Winter Hill Buildings A & B

The proposed project at 299 Broadway will transform a long-neglected stretch of Broadway in the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville into a vibrant block providing housing, retail space, a community room, and significant improvements to the public realm. The project is anchored by two six-story mixed-use buildings, a central civic plaza along Broadway, and a revitalized neighborhood park on Sewall Street. The approximately 300,000 GSF buildings will provide 287 rental units, 48% of which will be affordable and 52% market-rate . The affordable units will range from one-bedroom units to three-bedroom units, and the market-rate units will range from studios to three-bedroom units, The project provides 13,650 SF of retail space for a range of local and regional retailers, and a 3,000 SF community room that will be available to reserve for community groups. 

The two buildings front Broadway and define a new civic space between the buildings, envisioned as a vibrant public plaza with trees, planting islands that define circulation and gathering space, built-in civic furniture, and cafe zones for the retail spaces flanking the plaza. The buildings create a strong street wall along Broadway with retail spaces and a residential entrance lobby for Building B. Temple Street is activated with retail space and the residential entrance lobby for Building A. The buildings step down to the north-facing Sewell Street, with four-story massings that mediate the scalar change between the Broadway thoroughfare and the neighborhood scale of Sewell, Temple, and Grant Streets.

Along Sewell Street, the project will revitalize an existing neighborhood basketball court into a planted park with seating and native trees and plantings. The park will provide a lush, resilient, and sustainable planting design and create a safe, accessible, and welcoming space that integrates multi-generational intuitive play and programming.

The civic plaza on Broadway and the neighborhood park on Sewall will be connected by a pedestrian mews between the two buildings. With a fourteen-foot grade change between Broadway and Sewall, the plaza, mews, and park will provide an accessible step-free gradual slope across the site. The mews will be open to the public and the neighborhood at large to provide a mid-block connection.

The buildings are designed to be high-performance, meeting PHIUS certifiability standards in line with the City of Somerville’s progressive sustainability goals. The architecture of each building will be intentionally unique, with massing, material, and fenestration strategies that will break down the scale of the buildings. Ground floor spaces will feature glass storefronts that will enliven the pedestrian experience along Broadway and Temple streets and within the civic plaza. 

09-22_299 Broadway_UDC Submission-Sewall Park & Mews
09-22_299 Broadway_UDC Submission-Down Broadway-JP
09-22_299 Broadway_UDC Submission-Civic Plaza
View of Civic Plaza looking down the mews towards Sewall Street Park
Broadway Site Axo
Axonometrix of new development with Civic Plaza on Broadway
Winter Hill Site Plan