Despite assurances by a Somerville official that the city would work with tenants of its Armory arts building not “to dismantle [it but] to make it work,” leases were sent Thursday that suggests all will be homeless as of Dec. 31.
While tenants expressed hope that it was just a first step to be followed by a lease renegotiation process, several described a lack of communication that left them not knowing what to expect and, in the words of one who asked not to be named, “not sure what is true.”
Somerville took the building in May from Cambridge’s Sater family with a City Council-approved $5 million eminent domain land taking. The seizure was to “preserve the facility for arts uses” after hearing the Saters might convert the 191 Highland…