The City Council got a mix of opinions about the possibility of building a multi-story parking garage in the Municipal Parking Lot in Watertown Square on Monday night.
The meeting was the first time that the Council got the opportunity to discuss the proposal that City Manage George Proakis presented in April, which also showed a potential multifamily residential building, and a green space on what is now the parking lot behind CVS.
Most of the Council did not weigh in at the April 10 meeting, and no vote was taken during the meeting held the Watertown Free Public Library.
City Council President Mark Sideris said the central question of whether the City should build a garage would be the only topic of the evening.
“Before we begin discussing any specifics, like what should this garage look like, or how many floors would we want this garage to be? The question of do we want a garage needs to be answered first. The answer to that question then unlocks other decisions that can or will be made,” Sideris said. “What that also means is that tonight we’re not discussing topics related to housing. We’re not discussing topics including portable housing, open space, or anything to do with the streetscape. Those are all very, very important topics, but they are for a future meeting.”
Garages in Other Communities
Proakis made a short presentation at the meeting,
“So the core question: Do we think a structured parking garage should be a part of the future of Watertown Square? And to do that, I’m going to flip the question over a different way, and ask: As I see it, do we want to maintain about four acres of surface parking with our valuable land in the Square?” Proakis said. “Because if we want to do something else with this land, I’ll take the position that I truly believe we need to build structured parking to do it.”
He pointed to some examples of other communities that constructed centralized parking in a garage and have been able to develop in their city centers, including Salem, Lowell, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
“When we consolidate the parking vertically, it releases land to do other things: housing, ground floor retail,” Proakis said. “There is the Community Path extension, and there is a green space in the particular plan we have that are specific to the possibility of doing the garage. I don’t think are easy to do without putting the parking in a structure, and it adds off-street capacity.”
Currently, Watertown has about 350 spaces stretching between the lot behind CVS and the Watertown Library. A garage could fit between 250 and 600 vehicles, Proakis said, depending on the size. At the meeting in April, a five story garage was one of the proposals.
The redesign of the parking lot is one part of the Watertown Square Area Plan, which also includes reconfiguring the intersection in Watertown Square, and zoning changes to make it easier to build multi-unit residential developments in Square and along the major corridors off the intersection.
One goal is to make Watertown Square a more walkable area. Proakis said a contradiction of building areas where people want to walk is they often drive to get there.
“To quote one planner I know, ‘if you create a walkable place, people are going to want to drive there,’ and that is a part of the story,” Proakis said. “As unfortunate and frustrating as it may be, as much as I don’t want to build parking garages as my City Manager legacy, it is something I’m bringing to the Council because I think it’s a good idea because it opens up the ability for walkable places.”
Proakis pointed to a local example, and those in other communities.
“I think Arsenal Yards is a very interesting success story,” Proakis said. “You know, you can pick on the edges of it, but I think by structuring parking and opening up opportunities, we open up economic development. It’s a very real, very local difference.”
Lowell built two garages that allowed old mill buildings to be turned into housing, commercial space, and artists lofts, said Proakis, who used to work in that City. The garages support an arena, and an expanded high school, and Lowell hosts a summer concert series.
Salem created a pedestrian-only street, expanded the Peabody Essex Museum, and opened space on the waterfront after building two garages, Proakis said.
Portsmouth, which is smaller than Watertown, built a centralized parking garage. Since then, the city has built a musical performance space, restaurants, and new hotels while preserving historic buildings, Proakis said.
Public Reaction
More than 30 people spoke during the meeting, both in person and via Zoom, and provided a range of views from adamantly opposed to a garage to strong support to build a centralized parking structure.
Several people said they would not park in a garage, and do not use the ones at Arsenal Yards. Others said they believe the current surface lot is enough, and they rarely have difficulty finding a spot.
Residents worried about the impact a multi-story garage would have on the nearby neighborhood. Reacting to Proakis’ presentation, some said they do not see Watertown as a tourist destination like Salem or Portsmouth.
Some commented that people will always need to drive to the Square, whether they are older adults, someone with disabilities, or when the weather is hot or icy.
