SOMERVILLE — Some called it the “Forbidden Swimming Hole.”
Others said the vacant pit at 15 McGrath Highway, with a footprint the size of two-and-a-half Olympic swimming pools, would be perfect for “boat coliseum battles.”
Or, in homage to the local business that once stood at the site: “The Sav-Mor Liquors Memorial Swimming Pool.”
Whatever you call it, the site of a paused lab space construction project in a busy section of Somerville and its many, many gallons of un-swimmable water has been turning heads here for more than a year. Now, for the first time, the owner of the land says it’s all part of the plan.
Stay with us as we dive into the history.
For years, the site was home to a low-slung strip mall, and Sav-Mor Liquors. When that location closed for good in 2022, Sav-Mor announced the change in its well-known witty style on its sign outside: “Thank you for 40 great years. Moved to Assembly Row. Don’t tell Todd.”
The plan under owner Leggat McCall Properties was for a nine-story, 262,000-square-foot life sciences building to sprout there, in a prime spot on the border with Cambridge and up the road from the large mixed-use development Cambridge Crossing. Construction crews started digging. Concrete was poured.
But by 2024, after a frenzy of lab space construction in the Boston area left the market with a glut of it, the plans changed.
“Construction of 15 McGrath has paused until market conditions improve,” the developer said in a statement in July of that year. “The project team fully intends to re-engage and complete the project at that time.”
Work stopped. The concrete, and a huge, uncovered pit that was two-thirds the size of a football field, remained.
In time, it filled up with murky water. On a recent frigid afternoon, it was topped with a layer of what looked to be slush.
Not every neighbor loves this new, impromptu water feature.
Rachel Levin lives in Somerville near the community path and said she and her husband take regular walks on it together, an experience they (mostly) enjoy.
“We’re so thrilled to have access to the path. It’s fantastic,” said Levin, 30. “Every time we pass [the pit] I am just like, ‘What the heck is this? And why is it being ignored?’”
At a time of soaring housing costs, residents also said it was a bummer to see land that could be turned into new homes being used for nothing at all.
“Putting some kind of apartment or condo building or something people can live in would be better than just a giant pit,” said Somerville resident Chris Devers, 49, as he stood on an elevated segment of the Somerville Community Path, where the view of the pit is pristine. “It’s a valuable piece of real estate to just be leaving as a skating rink that nobody can skate on.”
So how did this happen?
While it may look to passersby like the pit was simply forgotten, left behind to be overcome by the elements, the developer says the fact that it’s now full of water is no accident.
Boston-based Leggat McCall Properties, which owns the plot of land, said in a statement that it is intentionally leaving water there for now, in an effort to prevent the ground underneath it from moving. The firm said this is to protect nearby structures, including the community path, from the damage that might occur if the soil were to shift too much.
“The MBTA raised concerns about potential soil settlement,” said Pamela Jonah, a spokesperson for the firm. “To alleviate concerns, allowing the water level to rise helps restore appropriate underground pressure conditions.”
MBTA officials said they did raise concerns about the impact the excavation site would have on its infrastructure. A T spokesperson said that the excavation had already caused some “movement” on the community path and created some cracks in an MBTA access road.
So when work came to a halt, the T “recommended backfilling the site as the preferred solution to stabilize the water table,” the T spokesperson said in an email. “However, the developer instead opted to fill the excavated area with water to manage the pressure.”
Leggat is looking for a cost-effective source of fill, and will eventually replace the water with it, said Jonah, the firm spokesperson. For now, she said, it is circulating the water and treating it to keep away mosquitos and other pests. It is also weighing its options for building something new at the site.
“During this time our solution has been working, and we continue to work with the MBTA and the City,” Jonah said. “The site has been successfully stabilized with water, while also preserving the below grade area as part of an alternative development plan which we plan to discuss with city officials soon.”
A spokesperson for Somerville said city inspectors are aware of the approach being taken and are monitoring conditions at the site.
Somerville tends to have a sense of humor about its vacant pits when they show up.
A few miles northwest of 15 McGrath is the infamous “Teele Square Pit,” a space that has sat vacant since a fire destroyed a small strip mall there in 2011. Two years ago, someone hung up a banner that sarcastically celebrated “13 years of the Teele Square Rat Playground.”
Meanwhile, the pool of water has not kept a hotel project on a plot of land adjacent to it from moving forward. As of last summer, the plans called for 145 rooms to be built there.
“On the plus side,” one person wrote on Reddit, “the hotel can now advertise a waterfront view.”
Spencer Buell can be reached at spencer.buell@globe.com. Follow him @SpencerBuell.