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

Updated September 26, 2026

What's happening

Somerville is in the public-engagement phase of a neighborhood plan for Davis Square, and it is the only game in town for the square's future: with Copper Mill's tower withdrawn on August 31, whatever gets built at 231-249 Elm Street and on the rest of the square will be shaped by whatever zoning this plan produces (Cambridge Day, Aug 31). The September engagement round has run: Walk & Talk sessions on September 10, an open house at the Crystal Ballroom on September 16 with a SWOT exercise and live co-authoring of a community vision statement, and a virtual Q&A on September 17 (what came out of them is not in our sources yet). The 15-minute Baseline and Visioning Survey stays open through Sunday, September 27 (survey; project page), and its results feed Phase 3, the draft plan.

Mayor Jake Wilson has said what the plan has to answer. The square is not zoned for residential use today, and the tower's collapse "brought urgency" to the plan: "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).

The timeline is where the fight is. Wilson told Cambridge Day his "stretch goal" for implementing the plan is 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 is projecting completion by November 2027, with zoning adoption running into 2028; the two accounts do not reconcile, and the gap is exactly what Flynn quit over.

The story

Eleven years of not having a plan

Ward 6 Councilor Lance Davis dates the effort to 2015, when then-Mayor Joseph Curtatone floated lab development for Davis Square and Davis asked for a community conversation first. "That was 2015. We still don't have a finalized approved neighborhood plan," he told the Council on January 22, 2026, when his resolution asking the administration to prioritize the plan passed (council digest, Jan 22). Flynn's letter dates the process to 2019 instead; either way it predates the current administration.

The revival is recent. At FY27 budget hearings on June 17, Planning Director Daniel Bartman said his division was fully staffed for the first time in years and the plan had launched with a technical advisory committee; Tom Galligani, executive director of Strategy and Development (the former Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development), listed it first among his priorities (council digest, Jun 17). Galligani told Cambridge Day on August 31 that his team spent early 2026 "doing all the background research and getting up to speed," with the fall reserved for engagement.

What has happened since: the Technical Advisory Committee first met in August (August 11, per the DSNC's calendar) to onboard, review past plans and "align on core values," with notes posted on SomerVoice (Planning Division newsletter, Aug 28); staff tabled in Statue Park on August 14 and 15, the plan's first public event; then came the September walks, open house and survey (Davis Square Neighborhood Council emails, Aug 14 and 26).

The storefronts in the meantime

The square's most visible problem is not zoning but empty ground floors, and the biggest cluster belongs to the same lab market that hollowed out the city's tax base. Asana, the North Carolina developer that owns the block around 260 Elm Street, closed its tenants in 2022 for what was supposed to be 14 months of construction on a 120,000 sq ft, lab-focused redevelopment called 7th Spoke; the collapse of lab demand froze the plan and left the storefronts dark. Starbucks emptied 260 Elm Street too. The city has put a volunteer-run pop-up gallery there under a short-term lease with Asana, run by Susan Berstler of the Nave Gallery, now named Diamond Factory and opening in October for three to four months, with a ribbon cutting October 17 (Cambridge Somerville Independent, Sept 14; City of Somerville, Sept 23). The Somerville Foundation has filled Statue Park and Asana's plaza with free concerts and events since the spring.

One vacancy is filling the ordinary way. Yafa Bakery & Café, the Mediterranean bakery that opened on Somerville Avenue in Ward 2 in June 2022, plans a second location at 187 Elm Street, the old Posto site, empty since Posto moved to Assembly Square in November 2024. Founder Abdullah Awad toured the space September 11, and staff confirmed September 22 that the expansion is still on, with no further details. "A big complaint is that we'd love to see our empty storefronts filled, so it's very exciting," said Elaine Almquist, president of the Davis Square Neighborhood Council (Cambridge Somerville Independent, Sept 22). See The lab glut and the tax base for the market behind the vacancies and Arts and culture for the gallery.

Why this is now the whole ballgame

For three years the square's planning conversation ran in parallel with a private 40B application for a 500-unit tower, and the two poisoned each other. Wilson's version: 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's version: the city kept moving the plan's finish line, and without it he could never get a zoning answer. Both are describing the same deadlock.

Christopher Beland, vice president of the DSNC, said Copper Mill had 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 produce zoning updates that "give builders more certainty, and hopefully unblock the stalled redevelopment" in the square. The DSNC has a standing committee on the plan and a seat on its technical advisory committee (council digest, Jul 9).

The practical effect of the tower's collapse is that the plan now has no forcing deadline, no adversary, and no one holding the city to a date. Nothing in the record commits the administration to a completion month.

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," ending 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 applied to MassHousing for a Chapter 40B eligibility letter, the state route around local zoning: 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 the comment period and asked for less height and density; a March community meeting got so heated that Wilson likened it to "a WWF event"; four April redesigns stayed around 500 units at 24 to 26 stories, and 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," the city steered him toward 40B and then refused to co-sign, and the plan's finish line kept moving. Wilson called the idea that the city played a major role "pretty laughable," said "we were never asked to co-sign anything that I know of," and blamed the state (Cambridge Day, Aug 31). Beland personally thought it "looked like a really good project"; Paul Christie of the Davis Square Merchants Association "wasn't a big fan," and 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, Flynn held a 99-year lease, and Wilson says the owner has extended leases for The Burren and Dragon Pizza on terms he could not confirm. No successor proposal exists in the record. The question the tower raised, whether Somerville's 2.5 percent affordable land-area "safe harbor" really immunizes it from 40B, goes untested.

What's next

  • September 27, 2026 — Baseline and Visioning Survey closes; it feeds Phase 3, the draft plan.
  • September 28, 2026 — the DSNC general meeting, 6 to 8 p.m. at the Crystal Ballroom, with the plan on its agenda; the Council's September 24 recognition vote came first (outcome not in our sources yet).
  • September 30, 2026 — the ZBA hears the Teele Square hotel variances, the nearest live test of what West Somerville will accept in height.
  • After that: the Phase 3 draft plan, then a zoning amendment 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 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 is re-marketed, when Yafa opens at 187 Elm Street, and whether Myer Dana and Sons markets the tower site again.