Melrose, Massachusetts

6 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 10 MELROSE , MASSACHUSETTS nearby Boston for work. Melrose is primarily a bedroom community, with three commuter rail stations taking residents and visitors in and out of the city in just 15 to 20 minutes. “It’s an incredibly quick trip to North station, which is the northern tip of Boston, and that puts you into a transit hub where you can get anywhere else you want to go throughout the city,” Brodeur says. Melrose also has access to several nearby highways, including Route 99, Route 1, I-93, Massachusetts Route 16 and Route 128/I-95, as well as an active bus network. The city uses this wealth of transportation to its advantage. Melrose’s master plan, updated in 2017, has put a huge focus on smart growth and transit-oriented development. “All of our focus on zoning and land-use planning has been around maximizing the development potential along these transit lines and promoting mixed-use development wherever we can,” Gaffey says. “We’ve seen quite a bit of development interest since we started doing this work in zoning to create these opportunities about 20 years ago. It’s been very successful, we have a lot of development going on for a city our size.” One of the city’s latest developments is the Radio Factory Lofts, located just an eight minute walk from the MBTA Orange Line Subway. The three-storey building is a former radio equipment manufacturing facility dating back to the 1880s. The century-old building has been converted into 141 loft apartments that maintain the historic charm of the old building, complete with exposed brick and wood beams. “It was really over the years an underutilized property, as the whole area went away from manufacturing on the rail lines to more of a commuter model,” Brodeur explains. “It’s a very exciting piece that’s been a game changer for Melrose in terms of increasing the variety of housing, increasing opportunities for folks that might not have thought of Melrose as a commute into Boston kind of place, and maybe a