One of the biggest topics of discussion around Watertown, these days, is the parking garage proposed to go on the lot behind CVS in Watertown Square. People ask how big, what will it look like, how much will it cost, who will pay for it? There is a key question that needs to be answered first, City Council President Mark Sideris and City Manager George Proakis said in a recent interview with Watertown News: Should the City build a garage?
Images of a garage and multi-story residential buildings appeared when the first drafts of the Watertown Square Area Plan were discussed at the Design Charette held in November 2023. More detailed mockups made it into the final Plan approved by the City Council in the summer of 2024.
In April, Proakis presented a possible public-private partnership to build what is also known as the Demonstration Project. The City would team with a private developer to build a garage on the southeast portion of the lot (including the Gray Block where Tresca’s is located), a residential building on a combination of the north section of the parking lot along Spring Street and private parcels to the north, plus a small park on the southwest section of the current municipal lot. Retail space was shown on the two ends of the garage and on one side of the residential building.
The presentation generated much discussion. Many oppose the idea of a multi-story garage and a sizable residential building on the municipal lot. A resident recently told the City Council that building a garage on the current lot would make Watertown Square feel like the center of Malden.
During one of the Watertown Square Area Plan meetings, Proakis said the City did a quick poll where people used cellphones to vote. They asked people about what they thought about various parts of the Watertown Square Area Plan.
“There was a substantially high support for improving the intersection, for making it more walkable, for providing a better strategy for flow there, for just upgrading the intersection and getting the extra open space,” Proakis recalled. “Then the talk about doing public-private partnership redevelopment with the garage was the last question we polled, and it polled more than 50% in favor. But people were not as excited about the garage as they were about the intersection.”
Before the City wades into the details of a project that would include a garage, Sideris said he wants to answer a basic, fundamental question.
“The first step that I think we have to take is to have a public discussion at the Redevelopment Authority, which is the City Council, about do we want a garage?” Sideris said. “Before we start running into questions about more housing and more retail, and how we’re going to do it, I think the fundamental question is going to be, ‘Do we want a garage?'”
Why a Garage?
The idea of a garage did not start with Proakis. Since he first got on the City Council more than 25 years ago, Sideris recalls that budgets under the previous City Manager, Michael Driscoll, included a garage in the list of desired capital projects.
“It was in the capital improvement program every year. It always had a TBD,” Sideris said. “We didn’t look into public-private partnerships, and the original plan was maybe just a deck above (the parking lot), but then we never followed through. There was a plan done, but we never decided to move forward because we didn’t have the economic opportunities to do so. It was too expensive, and we were funding other things. Then labs and things came along, and we decided to do schools instead.”
Putting a garage on the municipal lot would have benefits, Proakis said.
“The first of which is it kind of clarifies for the people driving here what the retail destination involves,” Proakis said. “There’s a single central place where you know you’re going to have access to parking, and that can better support the retail destination over the long run, and that can better support the Square over the long run.”
Sideris said that there are times when the Municipal Parking lot is full, such as some Friday nights. He is hopeful that more parking would allow for additional retail to come into Watertown Square.
“I think there’s potential of attracting some better storefronts, some better retail, some better restaurants,” Sideris said. “I’m not talking about bringing a Walmart type thing here, but we’re talking about, just picking a name, a Capital Grill in Watertown Square. Would you go? More than likely people would go.”
Proakis envisions people parking in the garage not just to go to storefronts right off the lot, but also across Main Street and even across Mt. Auburn Street.
“I think if we build a more walkable streetscape and combine it with this, the idea is going into one central place and then being willing to walk a few blocks to whatever retail may be there,” Proakis said. “Walking into the downtown from folks who live nearby is definitely the best idea.”
Adding more housing would also benefit retail in the area, he said.
“I’ve talked about how you need more housing, because I think that more people living nearby makes it easier to get more retail going,” Proakis said. “But also having centralized parking in one place and having a reliable place where you know you can go.”
The Demonstration Project proposal also includes a new park which would have retail facing it from both the garage and the retail building.
“We actually get an open space activated by retail,” said Proakis, who added that he thinks it is important for the City to own the park, rather than it be part of the privately-owned residential building.
The garage could also take pressure off the potential loss of parking in other areas, such as the lot behind the Watertown Free Public Library if the library expands.
“If you put enough spaces in that garage, when we’re talking about a library expansion — which they’re discussing for the future, that’s a part of their 10 year plus plan — then I’m not panicked about the idea that I need every parking space in the library lot,,” Proakis said. “Because I also know that I’ve got a central parking location that’s a block away.”
