SomerWiki A source-grounded wiki about Somerville, Massachusetts

Davis Square: the plan and the tower that didn't happen

Updated November 7, 2026

What's happening

With Copper Mill's tower withdrawn on August 31, Somerville's neighborhood plan for Davis Square is all that's left to decide the square's future. Whatever gets built at 231-249 Elm Street and across the square will follow whatever zoning the plan produces (Cambridge Day, Aug 31). The plan's visioning phase is wrapping up. Its September engagement round is done: Walk & Talk sessions September 10, an open house at the Crystal Ballroom September 16 and a virtual Q&A September 17. The Baseline and Visioning Survey closed September 27 (project page). The Planning Division counts nine engagement activities over August and September, and says the Community Feedback Summary and survey results will be out "in the coming weeks" (Planning Division newsletter, Oct 30). Meanwhile staff are holding internal cross-division workshops to draft the Phase 3 recommendations, with an implementation matrix that assigns departments, timelines and funding sources, and preliminary sketches. Analysis of the tradeoffs and a draft report come before the next engagement round (Planning Division newsletter, Sept 25). Walk & Talk participants asked for support for local retail, mixed-use buildings with housing on the upper floors, and safer streets. No survey results are in our sources yet.

Mayor Jake Wilson has named the question the plan has to answer. The square isn't zoned for residential use today, and he says the tower's collapse "brought urgency": "We want to have residential development in Davis Square. Where should that be? What are people willing to look at in terms of heights?" (Tufts Daily, Sept 18). Somerville YIMBY's answer is a lot more housing. In a November 6 op-ed, three of its members argued that if demand keeps its recent pace, the city needs roughly 11,000 more homes to reach the high end of its own 2016 forecast for 2030. Every housing plan, "especially the upcoming Davis Square Plan," must include "building substantially more housing," they wrote (Cambridge Somerville Independent; Zoning amendments in motion in 2026).

The real fight is over the timeline. Wilson told Cambridge Day his "stretch goal" is to implement the plan in the first quarter of 2027, with the first half of 2027 more realistic. Copper Mill CEO Andrew J. Flynn's withdrawal letter says the city projected completion in November 2027, with zoning adoption running into 2028. The two accounts don't match, and that gap is the reason Flynn gave for quitting.

The story

Eleven years without a plan

Council President Lance Davis, the Ward 6 councilor, dates the effort to 2015, when then-Mayor Joseph Curtatone floated lab development for the square. "That was 2015. We still don't have a finalized approved neighborhood plan," he said on January 22, 2026, when his resolution asking the administration to prioritize the plan passed (digest). The revival is recent. At June 17 budget hearings, Planning Director Daniel Bartman said his division was fully staffed for the first time in years. Tom Galligani, executive director of Strategy and Development, listed the plan first among his priorities (digest). The Technical Advisory Committee first met in August, and the DSNC has a seat on it (Planning Division newsletter, Aug 28).

The storefronts in the meantime

The square's most visible problem is empty ground floors. The biggest cluster belongs to the same collapsed lab market that hollowed out the tax base. Asana, the North Carolina developer that owns the block around 260 Elm Street, cleared its tenants in 2022 for a 120,000 sq ft lab-focused redevelopment called 7th Spoke. Then lab demand collapsed, the plan froze and the storefronts went dark. The city has put a volunteer-run pop-up gallery, Diamond Factory, in Asana's former Starbucks space, with a ribbon cutting October 17 (City of Somerville, Sept 23). Yafa Bakery & Café plans a second location in the old Posto space at 187 Elm Street (Cambridge Somerville Independent, Sept 22). The Rosebud diner at 381 Summer Street has been dark since May. Its landlord, Martin Bloom, says the tower plans themselves kept new businesses away while they waited for demolition. He hopes a new restaurant there will be "part of getting Davis back" (Boston.com, Oct 27). See The lab glut and the tax base and Arts and culture.

