EVOLUTION
NOT REVOLUTION

This rendering by David Dixon, the city's consultant, shows one possible vision for the Hancock Parking Lot area. The ideas are preliminary and any plan will ultimately be shaped with input from city officials, residents, business owners and other stakeholders. Click here or on the map itself to see an enlarged version (requires Flash plugin. If you don't have it, get it here.)

Unlike past urban renewal, change to be more incremental

By CHRISTOPHER WALKER
The Patriot Ledger

QUINCY

Talk of any large-scale redevelopment can conjure images of bulldozers rumbling down city streets, buildings demolished by dynamite, and displaced neighborhoods.

Not likely in Quincy Center. Whatever vision city leaders eventually put to paper will almost assuredly be an evolution rather than a revolution based at least partially on downtown’s existing potential. There’s already new housing, a major artery is in the planning stages, and a city-owned parking lot appears ripe for development.

“It’s not just a matter of saying, OK, come develop this,” said David Dixon, the city’s chief consultant for its fledgling development efforts.

“I think literally it all starts with making downtown the heart of the community in a way that builds on the role it already plays, recaptures a stronger role than it played in the past and does this in a way that’s relevant to 21st century social and economic realities,” he said.

Dixon recently delivered a preliminary report to Mayor William Phelan and a 16-member redevelopment task force which will ultimately make a set of redevelopment recommendations to the mayor. Dixon’s work forms a starting point for the committee’s discussions, and a series of public forums will be scheduled in coming months to talk about the city’s vision.

Phelan is reluctant to give a firm timeline for when a final master plan will be unveiled, but said it’s likely to be within the next several months. The plan will include definitive starting points for development and lay out a future strategy.

Frederick Merrill, a senior partner at Watertown’s Sasaki Associates, describes two variations of downtown development - a top-down approach that requires heavy initial investment and and a bottom-up style which entails a “building-by-building” revitalization.

“Quincy has the opportunity for both. You have the Hancock lot, but then you don’t have to tear down all the other buildings on Hancock Street,” Merrill said. “Maybe you can build above it. But it doesn’t have to be urban renewal. I would argue that would be exactly the wrong way to go.”

Weymouth Artist Ruth Haderski was commissioned by former city councilor Michael Cheney in 1998 to paint this rendering of what Quincy Center might look like if height restrictions were eased to allow 10-story buildings. The rendering shows the landmark Granite Trust building next to a new office building that replaces one-story shops.

The ultimate plan will be for Phelan to create, but he’s expected to weigh heavily on the opinions of Dixon and the 16-member downtown committee. And even when the plan is complete, any number of city and state regulators - including the city council - will be major decision-makers.

The city’s master plan will likely target specific areas for redevelopment and determine what type of proposal - condos or new retail, for example - would work best there. It will consider how tall buildings should be in specific corridors, whether housing should be rental or owned, and if retail is appropriate in particular locations.

How those ideas are then transformed from vision to reality is more of an art than a science. In the end, the master plan will be more of a template than the final word.

The city could begin with small steps, such as tweaking zoning ordinances to ensure the types of development it wants are allowable in a particular district. Housing, for example, may have to be permitted in an area where it is not now.

Alterations to parking, traffic and other issues the city can control and that make downtown more attractive to developers may also be implemented. Discussions must begin with property owners if the city wants to avoid costly and sometimes difficult eminent domain takings.

Even with such steps, how and when the downtown actually begins to change will depend in large part on the market.

Developing the city-owned Hancock parking lot could end up being first on the list, simply because the city has control over it. Another “pocket of redevelopment” could present itself initially. Plans for finishing the Quincy Center Concourse could take precedence.

“Any good plan is going to take into considerations the realities involved in it coming to fruition. It's not going to be a pipe dream,” Phelan said. “The plan will involve a process by which it can be done.”

There’s also a “critical” responsibility to educate residents on what plans are being considered, Phelan said, adding that an informed public will make better suggestions.

“"The major decisions about the direction of downtown need to be market-based in order to succeed, but there are lots of choices that need to be made that the public can have input in,” said City Solicitor Monica Conyngham, who is on Phelan’s downtown committee. “People have a visceral reaction to the way buildings look, where green space is, whether there's a tot lot."