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

[gruene.livejournal.com]

I suspect such a requirement would make the development unprofitable. Building underground parking is quite expensive, about $30-50k per spot.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Providing free public parking is also expensive, especially when land values are so high. I'd like to read _The High Cost of Free Parking_ someday, but Cambridge libraries refused to order it.

[gruene.livejournal.com]

Plenty of local University libraries have it. You should be able to request it through interlibrary loan, or read it at Tufts or MIT.

http://www.worldcat.org/title/high-cost-of-free-parking/oclc/59759837&referer=brief_results

[gruene.livejournal.com]

As to the larger point, "free (or discounted, really) public parking is expensive, so we should require a private developer to build it for us" is not a very coherent position. It's just cost shifting, to the point that it would probably be an unbearable burden.