A developer wants to turn more than two decades of blight along Coes Reservoir into 255 new apartments. Worcester Mill LLC has submitted plans to build seven multifamily buildings at 195 Mill St. in Webster Square, the site of a former supermarket that has sat empty since the early 2000s.
The filing asks the city's Zoning Board of Appeals to approve the project, known as Reservoir Point, according to Worcester Business Journal. The plan calls for three five-story buildings and four four-story buildings spread across a roughly 10.4-acre parcel directly across from Coes Reservoir, the outlet reports.
Parking is a significant piece of the proposal. Plans call for 389 total spaces, including 39 electric-vehicle spaces, 39 EV-ready spaces, 16 accessible spaces and 85 compact spaces, per the same filing described by the Worcester Business Journal. Worcester Mill LLC has requested a special permit and variances to move the project forward.
A Supermarket's Long Decline
The site's history traces back to the 1960s, when Big D Supermarket first opened there. Price Chopper acquired the store in 1995 and operated it until relocating around 2001, the Worcester Business Journal notes. After that, the building sat vacant, blighted and boarded up for more than two decades before it was finally torn down in 2023.
Worcester Mill LLC, the entity that owns the property, is managed by Sam Adams, a Shrewsbury-based real estate developer, according to the Telegram & Gazette. The company awarded a demolition and abatement contract in 2023, with Bellingham-based Regional Industrial Services Corp. hired to carry out the work, the Telegram & Gazette reported at the time.
The eyesore had frustrated city officials and neighbors for years before demolition finally began. Zoning changes approved by the Worcester Planning Board eventually opened the door to taller, higher-density residential construction on the parcel, paving the way for the kind of multifamily buildings now proposed for the site.
Hearing Set for Nov. 9, Agenda Still Pending
Worcester Mill LLC has requested a hearing before the Zoning Board of Appeals for Nov. 9, though the board's agenda had not been posted as of Thursday, the Worcester Business Journal reported. Under Massachusetts law, a permit-granting authority may only grant a variance after a properly noticed public hearing and a specific finding that conditions tied to the land's soil, shape or topography uniquely affect that property, according to Massachusetts General Law Chapter 40A, Section 10.
Reservoir Point would join a string of large multifamily proposals moving through Worcester's approval pipeline this year. In January, the city's Planning Board approved a 197-unit complex near Polar Park, and in March, the Zoning Board of Appeals signed off on 41 affordable apartments in Main South, according to MassLive.
More recently, the Planning Board approved 50 apartments at the former Worcester Academy alumni building in July and 74 apartments at a former laundromat site on Chandler Street in August, MassLive reported. That Chandler Street project, unlike Reservoir Point, skips new parking altogether in favor of a covered bridge to an adjacent garage. Just days later, the Zoning Board of Appeals voted 5-0 to grant a special permit and two variances for a 209-apartment project at a former Worcester Academy athletic field, a plan that still needs definitive site-plan approval from the Planning Board before construction can begin, per MassLive's reporting.
Why the City Needs the Units
The push for new housing comes as Worcester tries to close a wide gap between supply and demand. The city is aiming to add 12,304 housing units by 2033, which works out to roughly 1,119 new units every year, according to MassLive's review of city housing goals. Worcester added 1,023 units in 2025, up sharply from just 399 the year before, the same report shows.
Population growth has added to the pressure. Census data cited by the Telegram & Gazette showed Worcester's population had climbed 14% since 2010, reaching 206,515 residents. Whether the Reservoir Point proposal clears its Nov. 9 hearing, and what conditions the zoning board might attach, remains to be seen now that the long-blighted Mill Street lot finally has a development plan on the table.
