90 Washington Street

Updated September 21, 2026

What's happening

The Somerville Redevelopment Authority formally executed its developer designation agreement with Wood Partners on September 2, ratified an escrow arrangement for the $50,000 deposit, and set an ambitious schedule: a draft land disposition agreement at the SRA's next regular meeting on September 30, and the LDA in front of the City Council at its first October meeting, October 8, for committee referral (Somerville Times, Sept 9). Staff told the board that zoning not completed by the end of December has to restart its public process in January, so the rezoning either happens this year or slips to January 2027, with a land sale targeted for early 2027. The LDA needs approval by both the SRA and the Council before rezoning and permitting can start (city RFP page).

Wood Partners won by being the last bidder standing. Its rival, North River Leerink Manager LLC, the proposal the City Council and the site's Civic Advisory Committee actually preferred, withdrew at the end of June, saying it could not hit the city's program goals and its investors' returns at the same time (July 9 Council).

The Council's August 27 record has since filled in: item 26-1315 was the Economic Development Director's July 9 review presentation, which tabulates the option to drop the third building at 374 units, 75 affordable and 218 underground spaces, and records the Civic Advisory Committee's concern about the lack of ownership units and the space given to resident amenities; item 26-1311 was Anne Ryan's August 20 request to address the Council about Cobble Hill.

The scheme on the table is three buildings and 418 rental apartments on the nearly four-acre, city-owned parcel next to the East Somerville Green Line station: 84 of the units affordable (20 percent, spread through the buildings), 244 parking spaces in two underground garages, about 14,906 sq ft of ground-floor retail including an 11,158 sq ft space sized for a grocer, and 6,855 sq ft of community space that Wood Partners says could become a new senior center (Wood Partners BAFO technical proposal, June 29).

The neighbors next door have opened a second front. Kevin Wiggins, property manager of the Cobble Hill Apartments senior housing at 84 Washington Street, wrote to the full Council on September 10 on the residents' behalf, asking it to answer six questions before any LDA vote, chiefly whether financial return was weighted over the site's trees and berm and whether more green space could reasonably be saved (Somerville Times, Sept 11). Cobble Hill is also pursuing its own zoning approval to add parking to its property; a neighborhood meeting on that plan was set for September 22 (Cambridge Somerville Independent, Sept 20), after the Urban Design Commission reviewed 84 Washington Street on September 8 (Cambridge Somerville Independent, Sept 6).

The story

Setting the table

The city took the parcel — nearly four acres at the seam of Union Square, Brickbottom and East Somerville — and for years used part of it as a snow farm. On November 25, 2025 the Council approved the demonstration project plan, the development objectives and a memorandum of agreement with the SRA, clearing the way for an RFP in early 2026 (Nov 25, 2025 Council). The objectives were blunt: recoup a significant share of what the city paid for the land, deliver mixed-income housing with ground-floor retail and community space, and build densely because the Green Line is across the street.

Proposals were due April 10. Only two arrived. "It is a little disappointing that we... only resulted in two proposals and that... they might not have both been quite as fully baked at this point," At-large Councilor Ben Wheeler, who sits on the Civic Advisory Committee and represents the Council on the SRA, told the Council on April 23 (April 23 Council).

The Council preferred the one that left

The May 11 special meeting was devoted entirely to the site. The two proposals were very different. Wood Partners offered one seven-story building, 324 units (~65 income-restricted), just under 15,000 sq ft of retail, 6,000 sq ft of community space, and a 398-space garage in the middle of the building; the city's real estate consultant HR&A scored it 37 out of 45. North River Leerink offered three buildings from six to 16 stories, 426 units (cut from an original 600), ~86 income-restricted units, 17,000 sq ft of retail, an 8,000 sq ft community space, a central green and 200 underground spaces; HR&A scored it 29 out of 45, praising the design vision but doubting the underground parking was buildable (May 11 Council).

Councilors lined up behind North River Leerink. Ward 1 Councilor Matthew McLaughlin, whose ward contains the site, said "I haven't heard anybody speak in favor of option one," preferring it because it was "less intrusive on the Cobble Hill seniors" and partly preserved the berm. Wheeler, Ward 4 Councilor Jesse Clingan and At-large Councilor Will Mbah agreed; Wheeler said he'd "love to see more stories in that tower... for the housing." Ward 2 Councilor J.T. Scott noted a "seemingly unanimous understanding that transit-oriented development... needs to make the most of the height" and called above-ground parking "a total full stop." His parking statistic stuck: of roughly 90 units eligible for street parking permits in the US2 tower in Union Square, "only nine people went out to get it."

The exception was North River Leerink's plan to use Low Income Housing Tax Credits by concentrating all its income-restricted units in the lowest building. At-large Councilor Kristen Strezo called it "a segregation of some units over others, and that is very much a nefarious policy suggestion that I will denounce now and going forward. So for me, that's a nonstarter." At-large Councilor Jonathan Link warned that a separate affordable building tends to be "the last building to get built, and maybe it doesn't even get built, like we've seen so far in USQ."

