Can Davis Square grow up(ward) without losing its ‘soul?'

Boston Globe

06-03-2025

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The project has put the Burren and Davis Square itself at the center of a push-and-pull playing out in hip corners of US cities as they try to solve an acute housing shortage without snuffing out their spark. The way musicians around the table saw it — some of whom, like Heaton, moved across the country just to play here — the choice between preserving the Davis Square people love, or replacing it with a shiny, sanitized version with yet another shopping center under luxury units, is hardly a choice at all.
Somerville officials disagree that culture and lots more housing are at odds. Opportunities to add places to live here can't just be waved off, said Tom Galligani, Somerville's chief of planning, who believes it is possible to build upward without wiping out what was there before. Cities such as Somerville, Cambridge, and Boston just need to be creative, he said.
'It really comes down to a question of 'How do we grow? How do we evolve? How do we progress and do it in a way that doesn't compromise our soul?,'' he said. 'That's a difficult question.'
A proposal to build a 500-unit residential tower and mixed-use development on a stretch of Elm Street in Somerville's Davis Square would displace — at least temporarily — small businesses including Irish pub the Burren.
Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
Developer Andrew Flynn, whose firm, Copper Mill, is trying to build the tower, said he knew from the outset how important the Burren is for Davis Square. Redeveloping this particular plot of Somerville would be too tough a sell if he couldn't preserve it. So he's going to try, he said.
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He has offered to guarantee a spot for the Burren in the new building at the current rent the bar pays. Flynn said the pub may only need to be closed for 12 to 15 months, and has gone so far as to offer to package up and store its original wood paneling at his own expense, so the Burren could be put back together, piece by piece.
'We want nothing more than for the Burren to be a fixture at this site for the next 50 years,' Flynn said. 'We want to be its longterm home.'
In other words, he said, the city can have it both ways.
Burren owner Tommy McCarthy declined to comment on the offers.
Mayor Katjana Ballantyne said she was reluctant to weigh in on the project so early but said she knew there would be a strong response to something of this size.
So from the beginning, she urged Flynn to hold public meetings to hear feedback from neighbors long before submitting his first sheet of paperwork. He has obliged, holding five so far.
Flynn has said the project will need to be massive — 500 units — to be profitable. City rules require 20 percent of them be 'affordable.' Current plans call for street-level retail spaces, two of which Flynn is offering to the city for free to do with as it chooses. Another would be reserved for re-creating the 30-year-old Irish pub, like a museum for the good old days, but where the Guinnesses still pour.
A building of this size might have once seemed implausible in Davis Square. It's a neighborhood known for its small-city
quirk, where handmade fliers for art shows and DIY concerts cling to light poles, and where small shops, pubs, coffee bars, restaurants, and the vintage Somerville Theatre draw visitors from all over. Officials claim Somerville has the nation's highest concentration of artists, behind only New York City.
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The 2022 HONK! Parade marched from Somerville's Davis Square to Cambridge's Harvard Square.
Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff
It is not, by design, Assembly Row, the giant mixed-use development of residential towers and retail chains on the east side of Somerville. The current zoning around the Burren allows for, at most, four-story commercial buildings.
But the housing crisis looms large, and the appetite for new construction has increased as many residents urge officials to build as big as possible, particularly given Davis Square's location on the Red Line and near the Green Line.
'We're changing,' Ballantyne said. 'We're evolving. The conversations we had 10 years ago no longer exist. We need to be responsive to the needs of the housing crisis, our climate goals. We need transit-oriented design.'
Ballantyne said she has heard from residents who 'support housing at any cost,' particularly near transit.
'I've also heard from people who are worried about building heights,' she said. You can't expect everyone to agree, she added, but it will be better to find compromise, where it can be found, way ahead of time.
Runa, a touring Celtic band, performed in the back room at the Burren, which over the past three decades has become a hub for Irish music.
Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
Still, all the reassurances and the listening sessions haven't dampened the fear that the introduction of a modern high-rise risks harming Davis Square irreparably.
'This project is a gamble, and what's at stake is the culture,' said Frank Malsbenden, member of an informal group that opposes the project called Davis Square Village which gathered, as it happens, at the Burren after a community meeting.
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'It's such a departure from the character of the square, and the time that it will take from start to finish will be years,' he said. 'Is it a sure bet that the culture that exists in Davis Square will come back?'
The issue has also caught the attention of former mayor Joe Curtatone, who said building big in Davis Square, plot by plot, rather than as part of a carefully considered overall plan is a 'perilous course.'
Curtatone lauds the slow-and-steady approach the developer is taking but at the same time said it's worth worrying about the city losing its cultural landmarks.
'What you don't want to see is a new commercial tenant come in with a national chain that can subsidize those rents,' Curtatone said. 'Much like when people are displaced from their home, you start to lose the character and soul of the community.'
That's what keeps Tom Bianchi up at night.
'You take the Burren out of the equation, and it's the death blow to the music community,' he said as he sat sipping hot coffee from a thermos as an Irish band set up in the bar's back room.
Bianchi, who runs a company called 24 Hour Concerts, has been setting up performances here for nearly 30 years.
This concert, the latest edition of the
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It took many long years to establish the Burren as the place where things like this happen. These days, a lot of creatives in the region pay their rent by filling it with music, Bianchi said. If it closes, even temporarily, what then? And what kind of message does that send?
'It's the face of Somerville,' Bianchi said. 'It's the reason people come here. If you take the arts in the community out of the equation, it's just another place.'
The Burren has long been an outlet for Celtic musicians, who say the bar's history of showcasing Irish music with revolving groups of performers playing informally around a table is hard to find elsewhere.
Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
Spencer Buell can be reached at