A proposal that would have reshaped one of Somerville's busiest squares is dead. Copper Mill, the Boston-based developer behind a planned 26-story, 502-unit apartment tower in Davis Square, announced on August 31 that it is stepping away from its agreement with the property owners at the corner of Elm and Grove streets, ending a yearslong effort that had divided the neighborhood.

The project would have replaced a block of low-rise storefronts with a tower containing roughly 125 affordable units and about 10 ground-floor commercial spaces, filed under the state's Chapter 40B affordable-housing law. It became one of the region's clearest tests of the tension between transit-oriented housing production and neighborhood opposition — a dynamic playing out in communities across Greater Boston, including here in Chelsea, wherever density, height, and local character collide.

Copper Mill placed the blame squarely on the city. “It’s simply not feasible to continue to pour capital into a project, even one that would build 500 housing units, when the City continues to demonstrate that it is not serious about building more housing,” the company said in a statement. CEO Andrew Flynn went further in a letter to the Davis Square Neighborhood Council, writing that Somerville had “consistently broken its own promises, missed its own deadlines and failed to provide any tangible direction” — including, he said, reneging on a pledge to co-sign the project’s affordable-housing application to the state.

Somerville Mayor Jake Wilson rejected that account. He said the city never received a formal proposal because Copper Mill pursued the project entirely through the state’s 40B process, which he noted has been paused at the state level since December. “Typically, when the project remains paused like that at the state level, that doesn’t bode well for the prospects of that ever happening,” Wilson told Boston.com. Wilson pointed instead to other housing already moving forward in the city, including projects at the former Star Market site and 90 Washington Street.

The collapse follows months of friction. Copper Mill filed its state permit application in December 2025, then released revised, shorter designs in April after residents criticized the tower’s height at a contentious community meeting. Neighborhood confidence was further shaken this year by reporting from The Boston Globe that Flynn is separately facing a Suffolk Superior Court lawsuit alleging he defaulted on payments tied to his purchase of a Cape Cod inn; Flynn has denied wrongdoing.

One piece of good news survived the wreckage: The Burren and Dragon Pizza, longtime Davis Square tenants Copper Mill had planned to displace and rebuild, will keep their current leases now that the tower is off the table.

What comes next for the site is unresolved. No new proposal has emerged from the property owners, and city officials say future development will be shaped by the Davis Square Neighborhood Plan, a community land-use study the city expects to complete in 2027. Details on the now-abandoned application remain posted on the city's official 40B project page.