Davis Square Hotel - update

[pbockelman.livejournal.com]

Somerville Patch has a good summary of the proposals for a hotel in Davis Square (where the farmer's market is now) here: http://somerville.patch.com/articles/davis-square-hotel-what-developers-have-proposed.

Also, you can go to the City's website to see much of the submitted material here: http://www.somervillema.gov/departments/ospcd/economic-development/davis-square-hotel-project

Other information can be found at an independent website created by a neighbor: http://herberthotel.net/

Comments

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

I might be misremembering -- didn't a development in that area come under fire for not using enough local/union workers?

[ron_newman]

You may be right -- I did not pay close attention to that issue.

A lot of folks from the UNITE HERE hotel workers' union attended last week's community meeting. They want the city to ensure that whatever hotel developer is selected will employ a unionized workforce.

The Saracen proposal is for a 6-story, 60-foot high building. The current Davis Square central business district zoning allows only a 4-story, 50-foot buildling. The other three proposals appear to conform to that height limit.

[courtney o'keefe (from livejournal.com)]

Gate Residential and KSS Realty were picketed by Unions when demolition and initial construction began. I believe, they did use Bent Electric which is both local and Union (Local 103, IBEW). I don't know if other Union labor was used.

[somerfriend.livejournal.com]

I was at at least one meeting that was supposed to be for the neighborhood to hear about changes to the development and to discuss our concerns, but was to some degree hijacked by the union people demanding to be awarded the work they felt they were entitled to, without having to compete in an open market bid situation.