Inner Belt District

Along with nearby Brickbottom, the Inner Belt is a historically industrial zone of Somerville, with factories, warehouses, distribution centers, railroad connections, regional maintenance facilities, MBTA and Amtrak offices, retail stores and a hotel.

Named after the proposed but doomed Inner Belt Highway, the district is bounded by Interstate 93, Route 28, and the Lowell and Fitchburg rail lines.

Although adjacent to the McGrath Corridor, NorthPoint in Cambridge and Sullivan Square in Charlestown, it is isolated from them by highways and rail lines.

Somerville is currently engaged in an ongoing community process, begun in 2011, to determine a long-term Master Plan for the Inner Belt and Brickbottom region.

Called the Inner Belt Expressway, it would have connected I-93 on the east with Massachusetts Route 2 in the west following the path of the Fitchburg Railroad through Porter Square.

The purpose of the renewal plan was to destroy the existing neighborhood grid pattern and reorganize the area to accommodate the Interstate, provide automobile circulation and parking, and establish single-use zoning.