With our community’s strong support, we exceeded our goal of 1,000 signatures on our petition related to the Armory Master Plan within a 30 day window. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to the sign the petition, attend a meeting, and follow the progression of this situation. The petition is now closed.

As promised, we have presented the petition results, the recording of the August 15th Community Meeting, and an accompanying letter to the Mayor, Somerville City Council, Somerville Arts Council, the Armory Master Plan consultant Create Today, and the Somerville Armory Master Plan Advisory Committee.

Over a month has passed since our August 15th Community Meeting, and Center for Arts at the Armory (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 will be discussed tomorrow, September 20th, at the Housing and Community Development Committee Meeting at 6pm. Click here to tune into the meeting.

Background info:

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 click here 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. Journalist Ryan Dilello wrote this article for the Somerville Wire following the August 15th meeting.
The petition created by Arts at the Armory and signed by 1,130 people 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