 150-citizens and elected officials in a community dialogue (design charrette) where the overwhelming majority of citizens created a shared vision for the highest and best use of the site over short-term, big-box development being proposed. The community's co-authored vision was articulated and illustrated in a highly detailed, 80-page report: Somerville's Last Frontier, A Community Forum.
Efforts by the Mystic View Task Force, and the results of the May, 1999 planning initiative, have attracted the resources and expertise of Boston area's most reputable land planners, architects, development consultants, design studio courses conducted at architecture colleges and universities, and caring citizens. Refinements to the vision evolved into a detailed presentation by the Mystic View Task Force describing the emergence of a viable new urban district and the shortcomings of more big box stores. The presentation highlights the viability of more than 10M sf of mixed-use housing, retail, and commercial development along the Mystic River accessing Boston's major transportation spine—the Orange Line—and served by a new MBTA Orange-line stop between Sullivan and Wellington Station, only two miles from Downtown Boston.
The Mystic View Task Force, co-founded by John M. Rossi, was the grass-roots imputes for an unprecedented, community-wide outreach to examine the Mystic View site. From this, the plan to engage Somerville residents in self-directing the future of their community began as a conversation by Rossi with Somerville Alderman Bill White, and State Reprehensive Patricia Jehlan (now Massachusetts State Senator) in 1998. Since then, hundreds of caring, capable, and talented people have worked to advance the vision of higher and better use for the site that would create a more sustainable and livable City of Somerville for generations to come.
Scope of project: transformation of a formerly industrial,
now big-box retail area, into a vibrant
mixed-use housing, retail, commercial
district
Scale of project: 145-acres
10M sf
Estimated construction cost (20-year): $2B
Planning completion date: 1999 - effort is ongoing
Construction completion date: TBD - pending political will and developer
foresight
Image credits: Mystic View Task Force, Wig Zamore (site diagram)
Goody Clancy/Dongik Lee, David Dixon (rendering)