Roche Bros. grocery proposed for 240 Elm Street; Meeting September 10

[ron_newman]

According to a Facebook post from Alderman-at-Large Jack Connolly, Roche Bros. proposes to open a grocery store in the former Social Security Building, 240 Elm Street. They will hold an on-site meeting to discuss this on Wednesday, September 10 at 6 pm.

Roche Bros. is a local family-owned supermarket chain whose current locations are mostly in the beyond-128 suburbs. They are now building their first urban store in the former Filene's Basement space in Downtown Crossing.

I really hope this happens. I think it suits Davis Square's needs better than the previous World of Beer and Beer Works proposals.

ETA: Based on the illustration that Jack provided, what they actually seem to be proposing is a new sub-brand of smaller Roche stores called "Brothers Marketplace", whose first location opened in Weston a few months ago. Their Facebook page is more informative than their rather skeletal website.

Comments

RE: Rather than competition, complementary.

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

I was out of the area when the Beer Works proposals were being made; for my own part, I am of the opinion that we don't want to just approve all businesses - because Davis is a location where any business can do well, we ought to be looking at ways in which we can diversify the sorts of businesses we've got.
To that end, I think Yet Another Bar is just as bad as Yet Another Froyo Place or Yet Another Burrito Place - all of the arguments we've heard over and over again for the last fifteen years.
So while, yes, Beer Works would have done well, so will nearly anything that goes into that space. Nothing has, not because of community opposition, but because the landlord refuses to actually repair or maintain that property.
I can't speak to the involvement of any aldermen, and I wouldn't even claim that there are sides to the issue. We all want to live somewhere great. Getting people in a community involved in these decisions isn't dirty politics. It's the way politics is *supposed* to happen.

RE: Rather than competition, complementary.

[teko.livejournal.com]

I was at the Beer Works meetings and came away very split. On the one hand, what Beer Works was proposing would be a huge, much-needed aesthetic upgrade to that building and would raise the bar of how Davis Square could look. It was classy, respectful, and had good ideas behind it. And given that the other option at the time was a crappy-looking 'mini mall' of a smoke shop, massage place, and Burger King, I was all for it. On the other hand, well... it's a Beer Works.

I disagree with the way Alderman Gewirtz personally handled the situation, but if it has a positive outcome, at least we avoided the worst case scenario.

RE: Rather than competition, complementary.

[wintahill.livejournal.com]

I am mostly in agreement with you. There certainly is a need for community meetings around proposed new developments where the public can air their concerns and ask questions. The local alderman should definitely be involved in organizing and publicizing these types of meetings. My problem is when the processes is essentially hijacked and used to push a very narrow minded personal agenda. These meetings are supposed encourage discussion and compromise, not to be used to drive away "undesirable" new businesses. While some here may see the concerns over parking and deliveries to this new potential Roche Brothers store as "trivial", these are the types of things that should be discussed at a community meeting. Myself and many others feel that similar "trivial" issues were hyped up and used purposefully as roadblocks to ultimately derail a mostly harmless business proposal that would fill a long vacant space. At that time there was no valid grocery store proposal on the table at all, it was just speculation at best. I support the Roche Brothers proposal just as I did the previous proposals, I want to see a viable business open in that long empty space this year not maybe a few years from now.

As far as my comment on dirty politics, need I remind you of the VFW Hall/condo development circus that was discussed in great detail here several years ago. It was very informative and it really opened my eyes. Whether you were for or against that proposal, you must agree that Alderman Gewirtzs' little end run around the process to get the MBTA vent parcel rezoned was clearly not what someone negotiating in good faith would do. After months of litigation and numerous compromises by the developer the project was explicitly approved by the city. She could not deal with that apparently and used her influence to kill it be any means necessary after her other attempts ultimately failed. This greatly shapes my opinion that alderman Gewirtz was never negotiating in good faith on residents behalf to make an acceptable compromise on the World of Beer/BeerWorks proposals. She wanted those projects stopped and she succeeded by abusing the valid political process for community involvement. That is what I find distasteful and what I mean by dirty politics.

RE: Rather than competition, complementary.

[teko.livejournal.com]

I completely agree that the way Alderman Gerwirtz handled both proposals was surprisingly dishonest.

My experience with these community meetings is that the moderators seem unable to make them very productive; they tend to get mired in minutae. One person after another will bring up issues that the folks proposing a business had already answered: "Yes, but will there be TV's showing sports?"

I feel like people who are in the business of having products delivered to their store on a daily basis probably have a pretty good handle on the feasibility of food delivery, so I hope they can simply give a decisive answer rather than issues like that taking up most of the time.