Arsenal Mall Owners Reveal Some Visions for Revamping Their Property

Michael Dattoli

A conceptual diagram showing what the renovated Arsenal Mall could look like. The yellow buildings are new ones, with the red ones being the long, historic Arsenal buildings. The long black building is Home Depot, which the mall owners do not own.

Residents got a clearer picture of what to expect if the owners of the former Arsenal Mall get the OK to redevelop their property at a meeting Saturday where there were also some mending of fences that were damaged during previous meetings.

A complex of smaller buildings with shops and residences would replace the open parking lot currently in front of the Arsenal Project. In addition the newer section of the mall linking the two long historic buildings would be taken down and the historic buildings would be made more inviting.

The development could be made if and when the Regional Mixed Use District zoning is approved, which includes not on the Arsenal Project, but the Watertown Mall, other properties east of the mall on Arsenal Street and sections of Elm Street and Coolidge Avenue. The RMUD is currently being considered for approval by the Town Council.

The vision was shared by Tom Wilder of Wilder Companies, a partner in the redevelopment project, and by architect Eric Brown of Prellwitz Chilinski Associates (PCA) at a meeting organized and hosted by the owners of the mall – Boylston Properties.

The types of places people want to shop in and visit has changed, said Wilder, whose company had built and run shopping centers in places around the Northeast, Florida and Chicago, among others.

“Six-hundred feet of asphalt before you get to the mall is not what people want,” Wilder said. “There is great potential with the (Charles) River, but now if you are at the mall you wouldn’t know it is there.”

The goal is to bring in a more interesting mix of retail options, along with restaurants, and potentially a grocery store and a movie theater, Wilder said.

Brown showed the group gathered at the Innovation Space in the mall his thinking about how to change the mall. He plans to keep the three vehicle entryways along Arsenal Street and use the corridors as ways to get around, as well as turning them into public spaces with places to walk around, benches to sit on and areas with grass and trees.

“We want to enliven the outside space so you are able to ride your bike up to a yogurt place and get a yogurt and leave your bike outside and not even lock it up because it is right outside and you can see it,” Brown said.

Michael Dattoli

An illustration by architect Eric Brown showing traffic patters, and open spaces. The orange shows new buildings, and yellow shows public gathering areas.

{This story was updated on Jan. 13 with more information added about the possible tall building in the renovated mall}

While retail will occupy the bottom floor, there will also be residential components of these buildings. McQuillan said the buildings on the Arsenal Street side would not be the tall one that has been discussed at previous public meetings, and was the subject of much contention.

“They will all be three, four or five stories. No taller than that,” McQuillan said. “It will be retail with three to four stories of residential on top.”

McQuillan did not rule out having a taller building, in the 10-15 story range, on the side closer to Greenough Boulevard and the Charles River.

While much of the current parking lot will now have buildings, parking garages will be added. They will be smaller ones, under some of the buildings, Wilder said. Jeff Heidelberg, project manager for Boylston Properties, said there will likely be between 1,000 and 1,200 parking spaces for that area.

Comparable Projects

The developers and designers made a comparison to the Assembly Row complex in Somerville, which has retail with residential on top.

Councilor Susan Falkoff said she visited Assembly Row and she said she did not like the experience.

Brown said, “We are going to have better outside space.” And later added, “Assembly Row is more dense and has less open space than we will have.”

Residents wondered what similar projects the Wilder Companies have built. Wilder said the closest project is Garden City Center in Cranston, R.I., and there are others in Florida. Brown said it may be similar to The Street in Chestnut Hill and MarketStreet in Lynnfield, which his firm worked on for another developer.

Brown’s vision for the long buildings, which used to be part of the Watertown Arsenal, is to have outward facing storefronts and restaurants, including some that would look over Arsenal Park and the Charles River.

Details on the Property

Bill McQuillan, founding principal of Boylston Properties, said his firm owns the current Arsenal Project, including the GolfSmith, but not the building used by Home Depot or the parking lot in back of that store. They do, however, own One Arsenal Street, which is where the Miller’s Ale House and office space is located. He added that a strip of land around the back parking lot links the One Arsenal Street with the mall for a total of about 300,000 square feet of retail and office space. Under the RMUD zoning, the total amount of floor space allowed on the property, Heidelberg said, would be about 1.8 million square feet.

When the property was purchased, McQuillan said he hoped that work would begin by spring of 2016. Now he believes it will start no sooner than the spring of 2017. He noted that even after the RMUD is approved, they would then the designers would need about 3-4 months to come up with a proposal, then that would need to go through the town’s master plan approval process – 3-4 months – and the Mass Environmental Protection Act process, which would take 9-12 months.

Mended Fences

Saturday’s meeting was much more informal that previous ones held during official Town Council and Planning Board meetings. It also did not have the same contentious atmosphere, which Town Councilor Angeline Kounelis noted.

“I sense that folks feathers have been smoothed a little from previous meetings,” said Kounelis, who said she could not tell exactly what the new project would look like because the views were from overhead. “For residents, we need more of a sense of density. Now I am hearing from people who supported the (Marriott) hotel that it’s so big.

“I don’t want to hear that about this project.”

McQuillan acknowledged that the previous meetings about the RMUD had not gone well.

“It was a busy October, November, December. For all of us contributing to this, it is a New Year,” McQuillan said.

Resident Requests

Some of those attending the meeting also had suggestions and requests. A few mentioned approving the RMUD zoning just for the Boylston Properties parcels. Assistant Town Manager Steve Magoon said that is possible, but he noted that the larger area being considered was called for being part of the RMUD in the Comprehensive Plan.

“If the public feels that’s the way to go, that is something we can consider,” he said.

Magoon and others in the Community Development and Planning Department have also been asked why not they did not propose an overlay zoning for the area, such as what is happening with athenahealth’s proposal for the Arsenal on the Charles.

“A floating zone like that is a tool to enhance and build upon the base zone,” Magoon said. “For the Arsenal on the Charles Complex that makes sense. For the RMUD, the zoning is I-1, the most intense, heavy industrial zone in town. It doesn’t make sense for there to be heavy industrial, which is why we are talking about a new base zone.”

Some residents said Magoon and others to use complicated planning language when the talk about projects, and asked if they could describe it using words that the general public can understand.