Davis Sq Task Force meets Monday 2/11

[ron_newman]

The Davis Square Task Force will meet this Monday, February 11, at 7 pm at the Tufts Administration Building, 167 Holland Street. Here's the agenda:

7-7:05 - Introductions

7:05-7:20 - Neighborhood Groups Update
- Somerville Climate Action/Go Green Davis Square
- Local First Initiative
- Davis Area Resident Business Initiative

7:20-7:55 - CARLI Fence site

7:55-8:25 -Davis Square Development
- Antonia’s Restaurant space: Krista Kranyak from Ten Tables Restaurant
- Property on Highland Ave and Enterprise Lot
- Possible Blue Shirt Café expansion/Dollar Days
- Dover Plaza
- Dahn Yoga studio
- Sushi restaurant opening where La Contessa used to be

8:25-8:50 -Future Search Concept (Vanessa Rule)
“Where does our community want to go?”

8:50-9 - Miscellaneous items and next meeting date

ETA, 2/14: My notes from the meeting are here.

Comments

[bex77]

Does this mean Antonia's has closed?

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

- Possible Blue Shirt Café expansion/Dollar Days

Ah-ha! So that barbershop gossip from two months ago had some truth to it.
Thanks for posting this info!

[teko.livejournal.com]

Ten Tables where Antonia's is? That's fantastic news -- I've heard Ten Tables is one of the best new restaurants in the city and would bring huge cachet to the Square.

I suppose any discussion of what'll happen to Boloco will have to wait until they know themselves what's going on. Likewise with the McIntyre/Tingle spaces.

[mrboboto.livejournal.com]

Does this group have any kind of mandate from the city or board of alderman, or is it just a "concerned citizen" kind of thing?

[enhf94.livejournal.com]

See below for discussion of a craigslist ad selling a Davis Restaurant.

http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/1137218.html

[tt02144.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with the comments concerning 1188 Broadway - totally out of scale with the neighborhood. Although, to be fair, The VFW post wasn't 'replaced' by the developer, they closed and someone bought the property. However, the city allowed them to take a building which had a nice set back (a small grassy area with bushes) and built directly on the sidewalk line. I don't see the need for that. I also don't think it's fair to blame Bob Trane. While it's true that the ward alderman can get involved and has some influence over development plans, I think it's more an administration thing, since the Planning Board and the ZBA are the decision-making authorities (taking direction directly from the Administration). If you look city-wide at sweetheart deals received by developers, or ugly, out-of-scale buildings going up, you'll see that it's an on-going problem. The Planning Board doesn't look at how the building will look, just at the specs. To me, they should see a mock-up of exactly how the building will look, the color scheme, etc.

[fefie.livejournal.com]

Apart from the post about new development on Carli site, what other news came out of the meeting? I'm curious to hear about a few things that were listed on the agenda Ron posted:

- Antonia’s Restaurant space: Krista Kranyak from Ten Tables Restaurant
- Property on Highland Ave and Enterprise Lot
- Possible Blue Shirt Café expansion/Dollar Days
- Dover Plaza
- Dahn Yoga studio
- Sushi restaurant opening where La Contessa used to be