Courts Continue to Thwart 173,000-SF Home Depot Project

In the latest go-round, Superior Court Judge Steven Neel ruled that the city's planning board was remiss in not requiring a special permit site plan review for the project. Louanna H. Evarts, an abutter to the 26-acre Assembly Square Mall site, brought the case against the city and the store's developer, Assembly Square Limited Partnership--which consists of Taurus New England Investments and Gravistar Inc. Evarts is backed by the 200-member Mystic View Task Force, a local activist group.

Taurus and Gravistar have been trying to get this project off the ground for nearly five years. A spokesperson for Gravistar, Natasha Perez, tells GlobeSt.com that "we have no plans to go away." While Perez acknowledges that both firms were disappointed by the decision she emphasizes that they will continue to develop at Assembly Square. Perez says that the developers are in the process of "evaluating our options" which are basically to re-permit the store or to appeal the decision. Perez notes that both the appeal and the re-permitting process can happen simultaneously.

Perez also points out that the ruling essentially translates into lost time. "This is lost tax revenue and lost jobs at a time when the state is in a financial crisis." However, she adds, "We are not leaving Assembly Square."

But Bill Shelton, president of the Task Force, insists that the developers will probably not appeal because the judge ruled on only the first of six issues in the case. Shelton tells GlobeSt.com that his group can be as tenacious as the developers. "We're prepared to do whatever is necessary to ensure that Assembly Square is developed to its full potential."

According to Shelton, this means that the site should create 30,000 new jobs, $30 million in annual taxes and 30 acres of new open space. "The site can accommodate all these things," he says, adding that the Home Depot will "absorb all the traffic capacity needed to support higher development."