Armory Master Plan
February 29, 2024
We have made suggestions to staff at Somerville Arts Council (SAC) and the Office of Strategic Planning and Development (OSPCD), who are conducting the additional series of four Armory Master Plan meetings, to issue a survey to get compilable, actionable data related to the Armory Master Plan if they are still seeking input. They appreciated the suggestion and are looking into it.
On February 8, 2024, our Co-Director/CEO Stephanie Scherpf spoke at a City Council meeting. You can view the recording here starting at about 00:29:00. Orders put in by Councilor Sait, and co-sponsored by Councilor Burnley and Councilor Wilson were sent to the Housing and Community Development Committee, and joined with other orders submitted by Councilor Strezo, where they were further discussed on February 28, 2024 with Arts at the Armory leadership and City administrative staff present. In addition, Arts at the Armory leadership continues to meet with staff from SAC and OSPCD on a monthly basis to work through issues related to City ownership of the Armory building.
January 22, 2024
The City’s Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development (OSPCD) and Somerville Arts Council (SAC) have recently provided details related to four more community meetings about their Armory Master Plan process. Please see below for more info.
While we too are a bit weary from so many meetings, and we don’t know exactly how the meetings will be run or how the input gathered will be used, we are nevertheless asking our community to participate in this meeting series and make your voice heard. We encourage you to come prepared to share what you think is the appropriate role of government in operating and managing spaces in the Armory. We are advocating tirelessly for the community that we serve and we do need our community to accompany this process.
Right now, our key focus remains the four items below that over 1,100 members of our community endorsed in a petition.
1) abandon the proposed Model 1 for the Armory building (City as owner and operator model, which would force current tenants out)
2) adopt a 3rd party operator model for the Armory building that would include developing and issuing an RFP that 3rd party operators interested in managing the building would respond to
3) develop and issue an RFP for prospective arts/culture tenants interested in securing a lease on a space inside the Armory building
4) work with a consultant contracted by the City and current Armory tenants to create a governance model and governance committee that would develop, issue, and respond to both RFPs above
We have repeatedly expressed to City administration why it is imperative for the health of Arts at the Armory, as well as the health of the arts ecosystem of Somerville and beyond, that the Armory Master Plan process be moved along more expeditiously, and they quickly move to create and share an inventory of spaces in the Armory, the RFP process, and a proposed rent structure and governance model. June 2024 will mark 3 years of City ownership of the Armory building, and two years of the Armory Master Plan process. The lack of progress over the past nearly three years via the Armory Master Plan has thwarted our progress, growth, and service to the community, and must be addressed.
January 2, 2024
After four months of silence from the administration, we received a phone call from Mayor Ballantyne; we had an “individual tenant” meeting with City staff represented by the Somerville Arts Council, OSPCD and DPW on December 12th; and we had a group meeting with other Armory tenants on December 14th.
Here are some of the takeaways from the discussions:
-As a reset from the community meetings held by the City-hired consulting firm that occurred last July, the City is planning to hold 4 more community meetings related to the Armory Master Plan. Please stay tuned for more info but they are likely to take place in Jan – April. We encourage our supporters to please engage in this round of community meetings and make your voices heard.
-The Arts at the Armory Board and Co-Directors agreed that we would start meeting monthly with the relevant staff from Somerville Arts Council and OSPCD. This is an addition to the monthly meeting Jess has with DPW.
-As we are still without a current lease, we were asked to look into proposed options for a lease vs. a license agreement, and let City staff know our preference. We are currently exploring the legalities and terms related to both.
-Despite rumors that we were not paying rent, we provided clarification to the City that we have been paying the rent we agreed to in our original negotiation. Furthermore, we were able to express our grave concerns about the exorbitant increase in rent that we were asked to pay under city ownership while most of the building remains vacant or is being utilized by Somerville Arts Council.
We felt more optimistic after these meetings, and we will fully engage in the ensuing followup and keep our community apprised of our progress.
October 2, 2023
The Center for Arts at the Armory (CAA) held an important hybrid in-person and virtual community meeting attended by approximately 100 people on August 15, 2023. Please see below for a Zoom recording of the meeting, including a presentation made by CAA Co-Directors Stephanie Scherpf and Jess White, a Q&A session with the community, and comments made by community members attending the meeting.
At the meeting, CAA presented our case for a petition to the City of Somerville related to the Armory Master Plan and future proceedings related to the Armory building. CAA circulated the petition for 30 days and obtained 1,130 signatures in support of the petition. The petition is now closed. The petition was available in Spanish, Portuguese and Haitian Creole. Journalist Ryan Dilello wrote this article for the Somerville Wire following the August 15th meeting.
Over a month has passed, and CAA leadership has not received any communication from City of Somerville administration on the matter. Two orders and one resolution related to the Armory building and the Armory Master Plan were placed by Ward 5 City Councilor Bea Gomez-Mouakad at the August 24, 2023 City Council meeting. These orders were discussed at the September 20, 2023 Housing and Community Development ((HCD) Committee Meeting. A video of that discussion is available here. Stephanie Scherpf was also invited to speak on the topic at the HCD meeting and at the September 28, 2023 City Council meeting.
