Directly on-axis with the landmarked former home of George Boutwell, Governor of Massachusetts, and Secretary of the Treasury under Ulysses Grant, the proposed Broadmeadow Common gathers flexible mixed-use mercantile/loft-style buildings and a grand-scaled civic pavilion around the first new Common for this picturesque colonial town in many generations. 

 

Long before and long after Boutwell's time, the Station Avenue axis terminated the West side of it's single-block length in a busy station of the Boston-and-Maine train line. Station Avenue was the conduit from the traffic and commerce of the station to the dignity and gentility of the town famous for its Gentleman's Farms and exclusive Preparatory Schools. 

Declining train service ended altogether in 1986, and this important axis and intersection both fell into neglect. 

 

Seizing the opportunities created when the train line was replaced with a Rail Trail, the new Broadmeadow Common is a vital public place for shopping, recreation, living, and working.

 

In a town where a tide of twenty-thousand cars surges East every morning and West every evening, Broadmeadow Common posits a node onto which some bit of what people leave town for could begin to grow locally.

 

The project area has evolved and grown to become Groton's Town Center Overlay District. Tim was one of three co-authors of the district's Design Guidelines which received a 2007 Smart Energy / Smart Growth Award from the Governor's Office of Environmental Affairs

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Design: InSitu Principal Tim Hess, for the Town of Groton Station Avenue Committee