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• March 1958: Ford closes the assembly plant due to the high costs of operating the undersized, outdated facility during a national economic recession.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.”