City of Somerville is trying to sell Day-Herbert parking lot to a hotel developer

[ron_newman]

The City of Somerville is taking bids from hotel developers to buy the public metered parking lot at Day and Herbert Streets, where a weekly farmers' market now operates every Wednesday from mid-May through late November.

As far as I can tell, the city has established no public process whatsoever to involve the neighborhood. They are holding a "pre-bidder's conference" on Tuesday, January 15 at 11 am at the northeast corner of the parking lot. They have not advertised the meeting at all to local residents, but it's open to the public. I urge any interested neighbors to show up and make clear that the city needs to include us in the land disposition process.

I found these two documents on the city web site:
Request for Proposals RFP #13-53: Davis Square Hotel Project
Legal Notice: RFP #13-53 = Davis Square Hotel Project

Also, here's an earlier City of Somerville page about a Davis Square Hotel, from when the city last tried to interest hotel developers in 2009. This page includes a Hotel Demand Study written in 2007.

[My own personal position: this could be good for Davis Square, but it needs to be designed sensitively, not tower over the rest of the neighborhood, and not present a blank wall to either Day or Herbert street. It's also essential to find a new nearby location for the farmers' market.]

ETA: An earlier discussion of this topic from February 2007.

Comments

[geekpixie.livejournal.com]

Apparently my next business endeavor needs to be a cozy B&B in the Davis area ;)

[bluesauce.livejournal.com]

Do it. The only B&B that I know of in Davis Square is run by idiots and it sucks.

[ron_newman]

I've never stayed at Morrison House B&B, but I've liked the people there when I visited on tours. What bad experience did you have there?

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I'm curious, too. I've never used the B&B, but I've always kept it in the back of my head should I ever have out of town guests.

[bluesauce.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to delve too far into it, as I don't like sharing too much of my personal life in public, but I worked there for a short time. In that time, the owners were incredibly abrasive and rude, not just to me, but to guests, to the point where I(the guy who was hired to watch the place on Sundays when they had other commitments, and when they were on vacation) was getting repeated complaints about how incredibly rude they were. Additionally, the upstairs has a weird urine-like odor that they seem unconcerned with, and they (I believe, I have no concrete proof) pay off review sites to filter bad reviews, which just bugs me.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

That's disappointing! Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience with them. I'm betting the urine smell was cat. It lasts for years and years, and people who live in cat pee houses can become desensitized to the smell over time. I guess I'll ask for a tour before putting and guests there (though I never get and out of town guests anyway).

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

make sure you *really* like people before embarking on such a thing...

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

I would say yes. I'm always on the look-out for that for visiting family.