MIT Students Pitch to Brickbottom

Somerville, MA, Dec. 17 – Earlier this month, a team of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) gave their take on the revitalization of the Brickbottom neighborhood at a gathering of residents and community members at the Brickbottom Artists Building.

The team of graduate students from MIT’s Department of Urban Planning worked with City Hall to come up with new ideas and more options for future development of the area. The students wanted to balance the needs of the people living in the area with possible future economic development.

David Finney, one of the community members who attended the meeting, said he enjoyed hearing outside perspectives.

“Having groups come in with a vision… and particularly a vision that’s somewhat off the beaten track and focusing on makers space and fabrication space, it’s a thought provoker. I think it’s really interesting,” he told Somerville Neighborhood News.

Laying out areas of mixed industrial and fabrication alongside residential and commercial zones, the students’ plan sought to bring people and jobs to the area that now mainly houses an NSTAR Electric and Gas, a waste management company and the Brickbottom Arts Building, the only residential development in the area at the moment.

Brickbottom is one of the areas chosen for redevelopment in the Somervision plan. One reason is its proximity to the new Green Line extension stops. Another is the planned “grounding” of the McGrath Highway. Planners project that the area will be radically transformed in the years to come.

“I think anyone who has been paying relatively low rents and has been here for a while, as an artist, has some concern that their rents might go up to the extent that it’s not tenable,” said Rob Cooper, another attendee of the presentation. “And as was mentioned tonight, if that happens, the neighborhood is going to lose.”