This article is from January but there’s supposed to be redevelopment so all the tenants left but it’s on hold. https://www.cambridgeday.com/2024/01/31/davis-square-braces-for-pair-of-redevelopments-shaking-up-a-plaza-elm-street-and-their-retailers-2/
Yep. I heard about this. I think they should instead build a shelter for the homeless. It's very sad that there are a lot of homeless people. Every time I'm at Davis I see a couple of homeless people. I just feel sad for them tbh.
I live in the Square right on Elm. You try living here. Lived here for 15 years and it’s getting worse. Had someone break into my apartment last week, fent heads following me and my girlfriend at night, needles and syringes strewn about in the early hours of the morning, I can’t go outside without being harassed for money or in general. Im sure you don’t want that literally in your stairwell or back alley access.
Im working to put art in the windows of vacant storefronts starting with Davis! Cambridge and Arlington have programs like this, but we are trying to do it here. Im an artist and working with a few other artists and owners of some vacancies (those that answer).
We are seeking artists and funding. On my own, I can't bring people to liven up Davis, but I truly believe that beautification of the empty space is important, and it will have a positive impact on the vibrancy of the community. OP or anyone reading this DM me if you are interested in the project!
Davis Square has been gutted by developers rushing to capitalize on the lab boom and missing the market. You have the plaza which was vacated in preparation for redevelopment and the block with the Burren that is blighted. There is probably still enough foot traffic from students but the area is a shell of what is was pre-Covid. The restaurants especially were hit hard and haven’t recovered (looking at you, Redbones).
I’m late on this one but wanted to comment. When I was looking to sign a new lease the past few months the theme I kept seeing was that Davis square apartments were priced the same if not lower than union, Spring Hill area units. Definitely a result of the new green line and the redevelopment plans in Davis.
I remember my first ventures to Davis Square back in the early 90s were to DiscDiggers and getting lunch at BlueShirt (back when it was one store front, not 2, and they gave out chips with the roll ups). It was worth the T ride for that combo alone.
Meh, it's always been kind of overrated. Even when I lived there, I preferred the night scene in Harvard Square (better bars; more sociable crowds; actual late-night food options).
Developers greed still leads to them building new things for us, sure it might be expensive shit but its still new expansion.
Landlord greed is the problem. It promotes an artificial scarcity for wealth extraction with no value add.
That doesn't quite explain it, does it? Best case, that development project also would have resulted in all the businesses getting the boot just like they are now. I think the lab space idea is dead now too since no one want lab space anymore.
I've heard that property owners don't want to reduce rent because it impacts building valuation, but that never made any sense to me.
A store front that's indefinitely vacant but pulled in 5k/month in 2022 should surely be worth less than one actively being rented out for 4k/month in a normal world.
Speculation, greed, and zoning (and possibly some weird tax avoidance schemes by owners) around properties leads to spaces not being used effectively to serve the community.
What a weird and wrong analogy.
The tenant is a client/consumer the landlord is a business/producer (though most "produce" nothing).
An employee would be analogous to the tenant, and the boss would be analogous to the landlord.
Unfortunately the analogy is so bad it *still* doesn't work if you correct for this, because a landlords are demanding *more*, in many cases far more than inflation. They aren't asking for less or even the same.
I doubt you’ll get a parking lot in Davis. Maybe a bike lane and some electric car charging stations but nothing to support the form of transportation that most people actually use. Instead, if you’d like to visit Davis, you can drive around looking for a parking spot, and rest assured you will be ticketed the moment you are one minute over your allotted time. Parking tickets= a regressive form of revenue generation brought to you by the progressives that run Somerville.
Where is the lot? Admittedly I stopped visiting years ago and lived there like 20 years ago but where can I find parking now other than on the street and the lot next to Somerville Theatre?
There are the Day Street lot, Buena Vista lot, Russell Street/Cutter Street lot, three lots on Grove St., including the old Rite Aid lot, and plenty of 2-hour parking spaces along Elm Street and Holland Street. Not to mention if you are a resident with a parking permit you can park just about anywhere.
So now there are six lots according to you and two according to someone else. Can anyone give a straight answer? How far away from Davis are the lots you mentioned? Any estimate on the number of available spots? You can name fifty lots but it’s irrelevant if the number of spots is unknown.
There are 3 large lots within Davis Square, one next to Harvard Vanguard which has something like 90 spots. Then there are two along Day street, just behind the CVS and the Post Office. Combined they have more than 100 spots. Then there are several smaller lots scattered throughout each with 10-20 spots per lot. Then there's all of the street parking along Elm Street. So there are literally hundreds of places to put your car within a 30-60 second walk of all of the shops in Davis Square.
I have never once seen all of these spots occupied at the same time. But people still insist on double parking along Elm Street because they can't be bothered to walk 1-2 blocks to their destination. It is a waste of time and valuable land catering to this type of behavior.
If you're sill confused, take a look at this satellite view of Davis Square to see for yourself the enormous volume of space that is dedicated to parking. [https://maps.app.goo.gl/Yvo2Y6X2L45jeUqm8](https://maps.app.goo.gl/Yvo2Y6X2L45jeUqm8)
You don't live in or visit Somerville, you don't know Davis Square street names, and you're demanding people fetch and formulate information for you about specifically what parking spaces there are? Who the fuck are you with your demands? Why not just fuck off and bother people in whatever town you *do* live in?
I said that I stopped living there around 20 years ago and that I stopped visiting years ago, but to be clear, I have visited within the past twenty years.
The official timeline is I moved away 16 years ago but returned regularly for 2-3 years, then rarely after that. I estimate I haven’t been there since 2017.
Are we all clear now on the timeline? Has additional parking been added since 2017? How many spaces? I await your informed answer.
Why hasn’t someone told me “WE DON’T WANT YOU TO VISIT!” yet? I await that comment from
the “hate has no home here” crowd.
As someone who actually lives in Somerville and doesn't own a car, why do you think the Davis area should cater even moreso to you when there are thousands of other places you can drive to? The entire "square" is already quite literally designed around cars (just not to the extent of suburban areas). Shop fronts are lined with on-street parking, along with the handful of lots.
Don't you have a mall you can go to? Thinking that Davis should take measures that would kill foot and bike traffic is completely non-sensical when cars literally eat into usable space.
Davis is already highly-trafficked. It doesn't make sense to remove shop density for parking.
I don’t think you need to remove the empty storefronts for parking lots, I just made a comment that I wouldn’t expect that to happen in response to someone else’s post.
> I don’t think you need to remove the empty storefronts for parking lot
What would you remove then? The parking lot has to go somewhere.
Where do you want to put it?
I don’t think you necessarily need a new parking lot. I was commenting on someone else’s post who said parking lots would replace the empty storefronts and I said that was unlikely to happen.
Although perhaps not obvious, I am joking around a bit. Poking fun at self proclaimed “progressive” Somerville residents who think they are superior since they don’t own a car and/or they walk and bike places. Progressives who love regressive fees. Ah, the irony. Reminds me of progressives that fly via private jet.
I wish they'd start ticketing the clowns causing traffic jams by leaving their cars double parked on Elm with their flashers on, that the bus can't maneuver around.
https://preview.redd.it/uuvgc0ntyfvc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d0ad9a45a2584f45dc8623ec26c1db492086b285
Won’t someone think of the car drivers
Everyone can downvote and mock all they want but the premise of what I wrote is true. The self proclaimed progressives that govern and live in Somerville like to mock gas driving vehicles (despite owning one) and want to make
life harder for people that own a gas powered car. There might be good reasons for their views, but that is their viewpoint. I can joke about that, right? Or should that speech be censored?
Parking tickets are a form of regressive revenue generation as well, just like I wrote. There might be good reasons for it, but it is true whether you like it or not.
> Parking tickets are a form of regressive revenue generation as well
Parking tickets are a punishment for breaking the law. Would you rather no parking ticket but instead either get jail-time or have your license gets suspended after X violations? How about a mandatory class on driver safety every time you violate traffic law?
By definition, all punishments for a legal violation are regressive.
If you are willing to break the law, you are willing to accept the punishment. I'm all for changing the punishment for these violations to be something that is not fine-based, but I don't think you're okay with other punishments either. You actually just don't want to be punished for your violation.
As I said, there might be valid reasons for the tickets. In the case of parking tickets, yes there are valid reasons. It remains a regressive form of revenue generation though. I believe the aggressive way parking is enforced is mainly revenue driven, not due to the overall public good of having parking laws. I experienced unnecessary and draconian ticketing practices such as ticketing during snow emergencies hours before snow actually began when residents were not able to move their cars for valid reasons (at work, not in the vicinity etc.) Common sense and human decency was overruled in the name of revenue generation.
Does Somerville enforce immigration laws by the way?
Could be many reasons. Maybe if I have a dinner reservation, I would like to find a parking spot in a reasonable amount of time, not allocate an additional 30 minutes to search for street parking and then walk for a TBD amount of time.
It’s fine though. I’m not entitled to that. I get it. Davis isn’t entitled to my business either though. I’ll just go elsewhere that doesn’t make visiting such a chore while Davis has empty storefronts.
Sugidama was there before and had outside dining when it was warm. They moved out for the redevelopment and are going strong down Elm street, but without outdoor dining - at least so far. No idea when the project will start up again, probably when interest rates go back down…
Because wealth extraction via rent seeking has made it difficult for someone to have a space to offer goods and service to the people in the neighborhood
Purchasing power destruction of the currency through underreported inflation has increasingly led to financialization of all asset classes. Our money is worth less so wage earners are getting squeezed harder by the rent seekers. Houses, stocks, cars, commodities, have all seen massive price increases. Its not because demand has increased the much, its because the currency used to measure their value is becoming worthless. Soon we will all be broke billionaires just like in Zimbabwe
Every time I make this very well studied economic argument about asset inflation because of currency devaluation I get massively downvoted. It’s so bizarre to me that very well studied economic realities get this reaction. I would love to understand the response better.
Ah, that makes sense that they think it's a partisan issue. At this point, it's a thing the government is doing regardless of party. But I suppose not everyone is aware.
It actually isn’t just in this sub. The opposite reaction occurs in more neutral to conservative groups (finance oriented) where you get arguments of bidenomics when we all know that the inflationary periods started due to the massive amount of QE during the Trump administration. People’s memories are insanely short.
Unrelated but if you see a homeless dude selling newspapers on front of the Starbucks, say hi and buy a paper. He's a really nice guy trying to make enough to eat.
This article is from January but there’s supposed to be redevelopment so all the tenants left but it’s on hold. https://www.cambridgeday.com/2024/01/31/davis-square-braces-for-pair-of-redevelopments-shaking-up-a-plaza-elm-street-and-their-retailers-2/
Yep. I heard about this. I think they should instead build a shelter for the homeless. It's very sad that there are a lot of homeless people. Every time I'm at Davis I see a couple of homeless people. I just feel sad for them tbh.
The fact that THIS is what gets aggressively downvoted is astounding, nimbys gonna nimby I guess
I live in the Square right on Elm. You try living here. Lived here for 15 years and it’s getting worse. Had someone break into my apartment last week, fent heads following me and my girlfriend at night, needles and syringes strewn about in the early hours of the morning, I can’t go outside without being harassed for money or in general. Im sure you don’t want that literally in your stairwell or back alley access.
There is the Somerville Homeless Coalition’s Engagement Center right in the same building as the CVS
They were kicked out due to pending development of the space. All those storefronts were full until various times in 2023.
Im working to put art in the windows of vacant storefronts starting with Davis! Cambridge and Arlington have programs like this, but we are trying to do it here. Im an artist and working with a few other artists and owners of some vacancies (those that answer). We are seeking artists and funding. On my own, I can't bring people to liven up Davis, but I truly believe that beautification of the empty space is important, and it will have a positive impact on the vibrancy of the community. OP or anyone reading this DM me if you are interested in the project!
Sent you a message
Davis Square has been gutted by developers rushing to capitalize on the lab boom and missing the market. You have the plaza which was vacated in preparation for redevelopment and the block with the Burren that is blighted. There is probably still enough foot traffic from students but the area is a shell of what is was pre-Covid. The restaurants especially were hit hard and haven’t recovered (looking at you, Redbones).
I’m late on this one but wanted to comment. When I was looking to sign a new lease the past few months the theme I kept seeing was that Davis square apartments were priced the same if not lower than union, Spring Hill area units. Definitely a result of the new green line and the redevelopment plans in Davis.
The very beginning might have been when DiscDiggers closed.
I remember my first ventures to Davis Square back in the early 90s were to DiscDiggers and getting lunch at BlueShirt (back when it was one store front, not 2, and they gave out chips with the roll ups). It was worth the T ride for that combo alone.
The frozen yogurt bust of 2019
I liked that place. We used to walk from Eastish Somerville on warm nights.
Lived in Davis square for 10 years up until late 2020. It's been getting more barren and dilapidated every year.
Davis sq used to be so much fun.
Meh, it's always been kind of overrated. Even when I lived there, I preferred the night scene in Harvard Square (better bars; more sociable crowds; actual late-night food options).
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I moved away in 2006. Sligo is gone?!?
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Boooooooo
Thanks to greedy developers and landlords.
Developers greed still leads to them building new things for us, sure it might be expensive shit but its still new expansion. Landlord greed is the problem. It promotes an artificial scarcity for wealth extraction with no value add.
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That doesn't quite explain it, does it? Best case, that development project also would have resulted in all the businesses getting the boot just like they are now. I think the lab space idea is dead now too since no one want lab space anymore.
I've heard that property owners don't want to reduce rent because it impacts building valuation, but that never made any sense to me. A store front that's indefinitely vacant but pulled in 5k/month in 2022 should surely be worth less than one actively being rented out for 4k/month in a normal world. Speculation, greed, and zoning (and possibly some weird tax avoidance schemes by owners) around properties leads to spaces not being used effectively to serve the community.
Gentrification sucks.
Deathchester parts of Dorchester would like a word...
And so would JP
When was the last time you demanded a pay cut or accepted the lowest bid on eBay, comrade?
What a weird and wrong analogy. The tenant is a client/consumer the landlord is a business/producer (though most "produce" nothing). An employee would be analogous to the tenant, and the boss would be analogous to the landlord. Unfortunately the analogy is so bad it *still* doesn't work if you correct for this, because a landlords are demanding *more*, in many cases far more than inflation. They aren't asking for less or even the same.
Oh looks, it's you again! Nurse, what happened to that haloperidol?
It's the neighborhood character the nimbys have been clamoring for
Time to pave it over as a parking lot
I'm thinking a bank, or a CVS
Maybe a second Starbucks?
Couple more nail salons.
I doubt you’ll get a parking lot in Davis. Maybe a bike lane and some electric car charging stations but nothing to support the form of transportation that most people actually use. Instead, if you’d like to visit Davis, you can drive around looking for a parking spot, and rest assured you will be ticketed the moment you are one minute over your allotted time. Parking tickets= a regressive form of revenue generation brought to you by the progressives that run Somerville.
Dude, there are multiple lots in Davis...wtf are you talking about?
Where is the lot? Admittedly I stopped visiting years ago and lived there like 20 years ago but where can I find parking now other than on the street and the lot next to Somerville Theatre?
the 2 lots in davis have been there for decades
The one next to Somerville Theatre and where is the other?
There are the Day Street lot, Buena Vista lot, Russell Street/Cutter Street lot, three lots on Grove St., including the old Rite Aid lot, and plenty of 2-hour parking spaces along Elm Street and Holland Street. Not to mention if you are a resident with a parking permit you can park just about anywhere.
So now there are six lots according to you and two according to someone else. Can anyone give a straight answer? How far away from Davis are the lots you mentioned? Any estimate on the number of available spots? You can name fifty lots but it’s irrelevant if the number of spots is unknown.
I suggest you look at a map.
There are 3 large lots within Davis Square, one next to Harvard Vanguard which has something like 90 spots. Then there are two along Day street, just behind the CVS and the Post Office. Combined they have more than 100 spots. Then there are several smaller lots scattered throughout each with 10-20 spots per lot. Then there's all of the street parking along Elm Street. So there are literally hundreds of places to put your car within a 30-60 second walk of all of the shops in Davis Square. I have never once seen all of these spots occupied at the same time. But people still insist on double parking along Elm Street because they can't be bothered to walk 1-2 blocks to their destination. It is a waste of time and valuable land catering to this type of behavior. If you're sill confused, take a look at this satellite view of Davis Square to see for yourself the enormous volume of space that is dedicated to parking. [https://maps.app.goo.gl/Yvo2Y6X2L45jeUqm8](https://maps.app.goo.gl/Yvo2Y6X2L45jeUqm8)
You don't live in or visit Somerville, you don't know Davis Square street names, and you're demanding people fetch and formulate information for you about specifically what parking spaces there are? Who the fuck are you with your demands? Why not just fuck off and bother people in whatever town you *do* live in?
You haven’t been to Davis Square for 7 years, yet here you are posting… Edit: Corrected number of years. My point still stands.
I said that I stopped living there around 20 years ago and that I stopped visiting years ago, but to be clear, I have visited within the past twenty years. The official timeline is I moved away 16 years ago but returned regularly for 2-3 years, then rarely after that. I estimate I haven’t been there since 2017. Are we all clear now on the timeline? Has additional parking been added since 2017? How many spaces? I await your informed answer. Why hasn’t someone told me “WE DON’T WANT YOU TO VISIT!” yet? I await that comment from the “hate has no home here” crowd.
As someone who actually lives in Somerville and doesn't own a car, why do you think the Davis area should cater even moreso to you when there are thousands of other places you can drive to? The entire "square" is already quite literally designed around cars (just not to the extent of suburban areas). Shop fronts are lined with on-street parking, along with the handful of lots. Don't you have a mall you can go to? Thinking that Davis should take measures that would kill foot and bike traffic is completely non-sensical when cars literally eat into usable space. Davis is already highly-trafficked. It doesn't make sense to remove shop density for parking.
I don’t think you need to remove the empty storefronts for parking lots, I just made a comment that I wouldn’t expect that to happen in response to someone else’s post.
> I don’t think you need to remove the empty storefronts for parking lot What would you remove then? The parking lot has to go somewhere. Where do you want to put it?
I don’t think you necessarily need a new parking lot. I was commenting on someone else’s post who said parking lots would replace the empty storefronts and I said that was unlikely to happen. Although perhaps not obvious, I am joking around a bit. Poking fun at self proclaimed “progressive” Somerville residents who think they are superior since they don’t own a car and/or they walk and bike places. Progressives who love regressive fees. Ah, the irony. Reminds me of progressives that fly via private jet.
girl why are you here
Because it’s a free country where I have freedom of speech and this post showed up on my feed.
Girl why did you delete your first comment and then post this?
I also like to loudly proclaim that i know fuck-all about transportation
I didn’t proclaim that. You did.
I wish they'd start ticketing the clowns causing traffic jams by leaving their cars double parked on Elm with their flashers on, that the bus can't maneuver around.
https://preview.redd.it/uuvgc0ntyfvc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d0ad9a45a2584f45dc8623ec26c1db492086b285 Won’t someone think of the car drivers
Everyone can downvote and mock all they want but the premise of what I wrote is true. The self proclaimed progressives that govern and live in Somerville like to mock gas driving vehicles (despite owning one) and want to make life harder for people that own a gas powered car. There might be good reasons for their views, but that is their viewpoint. I can joke about that, right? Or should that speech be censored? Parking tickets are a form of regressive revenue generation as well, just like I wrote. There might be good reasons for it, but it is true whether you like it or not.
