Parking lot to be returned to nature
Published: June 9, 2005
The Coalition for Alewife, a group of residents from Arlington, Belmont, and Cambridge, is hosting a party to celebrate a victory: a piece of the Alewife Reservation that was converted into a parking lot is getting turned back into wetlands.
”We are just thrilled,” said coalition member Elsie Fiore, one of many people who have waited 10 years for the conversion.
The 2-acre parcel has been part of the state’s Alewife Reservation since the reservation was established.
In 1951, Arthur D. Little, an international consulting firm, developed an office park off of Route 2, on the Cambridge/Belmont line, next to the reservation. Several years later, the now-defunct Metropolitan District Commission leased the parcel of reservation land to Arthur D. Little. The company paved it and used it as a parking lot.
Angry residents formed the Coalition for Alewife. Their mission was to integrate the land back into the 115-acre reservation that surrounds it.
Those efforts finally paid off. The Bulfinch Cos., the new owner of the Arthur D. Little campus, agreed to convert the parcel back to parkland, Fiore said.
The asphalt has already been removed.
Corby Kump, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, which now oversees the reservation, said eventually the lot will be blended into the nearby wetlands.
The party celebrating the conversion of the land takes place Saturday, from 1 to 3 p.m., rain or shine, on the land, at Acorn Park Road at Route 2 in Cambridge. It is close to the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority’s Alewife station.
The party is open to the public. It will include live music, refreshments, clowns, and face painting for children. It is sponsored by the coalition, Bulfinch Cos., and McKinnon Co., a public relations firm that works with Bulfinch, Fiore said.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: