Tearing down an elevated highway created 20 acres of state-owned waterfront in Fall River. On July 24, 2026, MassDOT put it out to bid, looking for developers to turn it into a district worth roughly $1 billion in private investment.
Project Scope
The parcel is a narrow strip along the Taunton River, freed up by MassDOT’s Route 79 / Davol Street Corridor Improvements Project. The old elevated structure ran up to 600 feet wide in places and cut the adjacent neighborhood off from the water entirely. The state has spent about $135 million on the corridor work to date, replacing the highway with a surface boulevard.
The invitation to bid asks for as many as 1,400 housing units plus mixed-use commercial space and public amenities including entertainment venues. MassDOT is looking for one to three developers with the balance sheet to close and perform, and it’s weighing organizational capacity and legal compliance alongside price. Proposals are due October 21, with a virtual informational meeting on August 5.
The site sits next to the MBTA’s new Fall River Depot station, which put the South Coast back on the commuter rail map to Boston and Providence for the first time in decades.
Why It Matters
MassDOT is calling this one of the largest waterfront redevelopment opportunities in New England directly adjacent to commuter rail, and that’s not marketing. Transit-oriented development sites of this scale are usually assembled parcel by parcel over years. This one exists because a state agency demolished a highway and kept the land.
Fall River is a former textile city of about 94,000 that has spent 50 years looking for its second act. The waterfront was its first asset and the highway took it away in the 1960s. Getting it back with rail service attached is a genuinely different proposition than the last several rounds of redevelopment planning.
The open question is whether the market shows up. Building 1,400 units in a city with South Coast rents requires either subsidy, phasing patience, or both. MassDOT’s willingness to split the site among up to three developers suggests the state knows a single taker at that scale is unlikely.
Project Team & Details
| Owner / Client | Massachusetts Department of Transportation |
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| Status | Planned |
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| Delivery Method | Public-Private Partnership (P3) |
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| Funding Source | Public-Private Partnership (P3) |
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