90 Washington Street

Updated November 2, 2026

What's happening

The land disposition agreement for 90 Washington Street is still being negotiated by the city, the Somerville Redevelopment Authority and designated developer Wood Partners, and the senior housing next door is fighting the site plan. Ward 1 Councilor Matthew McLaughlin, whose ward holds the site, says a Council vote on the LDA is expected by the end of the year. If it's approved by then, senior city planner Ben Demers said, construction could start around mid-2028 (Cambridge Day, Nov 1). That is later than Wood Partners' own schedule, which had construction starting in late 2027.

The SRA meets Wednesday, November 4, at 5:30 p.m. on Zoom for updates on the project. It also plans a closed session on the value of the land, which the city assessed at $3.8 million in the spring (Cambridge Somerville Independent, Nov 1). The LDA missed its October 8 Council target, and whether the SRA saw a draft on September 30 isn't in our sources. The clock still matters: staff told the SRA that zoning not finished by the end of December has to restart its public process in January, and the LDA needs approval by both the SRA and the Council before rezoning and permitting can start (Somerville Times, Sept 9; city RFP page).

The scheme on the table is Wood Partners' three buildings of up to seven stories and 418 rental apartments on the nearly four-acre, city-owned parcel by the East Somerville Green Line station. It has 84 affordable units (20 percent, spread through the buildings) and 244 parking spaces in two underground garages. There are also 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 city has an option to drop the third building, which would leave 374 units, 75 affordable and 218 underground spaces (July 9 review presentation).

Cobble Hill pushes back

Plans shown to residents on October 1 put a new road through the Cobble Hill Apartments next door. Cobble Hill is a project-based Section 8 complex of four buildings housing about 300 older adults, people with disabilities and other income-eligible tenants. Demers said the road would give emergency and trash vehicles access to the complex's western side, including a second route for fire trucks. The plan would also remove trees and the berm that screens the complex from Washington Street, and relocate 37 of its parking spaces.

Tenants say the trees and berm are their shade and their noise barrier. "If we lose that, we lose everything," said Charlotte Shepard, a resident of more than 20 years. Miles Byrne, development director for operator Corcoran Jennison Management, is relaying their objections to the city. "This is a financial decision," he said of the proposal, but "it should be about quality of life." Not every tenant thinks the plan can be moved. Bill Mahaney, who sat on the project's Civic Advisory Committee, called it "99 percent set in stone."

McLaughlin backs the housing, retail and senior center but is negotiating for more green space: "I think this project checks a lot of boxes, but it's not checking the green space, and that's what I'm working on right now." The seniors at Cobble Hill are his "top priority," he said. Demers said the city is trying to "balance the benefits" of the landscape against the need for dense housing next to the station.

The story

Setting the table

The city took the site, the former Cobble Hill Plaza shopping center at the seam of Union Square, Brickbottom and East Somerville, by eminent domain in 2019 to build a public safety building. A valuation dispute settled in 2024 left the city facing roughly $30 million in additional acquisition costs. The plan shifted to housing, partly to recoup that money, and for years part of the lot served as a snow farm. On November 25, 2025 the Council approved the demonstration project plan, development objectives and a memorandum of agreement with the SRA (Nov 25, 2025 Council). The objectives were blunt: recoup a significant share of what the city paid, deliver mixed-income housing with ground-floor retail and community space, and build densely next to the Green Line. Only two proposals arrived by the April 10 deadline.

The Council preferred the one that left

At a May 11 special meeting the city's consultant HR&A scored Wood Partners' first offer, one seven-story building with 324 units around a 398-space garage, 37 of 45. North River Leerink's three buildings of six to 16 stories, with 426 units, a central green and 200 underground spaces, scored 29 (May 11 Council). Councilors lined up behind North River Leerink anyway. Ward 2 Councilor JT Scott called above-ground parking "a total full stop." North River Leerink withdrew at the end of June, saying it couldn't meet the city's goals and its investors' returns at once (July 9 Council).

Wood Partners' best-and-final offer came back much changed: 418 units, parking underground, three buildings, and the community space pitched as a replacement for the aging Ralph & Jenny senior center. On July 9 McLaughlin objected to the access road through the berm but conceded the plan "is better than the previous proposal." Scott urged the SRA to "walk away" rather than run "a fire sale"; At-large Councilor Ben Wheeler, the Council's SRA member, pointed to 85 income-restricted units next to the Green Line. The SRA designated Wood Partners four days later, over its Civic Advisory Committee's objection that all 418 units are rentals. The designation agreement was executed September 2 with a $50,000 deposit in escrow.

Cobble Hill's case

Property manager Kevin Wiggins's August 31 letter to the Council, which went before councilors on September 10, is the fullest public account of the advisory process (Somerville Times, Sept 11). The 12-member committee formed in January 2023 and took 17 months to set the RFP criteria. Its May 2025 recommendations asked to preserve as many trees and as much of the central berm as possible and to keep Cobble Hill's parking, trash and loading access, including the 37-space 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 finances would weigh most. Wiggins asked six questions before any LDA vote, chiefly whether financial return was weighted over the trees and berm. Cobble Hill is also seeking its own approval to add parking.

The letter puts an environmental fact on the record: contaminated historic fill beneath the eastern berm, with petroleum compounds and volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds above MassDEP cleanup standards. Left alone it isn't an imminent hazard; digging it up for the road or garages means testing, controls and off-site disposal. McLaughlin has predicted contamination could make underground parking "expensive slash impossible." Wood Partners has committed to bringing the site to "No Significant Risk" under the state cleanup law.

What still has to happen

The site needs rezoning; Wood Partners proposes a new High-Rise district or a custom special district. Its illustrative schedule put zoning and the LDA in fall 2026, site plan approval in spring 2027 and land conveyance in September 2027. Demers's mid-2028 construction start suggests that has already slipped.

What's next

November 4, 2026, 5:30 p.m.: SRA project update and closed session on the land's value.
By the end of 2026: the Council vote on the LDA that McLaughlin expects, after committee referral. Watch whether the access road and berm survive.
End of December 2026: the cutoff for zoning actions; anything unfinished restarts its public process in January 2027.
2027: rezoning, site plan approval and land sale.
Around mid-2028: construction start, if the LDA is approved this year.
Watch the soil testing against the contaminated-fill finding: if underground parking proves infeasible, the parking and open-space scheme has to be redrawn.