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Equilibria

Equilibria

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www.bostonglobe.com

Red Sox owners, partners plan major redevelopment around Fenway Park - The Boston Globe

The owners of the Red Sox are moving into the real estate development business, partnering with WS Development and the D'Angelo family in a long-term venture that would transform the neighborhood just outside Fenway Park.
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The five-acre project will feature office space, apartment buildings, retail, and possibly a hotel, along with public art and green space. It would be built over four sites along Jersey, Lansdowne, and Van Ness streets, as well as Brookline Avenue.

The D’Angelos and FSGRE are partnering with WS Development ― a veteran retail developer that in recent years has shepherded the 23-acre Seaport Square complex ― to steer design and construction of the project.

The co-developers said that while extensive planning has begun, they’re still working out many details, such as cost, square footage, building heights, and the exact mix of what they intend to build. They’re also considering the prospect of one day building out over the Massachusetts Turnpike behind Lansdowne Street, which would enable more ambitious development.
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More decking over the Pike! (albeit, prospecting planning far into the future, so maybe built in a century, but at least the planning is there!)
 
These D'Angelo people blocked the development of a much-needed new Fenway Park back in the early 2000s and are now poised to benefit. Fenway has a limited life left of perhaps a few more decades. Then what will happen? We cant even built a new small soccer stadium in the urban core let alone a new ballpark - they are criminals and deserve only to live on in notorious infamy. Literally what eminent domain was invented for...
 
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JS38 said:
These D'Angelo people blocked the development of a much-needed new Fenway Park back in the early 2000s and are now poised to benefit. Fenway has a limited life left of perhaps a few more decades. Then what will happen? We cant even built a new small soccer stadium in the urban core let alone a new ballpark - they are criminals and deserve only to live on in notorious infamy. Literally what eminent domain was invented for...
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What's going to happen to Fenway in a few more decades?
 
JS38 said:
These D'Angelo people blocked the development of a much-needed new Fenway Park back in the early 2000s and are now poised to benefit. Fenway has a limited life left of perhaps a few more decades. Then what will happen? We cant even built a new small soccer stadium in the urban core let alone a new ballpark - they are criminals and deserve only to live on in notorious infamy. Literally what eminent domain was invented for...
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Are you sure it was just the D’Angelos who blocked the new Fenway?

And they’ll just keep renovating the shit out of the ballpark until it gets as modern as possible
 
kingofsheeba said:
Are you sure it was just the D’Angelos who blocked the new Fenway?

And they’ll just keep renovating the shit out of the ballpark until it gets as modern as possible
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Assuming MLB is still a thing in 20 years (definitely not a certainty these days), I think the Red Sox will end up treating Fenway like a European soccer stadium: replace one stand at a time, every decade or so. There's no reason whatsoever that a stadium can't be maintained on a site indefinitely.

FWIW - you know they're going to do that because they're planning on using private funds to build around the stadium for the next 15 years. That's pointless if they ever plan to move.

And if the Red Sox had actually built a new Fenway in 1999, that stadium would be 21 years old now. In today's professional sports stadium scam, we'd already be hearing about the need for a New New Fenway.
 
We don't need a "New" Fenway. We need more things around Fenway. We need a more vibrant area. More retail, restaurants (Well, after COVID) and over 1,000 more untis of residence would be nice.

Van Ness should be a parcel with 3 ground level retail/shoppes and 10 floors of Office.

Jersey should have atleast 8 retail storefronts along Jersey Street with large entertainment restrauants and space (Think like the new pub in Hub on Causeway). There should be a towering part about 400ft, set back. Maybe one whole part of it 22 stories of residence (Towards the corner of Brookline Street). Make thatCorner REALLY vibrant. Make it something different. Make it fun, cool restaurants that are outside the box. Definitely a few Red Sox shoppes.

Landsdowne should be a mix of pubs and restaurants and nightclubs. Maybe a trinket store or two. Make this 10 stories high with rooftop Lounge overlooking Fenway Park. Make it big too for crowds. Floors 2-9 should be offices/mixed use.

Brookline should have retail and maybe a coffee shop, and atleast 20 stories of condos, ontop of 5-6 stories of office.
 
My guess is we end up with something that's like Patriot Place mixed with The Seaport... so Assembly-ish. Bleh.
 
They sure are not going to put anything up that will have an unobstructed view of the field. Nothing higher than 5-6 stories.
 
Equilibria said:
Assuming MLB is still a thing in 20 years (definitely not a certainty these days), I think the Red Sox will end up treating Fenway like a European soccer stadium: replace one stand at a time, every decade or so. There's no reason whatsoever that a stadium can't be maintained on a site indefinitely.
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Basically a terrestrial version of the USS Constitution (which probably has, what, 1% of its original timber embedded in it these days, at best?)--and what's so wrong with that?
 
