Green Street Connector project comes in front of City Council for the first time

A city project to create a new north-south road in the west of Waltham will go before the City Council tonight. 

The project will extend Green Street, a short roadway that runs south off Main Street parallel to I-95 on its western side, all the way to Weston Street. 

The proposed work would more than double the street’s current length and provide another connection between Route 20 and Route 117. It will also involve constructing a “shared use path,” as well as stormwater, utility, intersection and streetscape improvements along the length of the street.

City officials announced the project in November after the state determined it would award $7.5 million in grants for the project as part of its Community One Stop for Growth program. 

At its Feb. 2 meeting, the City Council’s Finance Committee will discuss these grants, which the state has supplied in two parts: $6 million from the Executive Office of Economic Development and $1.5 million from the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.

From its inception, this project has been linked to housing. In a budgeting attachment submitted to the state, Waltham Planning Director Robert Waters wrote that the project could “catalyze the development of up to 1,500 housing units.”

Route 128 transportation corridor development

The idea of the Green Street Connector came up nearly three years ago in the state’s 2023 Route 128/I-95 Land Use & Transportation Study. The study described the stretch of I-95 passing through Waltham and nearby townships as “one of the most congested roadways in the state,” in part because the area hosts many jobs but provides insufficient housing for workers. 

It projected that problem would worsen in the coming years. In addition to general improvements to car, bike, pedestrian and public transit options in the corridor, the study examined proposed construction projects in the area and ways to mitigate the potential impact of that development. 

Waltham is home to many of the construction projects examined in the state study. One such project was 1265 Main St., the site of the former Polaroid factory and now home of Market Basket and other commercial buildings. The site’s owners have proposed additional construction in the coming years, including a hotel, office spaces and potentially some residential units. The site owner has petitioned the city for a zoning change, which is necessary to build residential units on the site.

The Route 128 Study cited the Green Street Connector as a proposal from owner 1265 Main Street LLC to offset traffic generated by future development on the site.

The connector project has come up recently in 1265 Main Street LLC’s discussions with the City Council on rezoning the lot and two others owned by real estate company BXP to allow mixed-use residential and commercial development. 

At a Jan. 20 meeting of the City Council’s Ordinances and Rules Committee, BXP’s vice president of development, Kier Evans, told councilors his company was considering contributing $15 million to the project as long as zoning negotiations showed progress in the next few months. He said the Green Street extension project would help mitigate the traffic increases expected from its proposed commercial and residential construction. 

Evans said BXP and the state had together proposed approximately $30 million in funding to construct the Green Street Connector, adding that 1265 Main Street LLC had also offered the city a right-of-way easement on its own land to move the project forward. He said that this project would lay the foundation for future highway improvements around the Route 20 ramps on and off I-95.

In a December statement to The Waltham Times, a Massachusetts Department of Transit spokesperson said state highway infrastructure in connection with the Green Street Connector project was currently under review by MassDOT.