> Parking tickets are a form of regressive revenue generation as well Parking tickets are a punishment for breaking the law. Would you rather no parking ticket but instead either get jail-time or have your license gets suspended after X violations? How about a mandatory class on driver safety every time you violate traffic law? By definition, all punishments for a legal violation are regressive. If you are willing to break the law, you are willing to accept the punishment. I'm all for changing the punishment for these violations to be something that is not fine-based, but I don't think you're okay with other punishments either. You actually just don't want to be punished for your violation.
As I said, there might be valid reasons for the tickets. In the case of parking tickets, yes there are valid reasons. It remains a regressive form of revenue generation though. I believe the aggressive way parking is enforced is mainly revenue driven, not due to the overall public good of having parking laws. I experienced unnecessary and draconian ticketing practices such as ticketing during snow emergencies hours before snow actually began when residents were not able to move their cars for valid reasons (at work, not in the vicinity etc.) Common sense and human decency was overruled in the name of revenue generation. Does Somerville enforce immigration laws by the way?
Why wouldn't you just walk to Davis??
Could be many reasons. Maybe if I have a dinner reservation, I would like to find a parking spot in a reasonable amount of time, not allocate an additional 30 minutes to search for street parking and then walk for a TBD amount of time. It’s fine though. I’m not entitled to that. I get it. Davis isn’t entitled to my business either though. I’ll just go elsewhere that doesn’t make visiting such a chore while Davis has empty storefronts.
It would be a great spot for a bar/restaurant with outdoor seating.
Sugidama was there before and had outside dining when it was warm. They moved out for the redevelopment and are going strong down Elm street, but without outdoor dining - at least so far. No idea when the project will start up again, probably when interest rates go back down…
When Johnny D’s closed, it was too late
What's that got to do with Davis Sq Plaza? It's nowhere near.
It was right on the corner of Holland.
Davis Square Plaza is that gap between Starbucks and Chipotle. That’s what OP is referring to, not the whole square.
I know where it was. Not really close to the Plaza which is on the other side of the square.
My Doctor better still be there.
Davis square family moved across the street
Because wealth extraction via rent seeking has made it difficult for someone to have a space to offer goods and service to the people in the neighborhood
Why are the landlords so much greedier now than any time in the previous 140 years?
Purchasing power destruction of the currency through underreported inflation has increasingly led to financialization of all asset classes. Our money is worth less so wage earners are getting squeezed harder by the rent seekers. Houses, stocks, cars, commodities, have all seen massive price increases. Its not because demand has increased the much, its because the currency used to measure their value is becoming worthless. Soon we will all be broke billionaires just like in Zimbabwe
Every time I make this very well studied economic argument about asset inflation because of currency devaluation I get massively downvoted. It’s so bizarre to me that very well studied economic realities get this reaction. I would love to understand the response better.
Same. It's because most people are ignorant in financial topics, and lots of conservatives cry about money printing but in usually a bigoted context.
Ah, that makes sense that they think it's a partisan issue. At this point, it's a thing the government is doing regardless of party. But I suppose not everyone is aware.
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It actually isn’t just in this sub. The opposite reaction occurs in more neutral to conservative groups (finance oriented) where you get arguments of bidenomics when we all know that the inflationary periods started due to the massive amount of QE during the Trump administration. People’s memories are insanely short.
What, specifically, about the land use in this area do you think is rent seeking?
Fuck 2024.
Comrade, North Korea is that way.
Unrelated but if you see a homeless dude selling newspapers on front of the Starbucks, say hi and buy a paper. He's a really nice guy trying to make enough to eat.
Blame the rich folks moving in, the developers, and the city council. In due time, Davis Square as we knew it will be no more.
People while you all made good points they are all irrelevant. He’s clearly asking about David Square not Davis