Assembly Square - History

History

  • 1926: The namesake of the site, a Ford Motor Company car assembly plant, opens.
  • March 1958: Ford closes the assembly plant due to the high costs of operating the undersized, outdated facility during a national economic recession. The last car built here was the Edsel.
  • 1980: Assembly Square Mall opens. The mall is the latest reuse of the original Ford Motor factory. Prior to becoming a mall, the building served as a supermarket distribution center.
  • March 2005: Federal Realty Investment Trust purchases Assembly Square and an adjacent 220,000-square-foot (20,000 m2) retail/industrial complex.
  • August 2005: The SAFETEA-LU federal transportation funding bill, which includes $25 million earmark in federal transportation funding for a new Assembly Square station on the MBTA's Orange Line, is signed into law.
  • 2005/2006: The new Assembly Square Marketplace opens with retailers including Christmas Tree Shops; A.C. Moore; Sports Authority; Staples; Kmart; TJ Maxx and Bed, Bath & Beyond.
  • April 2006: IKEA and Federal Realty announce agreement in principle on land swap and Federal Realty unveils preliminary master plan for Assembly Square.
  • October 2006: Federal Realty, IKEA and Mystic View Task Force announce landmark accord including Federal Realty and IKEA’s $15 million contribution to a new Orange Line station and a long-term vision for Assembly Square with five million square feet of retail, residential, office, research and development space.
  • April 30, 2012: Groundbreaking day for the $1.6 billion redevelopment of Assembly Square, “widely seen as the biggest example of "transit-oriented development" now underway on the East Coast.”

Read more about this topic:  Assembly Square

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.”
    —Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    “The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
    —Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)

    “A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.”
    —Aristide Briand (1862–1932)