Those in favor of a garage said it would allow for more businesses to open in Watertown Square, such as restaurants, a bookstore, and possibly a community-run food co-op. Others said they like the idea of reducing the footprint of parking in the area behind CVS.
Several people stated concerns that Watertown Square would become overdeveloped.
A few people noted a garage could provide parking during the winter parking ban for vehicles on residential streets. Others worried that the garage would be filled by commuters and/or vehicles from people living in the approved and future new residential buildings in the area.
One of the abutters of both the proposed garage and the residential building discussed in April is the First Parish Church of Watertown. Speakers were concerned that the property would be in shadows created by the garage, and views from inside the church would be of the new building and garage.
The owner of one of the buildings that would be demolished to make way for the residential building said she opposed the garage.
The area where the garage is proposed to go includes the Gray Block, which is home to Tresca’s Eating Place, Gray Laundromat, and Salon Sabrina. One of the owners of the laundromat said he is not necessarily opposed to the garage, but he wants to be assured the business would be compensated and a relocation plan would be created.
The owner of a restaurant wanted to know what the plan is for the existing businesses when the garage is being constructed.
Many of the speakers said they had a difficult time evaluating a possible garage without knowing more about the size, number of spaces, and what else is planned to go with it.
Council’s Perspective
The nine members of the City Council listened to the comments from the public, but only one chose to speak at Monday’s meeting.
City Council Vice President Vincent Piccirilli said that during the creation of the Watertown Square Area Plan, the Council heard from many who wanted to see more open space, more grass and trees. He said a small park is planned on the east side of the current Municipal Lot. He added that restaurants and businesses in the Square need the Municipal Parking Lot because they don’t have their own lots.
“So we have these two things that are in sort of tension, and I think the question is, if we want to add green space and take away parking spaces, we need to replicate those parking spaces somewhere else,” Piccirilli said. “And a garage, like it or not, is pretty much the only solution that we have.”
Piccirilli added that the idea of the parking lot garage is not new, and did not originate with Proakis. A Watertown Tab story from 2006 references discussion about building a parking deck on the Municipal Lot in Watertown Square, and City officials have found a recommendation in the City’s Capital plan for a parking deck in Fiscal Year 2008.
In 2022, one of the the City Council’s Budget Policy Guidelines called for the Watertown Square Area Plan with one of the goals being making better use of City-owned land, including the parking lot and the former Police Station. The Watertown Square Area Plan, approved by the City Council in July 2024, includes looking at potential of building a parking garage on the Municipal Lot. He
“That was just a placeholder. So here we are, a year and a half, two years later, as it were, and it is now before us to decide what to do,” Piccirilli said. “So that’s our job: to decide what to do.”
He continued later, “I think we need to go through that public process and begin doing more work in determining what the answers to those are, and I don’t really know what the answer is going to be. Is it going to be a five-story garage? Probably not. Is it going to be a smaller garage? Probably yes. What is it going to look like? I have no idea.”
To get the answers to those questions, Piccirilli said, the City administration and the City Council will have to start looking more deeply into a potential garage. Piccirilli noted, quoting former City Manager Michael Driscoll, that “the devil is in the details.”
“We’re going to have to make the trade-offs. I’m willing to start on that journey, make that process, dig into the details,” Piccirilli said. “But if you want to say so, at that point, ask the question: Do we need a parking garage now? I think if we want to achieve the goals we’ve laid out in the Watertown Square Plan, we need to have some storage structured parking. What that’s going to look like, how big is it going to be? I don’t know. So, but I’m willing to start on that journey.”
The City Council will have future meeting to decide whether a garage should be built, Sideris said.
“We’ll do a debrief and we’re going to have another meeting. I want it to be a conversation that we can continue to have respectfully,” Sideris said.
Watch Watertown Cable Access TV’s coverage of the Aug. 10 meeting by clicking here.
See the draft of the Demonstration Project (the garage, residential building, and park) presented in April by clicking here.
A video of the presentation can be seen here.
The City of Watertown hosted an open house about the proposal in May. See the documents here.