Vacancy Registry Could be Good for Business

 May/June 2024, Newsletter, Town Committee Meetings  Comments Off on Vacancy Registry Could be Good for Business
Apr 292024
 
Vacancy Registry Could be Good for Business

By Paul Joy and Taylor Yates One of the key issues that both the Vision 21 Implementation Committee and the Economic Development Committees grapple with is the long-term vacant storefronts in our vital commercial areas: Belmont Center and Cushing Square. Our committees are asked constantly about what Belmont should be doing to address these issues and drive down the vacancy rates in places like Leonard Street, which was reported to have a 20% vacancy rate by the Belmont Center Business Association. Large vacancies such as the old CVS space continue to languish as well. We agree that the situation here [READ MORE]

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Jeanne Widmer’s Ode to a Town’s Village

 Construction and Housing, Historic Preservation, July-August 2020, Newsletter  Comments Off on Jeanne Widmer’s Ode to a Town’s Village
Jun 302020
 
Jeanne Widmer's Ode to a Town's Village

Belmont resident Jeanne Widmer had two photography exhibitions featuring the Cushing Square development scheduled for this spring. The first, at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The second, scheduled at Belmont’s Beech Street Center, was cancelled outright. Artist’s Statement Ode to a Town’s Village was inspired almost three years ago when I first started taking pictures of a sprawling three- and four-story development in a relatively small, mostly single-story village in Belmont. While the demolished area was in serious need of upgrading, the massive scale, snail-like progress, and disruption of the [READ MORE]

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Cushing Square: What Did We Learn?

 Construction and Housing, July-August 2020, Newsletter, Parking, Town Committee Meetings, Traffic  2 Responses »
Jun 302020
 
Cushing Square: What Did We Learn?

By Meg Muckenhoupt and Virginia Jordan The Bradford development in Cushing Square disrupted Belmont’s streets, sidewalks, planning, and politics, and stressed local businesses over the last decade. Town Meeting adopted a new overlay district in 2006 to channel development and provide the Planning Board with tools to control the scale and look of Cushing Village, now the Bradford, a three-building project comprising 38,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, 112 residential units on upper floors, and 201 parking spaces. In the past 14 years, the town has learned some lessons about managing large construction projects—and how large construction projects affect [READ MORE]

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