RandomWalk said:
They sure are not going to put anything up that will have an unobstructed view of the field. Nothing higher than 5-6 stories.
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It's the Red Sox themselves doing it, though, so why not do it and either rent the space on game days or make it an amenity? Actually, if I were them I'd build Landsdowne high enough to accommodate bleachers on the roof.
 
As someone who lives two blocks from here in the Fenway, this can't happen soon enough! I have spent an embarrassing amount of time over the years imagining how I would try to redevelop these parcels if I were in the shoes of John Henry.

For most of the last century, Fenway Park and its immediate surroundings were the highlight of the neighborhood from an urban vitality point-of-view. Today, the lots that this project aims to redevelop are among the worst, most blighted in the neighborhood. The D'Angelo buildings in particular look like they haven't seen a dollar of upkeep or investment in about 3 decades. The Fenway has come a LONG way in the last 10-or-so years (thanks, Steve Samuels and a few others), but the buildings immediately abutting the Park haven't kept up.

Lansdowne Street itself is already pedestrian-only on game days for security reasons, and the outdoor seating that lined the street this year during COVID should be made permanent. Even when it is open to vehicles, there's no reason Lansdowne ever needs more than one travel lane and one open curb for pick-ups and drop-offs. The current Lansdowne Garage (most of the "Lansdowne" parcel) is a natural candidate to turn into a bar/resataurant with a roofdeck in home run territory (as it was this summer). I'd expect it to be built up to about the height of the Monster but certainly no taller; the Sox won't want Wrigley Field-style seating overlooking the field, or really anything viewable from inside the Park in fair territory. As for the floors between ground-level and the roof, residential would never work on Lansdowne and office is a bit of stretch. Hotel might work, but I think retail / entertainment is the way to go from top to bottom.

I bet the "Jersey" parcel will emulate the Park's brick facade along Jersey St, and would be a great spot for retail + hotel + Red Sox offices. That's a big parcel with frontages on both Brookline and Van Ness, so there's plenty of room for more office/commercial there too. Residential would be a bit tough there, however. As for height, I bet the Jersey St frontage will emulate the Park with a front brick facade as high as the bricks on the Park (this is Fenway Park's "front door" after all), with a set-back behind that front facade stepping up to roughly the roof of the press box.

The "Brookline" and "Van Ness" parcels could really be anything: hotel, commercial, or residential. There is precedent for all three property types right around there. If I had to guess, I'd think the parcel best suited for residential would be the "Brookline" one, and the parcel best suited for office would be "Van Ness." But both could conceivably go for any of hotel / commercial / residential. As for height, I'd bet these two will go almost as high as all the other new stuff along Boylston, just a little bit shorter. The Sox have shown they're okay with buildings peeking into the park from foul territory, but they don't want anything towering over it. If I had to guess, I'd say the "Van Ness" lot will step down to the park by maybe two stories from the Samuels Optum office building above Eventide, and the "Brookline" lot will step down similarly from the new residential building at Lansdowne Station.

It goes without saying that every one of these parcels should have 100% active ground floors chock-full of retail. That's worked so far in nearly everything built in the Fenway this century, and there's no reason to stop here.
 
Do the Red Sox already own rights to build over the pike, or would they need to get those rights somehow? Also, would it be possible to build a park over the pike from Brookline to Charlesgate or Mass Ave like with the Southwest Corridor or Greenway? What exactly would/could an air rights project look like on this stretch?

After considering it for a second, I'm thinking buildings along Brookline and Ipswich that open onto those streets? Could they connect Ipswich to Newbury?
 
Arenacale said:
Anything they can do to get rid of this disgrace is a net positive, regardless of what else comes of it.
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What an absolute POS this is. The D'Angelos took a two story industrial building with classical lines and designed repairs and an addition on a napkin on their kitchen table, and then built it as a do-it-yourself project, on weekends. The 'sill' for the addition is already rusting out. No self-respecting architect would ever produce this.
https://goo.gl/maps/yg5PayC7twczjyTk7[url]
 
As an aside, I didn't realize the D'Angelo family were behind Twins Enterprises, nor that Twins had become '47 Brand. The dots are now connecting.
 
Arenacale said:
Anything they can do to get rid of this disgrace is a net positive, regardless of what else comes of it.
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Agreed. But one of my favorite Red Sox experiences is taking the uninitiated down that alley to rear Bullpen (RIP Who's On First) for a drink and getting the "where are you taking me?" question. I haven't done it in a few years, but we used to exploit the re-entry policy at WOF/Bullpen all the time as cheap college students. 2 tickets for 8 friends and we'd all take turns in the seats before rotating back to the bar and switching with the next two people. In short, I hope they keep the access.
 
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