Construction Mitigation Assistance for Businesses

Construction Mitigation

Construction will help Somerville create and maintain the infrastructure it needs to function and even bring the Green Line Extension into the city. These much-needed benefits don’t make it any easier for businesses to cope with the disruption that construction projects inevitably bring. Our team is dedicated to making the best of construction for our businesses.

Communicate the information our businesses need to know to plan around disruption.

Economic Development has worked with other departments to ensure that new hires in Communications and Engineering are available to proactively provide information to businesses about construction, detours, and service disruptions. These hires also help answer questions and solve problems—like trying to schedule service disruptions during the least convenient times for as many businesses as possible.

The team also maintains a construction mailing list specifically for businesses about the resources and information available to them. This is in addition to the City’s robust construction newsletter, which describes construction progress in detail on a regular basis.

Our team has also been out in the streets block walking and tabling at events on a regular basis, so most of the businesses affected by construction have met an Economic Development team member in person.

Strengthen businesses so they are well-positioned to come out of construction ready to thrive.

Technical assistance events focusing on topics like Planning for Disruption featuring lawyers, financial planners, and legal experts or Marketing for Disruption featuring marketing experts have helped business owners better plan for construction and benefit from the lessons experts have learned working with other businesses who have dealt with construction.

The Economic Development team’s new Small Business Support program was designed so that it could provide one-on-one expert coaching to businesses that are suffering from construction as well. This will enable businesses to have access to the financial planning, business planning, marketing, and human resource expertise they need to plan for growth and sustainability.

Attract customers to our districts regardless of construction.

Placemaking events like the Ball for Squares, hosted in conjunction with the Ball Square Business Association and Somerville Local First, are a great opportunity to bring new customers to the commercial districts who need additional foot traffic. In Union Square, Union Square Main Streets has, with the help of City funding, provided events, technical assistance, and support for businesses.

The City has also been working on the #loyal2local campaign to encourage residents to not only shop local but also to shop at construction-affected businesses specifically. In addition to social media, this campaign will involve traditional print media, banners and other marketing materials in the square, and ads. Check out @SomervilleBusinesses on Instagram to follow along, and post your own photos to promote the effort.