Nine months after the Somerville Community Land Trust (SCLT) and local developer Just A Start (JAS) acquired the land at 297 Medford Street, the team has released the initial images of its design schemes for an 100% affordable housing apartment building.
One design proposes wrapping the first floor’s exterior with a blue pattern reminiscent of Portuguese tiles, in a nod to the neighborhood’s residents from the Azores.
Another idea features expressed bays, which JAS Director of Real Estate Noah Sawyer said breaks up the image of a larger building into smaller sections.
The proposed designs were unveiled at a sparsely attended community meeting in early June at Somerville High School.
In addition to the design schemes, JAT shared proposed floor plans as well.
“Projects start general and get more specific,” said Sawyer. “Before the architects had done much in terms of design, we collected information about community priorities. What types of families should we be helping? Should we have small units or family units?”
Of the 50 units planned for this seven-story building, 10 are expected to be three-bedroom units, 23 will be two-bedrooms, and the remaining 17 will be one-bedrooms.
Community feedback
Other design proposals were a result of feedback the team says they received from previous community meetings.
A design for a garage door was moved to Medford Street to prevent friction between bikes, cars and pedestrians.
Extensive bike parking was included in the basement, in addition to 10 spaces in a ground floor garage for cars.
A commercial space has been designed for the first floor after neighboring residents who spoke at recent meetings expressed a desire for some kind of retail business on that lot.
297 Medford was previously the site of an auto body shop, which closed after its roof collapsed in 2021. Directly along the Somerville Community Path, it is immediately east of the Somerville Public Library, Somerville High School, Somerville City Hall and the Gilman Square T station on the Green Line.
Basic details of the project were shared in community meetings in early 2025. Even before the land was officially acquired, Just A Start shared that they would pursue a zoning change on the lot that would allow them a maximum of seven stories instead of three.
The “perfect site”
In a 2025 meeting of Somerville’s Land Use Committee and Planning Board, where that zoning amendment was discussed, Somerville resident Darrick Yee joined the majority of public commenters who supported the zoning amendment, calling it the “perfect site” for a development like this.
Responding to a few public commenters concerned about height, Yee said he lived within a couple blocks of a 25-story building, and soon another eight-story building. “I can say it’s not as bad as people might think it to be. I think the benefits far outweigh the costs.”
Over a year later, those benefits are starting to feel more tangible.
Somerville Public Library’s social worker Jake Savage said of all the things that library patrons request his assistance with, housing tops the list.
“It can be hard to conceptualize the amount of people who might actually be struggling from day to day to maintain [not just] market rate housing, but even subsidized housing,” he said in an interview.
Because of the conditions of the Somerville Community Land Trust acquisition, the apartment homes will be affordable in perpetuity, rented at or below 60 percent of the area’s median income.
Trying to meet immigrants’ needs
The higher-capacity units, Savage said, speak to the needs of the city’s recent immigrant community in particular.
“I see a lot of immigrant families taking on the burden of supporting relatives who are in just a little more of a vulnerable state than they are. So there are a lot of people who are doubled up with family members, with kids. It’s not necessarily understood, even by neighbors.”
So what are people who are seeking affordable housing in Somerville looking for?
“A lot of the people I’m working with are not picky,” Savage said. “I find that people are just looking for something affordable and are pretty flexible on where they are willing to go.”
But “at the same time, everyone deserves to live in a decent place,” he said.
What residents want
Outside the library, Elizabeth, who lives in a shelter on College Ave in Davis Square, says she loves Somerville, calling it a “town town” – a “neighborhood kind of place where . . . enough people know you that you feel known.”
She’s on waiting lists for housing in other Massachusetts towns, but would prefer to stay in Somerville. She agreed with Savage, saying “I need [my home] to be just like a normal living arrangement.”
“If I called the landlord and something was messed up in my apartment, I would want the maintenance man to come right away and repair it,” she said. “I would want to feel safe in my home. Not to have noisy neighbors or crime happening in my building.”
At the same time, she would want it to be nice, she said. She’s in her 70s; she deserves it.
“I’m older,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to live in a good neighborhood, surrounded by good, honest, decent, working people. I want to be accepted for who I am. That’s how I feel Somerville is.”
On-site resident services is one of the amenities proposed for this project. The development team says that the design and feedback process for 297 Medford Street will continue through the year. And, future meetings may be held on Zoom to increase attendance.
The next step, they said, would be to apply for state funding. Construction would begin in 2028 at the earliest, with a projected completion date in 2030.
A stronger
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