Although city officials say the $90 million Union Square Revitalization plan is years from being fully completed ? and has yet to be approved by the board of aldermen in the first place ? square property and business owners are still wary of the urban renewal plan?s implications.
?Obviously we would be interested, as owners of property, to participate in the developing of property,? said Michael Fields, who is a member of the corporation that owns the Royal Hospitality site. ?What would be unacceptable to us would be if the city took our property and turned around and sold it to other developer.?
Fields is part of ZPF LLC, which owns the 112,000 square foot parcel that houses Royal Hospitality Services, a large commercial laundry facility. According to zoning documents, the city and Royal Hospitality signed an agreement in 2009 that would require the laundry to cease operations there in 10 years to make way for development more in line with new zoning laws, which allow for the kind of mixed-use residential development outlined in the new urban renewal plan.
Fields said that agreement allows the property to continue being used as laundry for the duration of that period and wanted officials to acknowledge that. But he was excited about potential development at the square.
?I?m an optimist, I love the city of Somerville and believe it?s a great place,? Fields said. ?I understand the potential of Union Square and believe in that potential, and I?d like to be a part of it.?
The revitalization plan would cover 2.3 million square feet and estimates more than 4,300 net new jobs and 850 net new housing units over its 20-year timeframe. The goal is to ?increase the commercial tax base in the Revitalization Area to finance public improvements in the short term and secure fiscal self-sufficiency for the city in the long term,? according to the plan.
David Hamparian, who?s owned the Union Square Smoke Shop for 21 years, says they have been talking about revitalizing the square for years so he doesn't know what to make of the latest round and has no idea what to expect. The city has not approached him?and he won't worry about it until he can see a timeline for construction and development, he said.
"Who knows? They haven't come up with any concrete plans," he said.
He is concerned about rising taxes and affordability of the area, however.
"Property taxes will go up and that's only good if you're selling and moving out. It's not so good for middle income and elderly people who are here," he said.
Frank Golden, owner of the 42-year-old Midnite Convenience store is glad the Green Line is finally coming here.
'It will of course create more business and foot traffic," he said.
He?said given that Union was Somerville's first square and is home?to Prospect Hill and the first flag that it is only right that it be revitalized, but?he is?reserving comment until he sees more concrete plans on the changes coming.
"It depends on what they do. I don't think anything is etched in stone yet,' he said.
Like Royal Hospitality, Midnite Convenience and Union Square Smoke Shop are listed in the plan as ?Acquisition Properties,? a group of more than 30 parcels in the area that includes the Post Office, the Dunkin? Donuts, the Goodyear, Prospect Iron, the Reliable Market and Ricky?s Flowers, among others. The plan calls for the city or a developer to purchase and redevelop the properties, which are believed to have a value of $26 million.
But the plan needs to first be approved by the board of aldermen and then the state, said mayoral spokeswoman Jackie Rossetti. And for the immediate future, city officials are concentrating on acquiring properties only in area D-2 of the plan, which contains the Prospect Iron site and its parcels, Empire Marble and a large vacant lot. That?s the area the city has agreed to purchase and allow the MBTA to build on in order to construct the Union Square Green Line station, which officials say will be ready by 2017.
?There?s no definitive timeline for other blocks,? Rossetti said. ?The entire plan is for 20 years.?
The urban renewal plan calls for ?dynamic mixed use,? Rossetti said, and the acquisition properties are generally industrial use or car repair shops or businesses that ?don?t fit in the vision of the future of the square.?
Asked whether she thinks the revitalization will be exciting or worrisome, Union Square resident Margarita Lima said, "A bit of both."
Lima, who was shopping in the square on Aug. 21, said her concerns include increasing traffic and rising rents?but she is hopeful the city will use local labor and that the retail sector will grow providing more local jobs.
"They say it will be like the South End, which is nice, but I don't want it to it to grow too fast," she said. "I will be disappointed to see some of the old stuff go away."
Fields said what he knew of plans for the area was for more residential and fewer commercial developments, with the light industry that defined the square in decades past dying out.
?They?ll make it more gentrified, make it more like Cambridge,? he said.
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