Because the memorandum of understanding with the SRA obliges the Council to forward two proposals, and only two existed, the endorsement vote was — in Council President Lance Davis's word — "basically a formality." The Council's real lever was a unanimous vote authorizing Wheeler and Senior Planner Ben Demers to carry the executive-session discussion into the SRA's own executive session.

One bidder left

The best-and-final-offer period ran May 20 to June 29. Wood Partners came back substantially changed — units up from 324 to 418, parking down from 398 above ground to 244 underground, one building becoming three (two seven-story plus a five-story "tail" on land Wood had previously offered to hand back to the city), retail regrouped around a northwest plaza, and the community space pitched as a senior center that could replace the aging Ralph & Jenny Center. It also offered the city an option to drop the third building, taking the count to 374 and the land offer down about 10%. North River Leerink withdrew.

At the July 9 Council meeting the reaction was mixed at best. McLaughlin objected to a new access road cutting the green berm between the site and the Cobble Hill Apartments and called the smaller Building 2 a "shoehorn," while conceding the plan "is better than the previous proposal." Scott went furthest: "this is an absolutely excellent project that would really enhance Dedham... but this is in the heart of Somerville," urging the SRA to "walk away" rather than run "a fire sale," and floating a social housing model instead. Wheeler pushed back — "with apologies to my colleague from Ward 2, I don't think that's happening in Milford" — pointing to 85 income-restricted units next to the Green Line. Clingan said he struggled with a one-bidder field but feared the lot sitting empty for years.

The designation, and the objections

The SRA designated Wood Partners four days later. Demers relayed the Civic Advisory Committee's mood: "Certainly, I'm disappointed that they did not have two to choose from." Committee members objected that all 418 units are rentals with no ownership units, and questioned the roughly 20,000 sq ft set aside for residential amenities — space some think should be retail or community use. Wheeler told the board the Council's mood had been more negative than he expected, tracing it to the loss of a proposal with a housing tower and to whether the RFP should have said from the start that high-rise development was welcome. Jacqueline Pilitary of Mansfield Street asked the board to rethink clearing mature pines for the access road, noting the trees filter McGrath Highway pollution for Cobble Hill residents, and calling out the irony of a city that hands out depaving grants elsewhere in East Somerville. Board Chair Phil Ergolini conceded the process had not been smooth, given how few developers showed interest at all.

Cobble Hill's case

Wiggins's letter is the fullest public account of the advisory process that preceded the RFP. The SRA assembled a 12-member Civic Advisory Committee in January 2023; it took 17 months to narrow 78 potential developers to three finalists and set the RFP's development criteria. Its May 14, 2025 recommendations to the SRA board included three guidelines: minimal site disruption, preserving as many existing trees and the central berm as possible; preserving Cobble Hill's access to parking, trash pickup and loading zones; and preserving the 37-space parking lot between 74 and 84 Washington Street. An SRA board member then questioned "the logic of building out anything less than the entire 4-acre site," and the board signaled financial considerations would weigh most heavily in selection, which Wiggins says left committee members asking why they had participated at all (Somerville Times, Sept 11).

The letter also puts an environmental fact on the record that bears on the access road and the underground parking: prior investigations found contaminated historic fill beneath portions of the eastern berm, with petroleum-related compounds, volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds above MassDEP cleanup standards. Left undisturbed it was not judged an imminent hazard; excavation would require testing, controls and off-site disposal. The city's own Urban Forestry Committee issued memoranda about the site in January 2022 and again in May 2026. Cobble Hill resident Anne Ryan, whose comments the Council placed on file August 27, had spoken about protecting the trees and berms for elderly residents.

What still has to happen

The site needs to be rezoned; Wood Partners proposes either a new High-Rise district or a custom special district worked out with the city. Its own illustrative schedule puts zoning adoption and the LDA in fall 2026, site plan approval in spring 2027, financial closing and land conveyance in September 2027, and construction from late 2027 into 2030. Environmental testing during due diligence will settle whether underground parking is achievable — McLaughlin predicted contamination would make it "expensive slash impossible" — and Wood Partners has committed to advancing the site to "No Significant Risk" under the state cleanup law. As Demers put it to the board: "This is not the last touch point."

What's next

September 22, 2026, 6:30 p.m. — neighborhood meeting on Cobble Hill's plan to add parking at 84 Washington Street, a separate zoning approval from the 90 Washington project.
September 30, 2026 — SRA regular meeting, where staff plan to present a draft negotiated land disposition agreement; an additional SRA meeting may be scheduled earlier.
October 8, 2026 — staff's target for placing the LDA before the City Council for committee referral. Mid-October is also the end of the 90-day negotiation period that began with the July 13 designation.
End of December 2026 — the cutoff for zoning actions; anything not completed restarts its public process in January 2027. Wood Partners proposes either a new High-Rise district or a custom special district.
Early 2027 — target for a land sale; Wood Partners' own schedule then puts site plan approval in spring 2027, financial closing and conveyance in September 2027, and construction from late 2027 into 2030.
Watch the due-diligence soil and environmental testing against the contaminated-fill finding under the eastern berm: if underground parking proves infeasible, the whole parking and open-space scheme has to be redrawn.