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		Home Page News You Can Use Home Depot scraps Assembly Square plan By Thomas Grillo, Globe Correspondent, 2/21/2004 SOMERVILLE -- The five-year battle to build a Home Depot at Assembly Square ended yesterday as the nation's largest do-it-yourself chain abandoned its proposal for a 173,435-square-foot store and garden center at the failed mall. "We had a plan that accomplished just about everything anyone would have wanted to revitalize the mall," said John Simley, a spokesman for the Atlanta-based company. "But we were dealing with an intransigent opposition that was repulsed by the idea of compromise. How can you deal with people like that? We washed our hands of it." Home Depot's decision ends a contentious battle that began in 1999 when the home improvement chain proposed to construct a store on the nearby mall site adjacent to Kmart . Since then, the plan has been the subject of a lawsuit by a community group that alleged the store would violate city zoning regulations. Without naming them, Simley blamed the Mystic View Task Force for the company's decision to end its effort to replace its 145,000-square-foot store on Mystic Avenue. The organization has lobbied for a village-style development at Assembly Square with small stores, office space, housing, and parks at the waterfront parcel. Simley also expressed frustration about the rights abutters have to file suit. "A handful of people are able to ties things up in court," he said. "I guess that's the way the system works in Massachusetts -- you can take things to court and hold them up indefinitely." William Shelton, Mystic View's president, dismissed Simley's claims, saying his 250-member organization has sought opportunities to mediate the stalemate, without success. "The simple truth is that Home Depot's developers refused to obey the zoning ordinance requiring them to fix the environmental impacts of the project, including traffic and pollution," Shelton said. "All we did was pursue enforcement of that law -- something the city refused to do -- and the court agreed with us." Mystic View sued the Assembly Square Limited Partnership, a development team composed of Taurus New England Investments Corp. and Gravestar Inc. The suit followed the Somerville Planning Board's approval of a Home Depot, alleging the store would violate zoning regulations. Last year, Middlesex Superior Court Judge Stephen E. Neel agreed. The judge ruled that the Planning Board erred when it issued a permit because a bylaw requires a thorough review of traffic and environmental impacts. The city and the developer appealed.Plans at an adjacent site for an Ikea store, the Swedish retailer that specializes in low-cost furnishings, are also on hold due to a lawsuit. A trial is expected to commence in the spring. Last year, Mystic View filed suit in Middlesex Superior Court to block construction of a 280,000-square-foot Ikea, an office building, a restaurant, and a specialty food store, citing the potential for traffic jams and increased air pollution. Peter Merrigan, managing partner of Boston-based Taurus, said Home Depot's exit was the result of proposed changes in zoning regulations. "The new mayor doesn't want Home Depot, and the proposed zoning would preclude a store of that size," Merrigan said. Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone said he has drafted new zoning regulations in an effort to restrict the number of so-called big box stores and guarantee a mix of uses along a newly created Main Street. "I don't want just retail; I want to see offices, housing, and access to the waterfront," he said. "We want the kind of density that will get us an MBTA stop on the Orange Line at Assembly Square." Instead of a Home Depot, Merrigan has proposed a mix of uses at the site, including retail stores anchored by a Christmas Tree Shop and Linens 'n Things, offices, and 200 condominiums. Mystic View's Shelton said the latest proposal is only "marginally better" than a Home Depot. "The problem with their plan is that it still relies on a sea of parking lots, generates too much traffic, and no one will want to build a class A office building next to giant stores," Shelton said. Douglas Foy, the state's chief of Commonwealth development, has said the state will not invest in an Orange Line stop at Assembly Square if the parties can't agree on a vision for East Somerville.   Back to Original Article: News You Can Use   Continue with: Iraqis said to OK new airline
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