Watertown Zoning: Arsenal Yards and Galen Street Life Sciences - Watertown, MA

Urban Design

Boylston Properties/The Wilder Companies

Boston Development Group

Over the last 7 to 8 years, Form + Place has been working closely with private developers to rework Watertown’s zoning regulations to help facilitate mixed-use opportunities. In conjunction with Boylston Properties and The Wilder Companies, Form + Place led the effort to craft a new Regional Mixed-Use District [RMUD] for the eastern end of the Arsenal Street Corridor in Watertown, MA. The Town of Watertown’s 2015 Comprehensive Plan called for “innovative zoning” to incentivize transformative mixed-use development in this key, gateway location.

Representing the Arsenal Project Team and working in collaboration with Watertown’s Department of Community Development and Planning staff, Form + Place helped bring forward a new zoning amendment that updated key development variables, such as the allowable mix of uses, revised dimensional criteria and signage guidelines. The amendment also outlined a new Master Plan Special Permit process, whereby larger mixed-use projects can receive approval of a holistic master-plan concept, followed by individual Final Site Plan reviews that check for consistency as each phase comes on-line. The Town Council approved the new bylaw in 2016 and Arsenal Yards opened in 2019.

Starting in 2019, Form + Place began work with Boston Development Group [BDG] to explore an exciting new development opportunity along the Galen Street corridor in Watertown. In an area that has been identified as an economic development focus area in both the town’s Comprehensive Plan and Strategic Framework for Economic Development, BDG is proposing a mixed-use life sciences development that has the potential to become a new “gateway” to Watertown. Form + Place’s preliminary master plan studies illustrated the potential for a 400,000sf phased development on the recently assembled, 5-acre site, which included the realigning of a portion of Water Street to improve circulation and create a new 20,000sf urban square across from the MBTA hub.

In an effort to facilitate a cohesive development, Form + Place worked with town staff and officials to amend the zoning on a few key parcels along Galen Street from their current Limited Business designation to the adjacent Industrial-2 district that governs 87% of the site area. The resulting development, which will capitalize on a prime transit-oriented location along the Charles River, broke ground in 2021.