MaxPak Planning

During the winter of 2004 the owners of 56-61 Clyde Street, KSS Realty Partners, introduced initial plans for development of the Maxpak site, containing up to 305 units. In the summer of 2004 Mayor Joseph Curtatone and Alderman Sean O’Donovan requested that all redevelopment plans for the site be put on hold so that the City could undertake a community planning process focused on future redevelopment of the parcels. Mayor Curtatone and Alderman O’Donovan felt that both the City and residents of the surrounding neighborhoods needed time to understand the issues and opportunities the site presented. The intent of the process was to define community concerns over the redevelopment of the site, identify issues that needed to be addressed, and to develop a document to guide redevelopment of the site.

Starting in September 2004 Alderman Sean O’Donovan, in association with the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development (SPCD), held a series of meetings focusing on the site’s redevelopment. The initial meeting involved a “visioning session”, attended by 70 residents, that resulted in a general list of the community’s thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of the area. Based on the ideas generated at this meeting SPCD designed a series of five workshops focused on the following issues: traffic and transportation, site design, real estate finance, zoning and land use, environmental contamination, and open space.

In order to bring in outside experts to assist the City, SPCD asked the site owners for funds with which bring in consultants. KSS Realty made an initial contribution of $30,000 (an additional $5,000 was later added due to additional work requested by community members) to facilitate this request. Upon receiving the funds, the City engaged in a standard MGL 30B procurement procedure to obtain these professional services. The consultants were hired by the City of Somerville and were retained exclusively to assist the City with the workshop process. Furthermore, they were instructed that they would be unable to engage in subsequent work for any developer on this site without the approval of the community.

Throughout the fall of 2004 consultant presentations were made on issues identified in the visioning session. In addition to the formal presentations several Q&A and break out sessions were held. Various consultants, as well City Staff, participated in each workshop, either as presenters or facilitators of the small group breakout sessions. Copies of the presentations as well as summaries of the workshops are included in the Appendix portion of this document.

It was determined, after the final workshop in January 2005, that further work and community input would be required to complete a final document. In order to continue moving the planning process forward, Mayor Curtatone named 11 community members to the Maxpak Site Design and Development Review Committee to further develop this document. The committee represented a broad cross section of the neighborhoods surrounding the site and was chosen to represent a variety of opinions and interest groups. City Staff produced an initial draft recommendations document based on the community input from the visioning session and workshops. This document was given to the Committee in March of 2005. The Committee met nine times between March and May of 2005 working to expand and revise the a report on the process entitled: The Maxpak Community Planning Process: Concerns and Recommendations Report. A PDF version of the document is available for download on the right side of this page.

Description of Site and Context

The “Maxpak” site consists of 56 and 61 Clyde Street, two former industrial sites located between the active Lowell Branch of the MBTA Commuter Rail and an inactive rail spur (Davis Square Freight Cut-Off). The inactive spur will be converted into an extension of the Community Path that currently terminates at Cedar Street. Access to the site is currently constrained to ingress from Warwick Street and egress on Clyde Street. Cedar Street is the collector for both streets.

The site is a total of 239, 410 square feet (5.49 acres). It has dimensions of 545 linear feet in the west, 630 feet along the proposed community path, 81 in the east along Lowell Street, and 893 feet to the north abutting the Lowell Branch commuter rail tracks.

Three buildings are currently located on the site. All three are no longer in use and have fallen in to various states of disrepair. Over the past eighty years the site has been home to a number of industrial uses including a Hires Root Beer factory, package factory, construction supply, and International Paper factory. The name “Maxpak Site” is taken from one of the industrial companies that had used the site in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. The last industrial user, L Hide Construction Supplies, closed its doors in 2002. In 1999 a SABIS charter school with 108 students opened a new structure at 61 Clyde Street. The school remained in operation until 2002. Since the closing of the school the site has been primarily vacant other than occasional temporary use.  Both sites are currently owned by KSS Realty Partners.

The area surrounding the Maxpak site consists of a mixture of one, two, and multi-unit buildings with a predominance of traditional two and three family wood frame structures. Both to the east and west the residential fabric is interspersed with small industrial and commercial buildings either composed of brick or cinder block. The areas to the north and south are predominantly residential alone. To the east, the VNA Assisted Living Center is a four-story structure comprising 100 units of assisted living housing.