something Davis Sq probably doesn't need

[ron_newman]

Someone wants to open a Quizno's sub shop franchise at 401 Highland Avenue, where Disc Diggers used to be. The proposal keeps getting postponed from one Planning Board meeting to the next; it supposedly comes up again at this Thursday night's meeting.

While I can't see a real basis for showing up to oppose it, I also don't see it filling any real need, given that you can already get sandwiches of various kinds at Au Bon Pain, Blue Shirt, Mike's, Diesel, Christo's Seven Star, Subway, O'Natural's, and probably other places I've forgotten about.

Comments

[cos]

My experience of Porter is that despite having some cool places, it really doesn't have critical mass. People don't really go to Porter Square, they go to specific places that happen to be located in Porter Square. It's not a place people go to hang out, or arrange to meet their friends, or decide to just go wandering around in without a specific plan of where they're going and why. So, unlike Davis Square, Porter doesn't have social gravity that really helps the local businesses, nor does it fill a similar need for people. It's just a convenient place for these businesses to be located in, that people know how to get to.

I don't think Porter Square is an example of the sort of development direction we don't want Davis Square to take. And conversely, Davis may be a good example for the direction we do want Porter to go in.