The library expansion could be an opportunity for affordable housing to be constructed, Proakis said.
“I don’t want to jump too far ahead, but I will just say the City of Boston is building library expansions with affordable housing and combined buildings,” Proakis said. “There are some really interesting public-private models out there. They’re doing 100% affordable with nonprofit developers attached to library expansions.”
Some have asked for housing to be constructed on top of the parking garage, along with the separate residential building. Proakis said that would increase the cost of a garage. Under the proposal he discussed in April, Proakis looked at building a garage with precast cement panels, similar to the garages at Arsenal Yards.
“Once you put something on top of it, you actually have to build a ground-up garage,” Proakis said. “The beauty of the precast is I can hang precast panels on it, that we can make them look really nice, and you can do it at a relatively affordable cost. I’m still trying to get some real numbers on what that means.”
The site comes with some limitations, Proakis said, including the Cambridge Aqueduct that runs through the site to the north of the building where Tresca’s is located and then bisecting the parking lot east of there. Also, the soil underneath the parking lot and the location near the Charles River also presents challenges.
“I can’t build an underground garage either, because of the (shallow) water table, and it’s all railroad lands,” Proakis said, who said that the area once had multiple railroad tracks. “Once you break the cap of what’s there, it’s not an official cap, but once you start digging out soil and stuff, it could be a very complicated site.”
Financing the Garage
The argument for doing both the garage and the residential building at the same time is that it would provide a growth in taxes that could be designated for constructing the garage.
“If I knew that I had a residential project going up that was going to generate $500,000 a year in taxes,” Proakis said. “And I knew I could build a garage that was going to be financeable with $500,000 a year of bonds, I would just say let’s just do the both, and even though it’s all general fund in and out, it’s all going to balance out and work fine.”
Some communities would go out and create an official district improvement financing district where the tax increment is dedicated to the bonds, Proakis said, but he believes that can be done without that step.
“I don’t actually think it’s necessary to do that, because the numbers are actually the same,” Proakis said. “It’s just a whole bunch more paperwork in process.”
By constructing the garage and the residential building as a single project, it may be provide an opportunity to do a project that costs less than building them as two separate projects.
“If I do the Demonstration Project, I will build a project that is likely more financeable that can fund tax increment to pay for a parking garage, and potentially put ourselves in a situation where we can do a lower cost project by having one entity do the whole thing,” Proakis said. “And it’s possible then that if they’re working on the retail on both of these sides, they can create a centralized retail strategy around the green space that makes it more viable and more interesting.”
The projects could be done separately. To do so, the City would have to borrow money to build the garage, Proakis said.
The developers that approached the City to do a joint project, Hg80 Real Estate, have an agreement with the owner of four properties just north of the Municipal Parking Lot, but the proposed Demonstration Project would also include the City selling a portion of the parking lot to add to the residential project. There is also a building which they do not have an agreement to purchase: the building is on Summer Street, west of the property that Hg80 has an agreement and east of the First Parish Church property that also has a Watertown Savings Bank drive-through branch.
Proakis said it is possible, in theory, to build a residential building only on the four properties, but he is not sure how easy it would be to get financing.
Making the Decision
Sideris would like to start the public discussion about whether or not to build a garage, soon. He wants to start this summer, and it could be as soon as early July. Having a decision will allow the planning to start, or to move on to other parts of the greater Watertown Square redevelopment.
“If everybody’s going to say we hate the garage, we don’t want the garage, then I’m not going to waste a lot of time,” Sideris said. “I’m not going to waste months and months of discussions to come to the same conclusion.”
While Proakis’ proposal was presented in public in April, and an open house was held in May for the public to look at the plans and give input, there has not been an official public meeting.
“The Council hasn’t weighed in yet,” Sideris said.
Public reaction so far has shown Sideris that the decision will not be an easy one.
“This is going to be one of those, you’re going to make half the people mad and the other half of the people are going to be happy,” Sideris said. “It’s a tough decision, and either way, it’s not going to sit well with some people.”
And if the Council doesn’t want a garage?
“If it’s not a good idea, then all of the other stuff doesn’t work,” Proakis said. “At that point, we’ll spend time on the streetscape, for the most part, and we’ll keep working with the private development world on whatever lots they want to put together (around Watertown Square) and what they want to do. And then we’ll just keep our surface lots as our surface lots.”
See the Watertown Square Improvement website by clicking here. See the virtual open house by clicking here.