As promised, CAA has presented this packet of information to the Mayor, Somerville City Council , Somerville Arts Council and the Armory Master Plan consultant, Create Today and the Somerville Armory Master Plan Advisory Committee.
The petition created by Arts at the Armory urges the City of Somerville to do the following:
- abandon the proposed model 1 for the Armory building (City as owner and operator model)
- adopt a 3rd party operator model
- issue RFPs for a 3rd party operator and for prospective Armory arts/culture tenants
- create an Armory governance model
WHAT OUR COMMUNITY MEMBERS ARE SAYING
“I also just want to say I was on the Council when the Council voted to take this by eminent domain. Never in a million years did any of us think that that would lead to displacing Arts at the Armory. The idea was folks like you were under threat, and the city was seeking to protect you all to keep this… I’m not able to speak on behalf of the Council, but I do want to say I very strongly believe that that was the intent of all of us. It may be an unpopular thing to say, I actually feel very optimistic that the City is ultimately going to do the right thing here, and and I know that all of us will be doing everything we can to help.”
—Ben Ewen-Campen, Somerville City Councilor Ward 3
“Whatever needs to happen so the community can all understand how important this place is, how big this place is. We’ve gone through maintaining and holding on to stages from very small stages to clubs, being shut down every single month after the pandemic, and we need to save this stage right now. “
—Clay Fernald, BB Presents
“I want to say something very important. I sat in many, many planning meetings, and I’ve learned more today about what happened with this building in 2 hours. …I don’t design an operating room without the person who cleans it, the nurse, the person, the electrician, all of those folks. So I think it’s very important.”
—Beatriz Gomez-Mouakad, Somerville City Councilor, Ward 5
“This is the soul of our City here. This is the soul, and of course the Media Center, too. You’re the bookends of culture in this City.”
—Denise Provost, Former MA State Representative
“Full transparency would be ideal. I would like to know who is making the final decision as to the final choice of whatever model is being adopted. This meeting held by the CAA tonight demonstrated a lot of community support for their stewardship, so I hope all city entities involved in the Master Plan Process will consider that in choosing a model for adoption. Disrupting the balance of what has already been achieved here might be a great and regrettable folly.”
—Petition respondent
“The Center for Arts at the Armory is a gem of the community. CAA’s talented staff provide a diverse array of arts programming that is unmatched in its accessibility, affordability, and inclusivity. It is part of what makes Somerville a great place to live. “
—Petition respondent
“I have come to understand that the process the City started to determine the future of the facility was well intentioned but very poorly executed. I think the City did the right thing to take the Armory by eminent domain, but seems to be biting off more than it can chew in actually trying to operate it. I think it’s pretty clear that the City doesn’t have the bandwidth to manage this entity and should let another party do it.”
—Petition respondent
“I am also concerned about the lack of clarity and commitment from the City to the current Center for the Arts at the Armory and other arts tenants. It is so cognitively dissonant on so many levels, that it does boggle the mind that the City could even contemplate any other scenario than to continue to promote and enhance what CAA is already doing so exceptionally well.”
—August 15th Community Meeting Participant
August 2023
A year into its ownership of the Armory building, the City instituted an Armory Master Planning Process and hired a consultant team, Create Today, based out of New York, to guide this process. With the Master Planning Process now underway for over a year, the City and Create Today presented for consideration two models for the future of the Armory building. Model 1 proposes “the City as owner and operator” of the Armory building, giving the City full control of the building and its programming. In this model, the Center for Arts at the Armory would be dissolved, and other current Armory tenants would also need to vacate. Model 2 is dubbed “Multiple Tenants,” which proposes the City as the building manager that rents spaces to chosen artists or arts organizations/business, and is similar to how the Armory has existed for nearly 20 years, with the exception that the City would remain as building manager and choose who can occupy the building to fill their chosen arts mandate. While we do not support either model proposed to go forward in the Armory Master Plan Process, the second model at least does not make us obsolete, but still leaves our future in question. During Armory Master Plan community meetings held by the City of Somerville in July/August, City officials had taken the 3rd Party Operator model off the table. CAA and others are now urging City officials to reconsider the omission of the 3rd Party Operator model, and to involve current arts tenants, including CAA, in future plans related to the Armory building.
Armory Master Plan Links Provided by City Administration
The Somervoice project page link is: https://voice.somervillema.gov/armory-master-plan
Registration for the in-person Jan – April 2024 meetings: https://beta.somervilleartscouncil.org/armory-community-meetings-2024/
Click the flyer below to register to participate in the Jan – April 2024 meetings online.
IN THE NEWS
City Council addresses community issues and provides updates on city matters – Somerville Times, August 30, 2023
Armory master plan is back to the drawing board, revisiting operational proposals it had discarded – Somerville Wire, August 20, 2023
City plan could shuffle Armory tenants – Somerville Wire, August 3, 2023
Armory anchor tenant sidelined in Armory master plan – Somerville Wire, July 28, 2023