Mayor Dorothy Kelly Gay signed a memorandum of agreement with the development company to build a mixed-use complex on the site of the Assembly Square Mall. The project will include a hotel, office park, parking, Home Depot and a waterfront park. Those who oppose this plan take issue with the fact that the mayor signed this agreement as well as the plan itself.

"That memorandum takes the form of a city contract," Alderman-at-large Denise Provost tells GlobeSt.com. "I don't think she has the power to do that." Sean Fitzgerald, Mayor Kelly Gay's press secretary, disagrees. "That's the power and function of the mayor," he tells GlobeSt.com. "She is supposed to negotiate these kind of arrangements."

The problem that many have with the plan is the big box stores, and the parking lots that accompany them, that the mayor will allow developers to create. At Assembly Square, developers are planning on putting in a Home Depot.