Cambridge Officials Plan Park In Inman Square Neighborhood

The City Council voted Monday night to build a small park in Inman Square to help alleviate mid-Cambridge's chronic shortage of open space.

Acting unanimously, the council voted to take by eminent domain a small parcel of land directly across from Legal Seafoods, which was gutted by fire a week ago.

No Resistance

The city will build a "passive park--trees and benches--a very simple design," on the triangular lot, David Vickery, director of community development, said.

Cambridge will pay $84,000 for the site, or about $14 per square foot.

"This will help to fulfill a debt, an obligation to mid-Cambridge," Councilor David Sullivan, an Inman Square resident, said. Mid-Cambridge, which stretches to the edge of Harvard Yard, "has less open space than any other area in the city," Sullivan added.

"This particular parcel is so centrally located that it is hard to imagine any place so many people would go by, see and use," Councilor David Wylie added.

The parcel, which sat on the market for almost a year at $100,000, was appraised three times before the city agreed on the $84,000 figure. "I think the reason for the drop in price was that there seemed to be no development interest," Vickery said.

Mid-Cambridge residents lost a council fight last year when they asked the city to pay almost $30 a square foot for a small parcel of land near the Longfellow Elementary School.