Plans to redevelop Alewife’s MBTA storage crumble
Native Information
The MBTA is scrapping a proposal to remake the positioning, leaving the concrete storage a persistent headache for riders and residents.
The MBTA has scrapped its seek for a developer to overtake the growing old five-story parking storage at Alewife station, citing a softening actual property market that makes the deliberate undertaking not possible.
The choice marks a setback for the quickly altering Cambridge neighborhood, which has seen new housing rise across the crumbling construction and has been banking on redevelopment to draw extra industrial and biotech funding, as outlined in its 2019 Alewife District Plan.
“The MBTA maximizes each greenback to construct a extra linked, equitable, and dependable public transit system,” a MBTA spokesperson informed Boston.com. “We stay interested by fashions like joint improvement and acknowledge its worth, because it provides progressive methods to assist the communities we serve.”
The MBTA canceled its seek for a developer for the Alewife web site after a serious shift in the true property market made the undertaking not financially viable. The change occurred whereas proposals had been below evaluation and would have elevated early labor and building materials prices.
Nonetheless, the MBTA stated it stays dedicated to working with Cambridge to enhance the station.
In response to the information, Cambridge Director of Media Jeremy Warnick stated in an announcement, “Whereas this adjustments the quick improvement panorama, it doesn’t change the Metropolis’s dedication and priorities for the realm.”
Warnick famous that the neighborhood has voiced considerations that the storage requires important consideration and wishes considerate, long-term funding.
The storage is present process repairs, and a 2020 MassDOT structural evaluation discovered that the MBTA would want to spend at the least $55 million over the subsequent 10 years to maintain the storage open.
In 2023, a automotive crash broken the ceiling, inflicting particles to fall onto the station beneath and leading to at the least $1 million in injury.
The MBTA issued a request for proposals in January 2025 to have interaction a private-sector joint improvement companion to redevelop the Alewife advanced, which incorporates industrial areas, the Crimson Line station, and the two,733-space, five-story parking storage.
The 1 million-square-foot construction is the biggest parking construction within the MBTA system. Each the storage and the station had been inbuilt 1985 when the MBTA prolonged the Crimson Line past Harvard station.
The MBTA says each the parking storage and the station have undergone a number of rehabilitation initiatives and structural repairs, and proceed to have ongoing security measures in place.
As well as, there’s adjoining actual property alongside the Fitchburg commuter rail line, which builders may use for a brand new rail station.
The proposal famous that, for the reason that advanced is “previous its helpful life” and the associated fee to restore is “unsustainable and unwise,” the MBTA decided it might be finest to demolish the constructing and companion with a private-sector developer by leasing its land and air rights.
Any new undertaking, the MBTA stated, must present parking to riders.
The undertaking would even have addressed the uncooked sewage that discharges into Alewife Brook through mixed sewer overflow.
In response to the information of the undertaking stalling, Arlington’s city supervisor, Jim Feeney, stated, “The City of Arlington stays dedicated to the Alewife Brook stakeholder and can proceed to advocate for the planning and implementation of CSO mitigation measures by all concerned events.”
Within the meantime, Cambridge stated it should proceed to work with the MBTA on the station.
“The town stays dedicated to working with the MBTA and different companions to make sure that the station space is protected, resilient, and higher linked for all who depend on it,” Warnick stated.
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