Why the plan now decides everything

For three years the square's planning ran alongside a private 40B application for a 500-unit tower, and each one poisoned the other. Wilson says the tower "cast a shadow over every single [zoning and planning] decision, every bylaw, so it'll be nice to have this discussion without that specter looming over everything." Flynn says the city kept moving the plan's finish line, so he could never get a zoning answer. They are describing the same deadlock from opposite sides. Christopher Beland, vice president of the DSNC, said Copper Mill needed zoning approvals by the end of 2026, and "it was pretty clear the neighborhood plan wasn't going to be ready in time for that." He wants the plan to "give builders more certainty, and hopefully unblock the stalled redevelopment."

With the tower gone, the plan has no forcing deadline and no adversary, and nobody is holding the city to a date. Nothing in the record commits the administration to a completion month. The YIMBY op-ed's point about time applies here. A fast project takes three to four years even after zoning allows it, so whatever the plan permits will take years more to become homes.

The tower that didn't happen

On August 31, 2026, Flynn wrote to the DSNC that "we will not be moving forward with our transit-oriented housing development in Davis Square." That ended three years of work on a roughly 500-unit tower at 231-249 Elm Street and 6-8 and 12 Grove Street (letter). In December 2025 a Copper Mill affiliate had asked MassHousing for a Chapter 40B eligibility letter, the state route around local zoning. The proposal was a 26-story, 502-unit high-rise with 126 income-restricted units on a block zoned for four stories (Cambridge Day, Apr 26). MassHousing paused and asked for less height and density. A March community meeting got heated enough that Wilson compared it to "a WWF event." Four April redesigns stayed around 500 units at 24 to 26 stories. The DSNC was negotiating a community benefits agreement when the letter arrived.

Flynn blamed the city: "there has been no reciprocity from the City's leadership over the past three years." He said the city steered him toward 40B and then refused to co-sign. Wilson called the idea that the city played a major role "pretty laughable" and said "we were never asked to co-sign anything that I know of." He blamed the state (Cambridge Day, Aug 31).

The argument over what went wrong has moved to the op-ed pages. In a September 30 Somerville Times commentary, Ben Orenstein, founder of the Somerville Beacon, called the collapse "a tremendous loss" (Somerville Times). He listed what he says the developer had offered: more than $5 million in one-time permitting fees and $2 million a year in new tax revenue, two retail spaces for the city at no cost, a Project Labor Agreement, and a new home for The Burren at its old rent with its woodwork restored. He faulted "our elected officials' lack of public support for the project." Local reaction was mixed, though. Beland personally thought it "looked like a really good project." Paul Christie of the Davis Square Merchants Association "wasn't a big fan." Tommy McCarthy of The Burren wants whatever comes next to avoid "some kind of a glass house town" (Tufts Daily, Sept 18).

The site now waits on the plan. Myer Dana and Sons owns the land, and Flynn held a 99-year lease. Wilson says the owner has extended leases for The Burren and Dragon Pizza, on terms he couldn't confirm. No successor proposal is in the record. That leaves untested a question the tower raised: whether Somerville's 2.5 percent affordable land-area "safe harbor" really protects it from 40B.

What's next

  • Coming weeks: the Community Feedback Summary and survey results.
  • Date not set: the ZBA's postponed deliberation on the eight-story Teele Square hotel, the nearest live test of how much height West Somerville will accept.
  • After that: a new engagement round on draft recommendations, then the Phase 3 draft plan. Then a zoning amendment goes through the Land Use Committee, the Planning Board and the full Council (Zoning amendments in motion in 2026, Before the boards). Wilson's stretch goal is the first quarter of 2027. Flynn cites a city projection of November 2027, with adoption running into 2028. Land Use chair Ben Ewen-Campen leaves the Council December 31 (Three Council seats turn over).
  • Private-sector watch: whether Asana's 7th Spoke returns or the block goes back on the market, when Yafa opens at 187 Elm Street, whether Myer Dana and Sons markets the tower site again, and who takes over the Rosebud.