Ferdinand Building Renovation + Addition | Dudley Sq | Roxbury

Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

We need to talk more about this. WTF kind of design is that? It's like Moe, Larry, and Curley are doing the design. I mean, really. I mean, REALLY.

You should read the story, too. The ideas that people are putting forth for the building itself are ridiculous. And, of course, there's accusations of racism included, too.
 
Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

He's a [strike]fucking[/strike] fudging idiot.

From Universal Hub:

Roxbury Wakeup is a site dedicated to the premise that the city's plans to renovate the Ferdinand building as the new BPS headquarters is just a plot to gentrify the Dudley Square area:

This project will essentially put a stop to any future retail and social growth, as well as any possible wealth building within the community. It is a CIVIC MUNICIPAL BUILDING. It is a static linear placeholder for the city’s use. Relocating the Boston Public School headquarters’ 500 employees does not GENERATE local jobs. The jobs are already filled! It is not an organic revitalization component and does not ADD to the fabric of this creative, artistic, historic community, and will systemically drain its energy. It is a micro filler, and not a solution that will successfully address the macro issues of this community. It is GENTRIFICATION.

Proposed alternative: Turn the Ferdinand into a hub of social and multimedia networking that would generate new jobs.
Click to expand...

The man's Twitter feed is useless: https://twitter.com/#!/RoxburyWakeUp
 
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Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

Forget it John, it's Dudley. The whole area is a cesspool of every kind of dirty politics one can imagine from about 1940 onward. Our own microcosm of Detroit. It's impossible to have a real discussion about how to make the square self sustainably successful when so many people profit politically and financially from permanently keeping the place in crisis. It's not worth dealing with people willing to go the full Alinsky at ever opportunity. Better to leave them alone and let them live in the ruins they've created.

Roxbury as a whole is probably going to see a Renaissance similar to JP in the next 20 years with the Fairmount line and several other developments. Focus on that transition and let the fools waste all their energy safely on Dudley, instead of potentially interfering with the progress of rest of the neighborhood.
 
Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

But overall Lurker, I think the architecture for this building will bring a positive vibe for the area.


Lurker with your best assessment and wisdom on what is going on in the city & economy. How does all this play-out over the next 10 years for the city of Boston.
A tale of two cities?

SPID (a possible success)?
East Boston Success?
Roxbury (warzone) ?
DTX finally Booming area?
Will the Greenway ever become a park?

What areas do you see that will actually excel over the next 10-15 years.
Somerville
Malden
Chelsea

Just curious on what you’re seeing?

I think E.Boston Waterfront is becoming a hot spot, but I'm not sure anymore. The world has become so complex since 2000
 
Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

Hmm.. in other recent articles I've seen, the sign has been removed from the rendering. I wonder which it is.

For one, I think the sign is pure awesome. Nothing wrong with putting Dudley on the map, as it were.
 
Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

It looks much better with the sign. If it end sup not being in the final product, I'll want to know why. I suspect I already know the answer, and if so, it's a shame. Dudley (and indeed all of Boston) could use a bit more bold flavor.
 
Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

Pictures from the groundbreaking. The only notion of a sign in any of these appears on the side of a cake :-(
 
Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

Lurker said:
Roxbury as a whole is probably going to see a Renaissance similar to JP in the next 20 years with the Fairmount line and several other developments. Focus on that transition and let the fools waste all their energy safely on Dudley, instead of potentially interfering with the progress of rest of the neighborhood.
Click to expand...

I hope this is indeed what happens. However, Roxbury has been so systematically de-urbanized over the past 60 years or so that I think a JP-like transformation would require more leadership and effort than this city can muster.
 
Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

I don't know about that. With housing prices being what they are it's one of the last places within city limits that has the space to build. My uncle used to work at a Home Depot close to the city (don't remember where exactly) and he had many clients who were buying up and renovating houses in Roxbury (this was back when the economy was better).

Roxbury still has solid housing stock in many parts. The other parts have large empty lots. In 20 years if these aren't being filled in I'll be SHOCKED! The Fairmont Line is just the beginning. Improved bus service and hopefully subway expansion will only further the development.

Of course this means gentrification conflicts but that's where the city will step in and make way for developments.

Actually the only way Dudley can truly be restored is when the population of Roxbury increases and becomes more economically diverse (i.e. richer).
 
Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

tmac9wr said:
Is this guy serious?
Click to expand...

Tmac -- actually he is though you could ask is he sane?

I think that he wants some sort of eutopic world where he can dream it and someone will pour Tax payer's $$$ onto his dream

Actually by moving the jobs from Gov't Center to Dudley there will be many jobs for people local to Dudley -- it will just take time:
1) for a while nothing will change except the specifics of the commute
2) eventually some number of the existing employees will become fed-up with having to commute to Dudley and either:
a) move to near Dudley -- gentrification the area
b) quit with the jobs undoubtedly wired for local residents -- gentrification of the area
3) as a result of the gentrification -- support services for the Dudley area will open / expand / improve and hire more local residents -- who will have more money
4) improving the overall local to Dudley economy

Gentrification gets a bad name -- but its alternative is Slumnification
 
Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

whighlander said:
Gentrification gets a bad name -- but its alternative is Slumnification
Click to expand...

There is usually a sweet spot right in the middle, but like most sweet spots it is almost impossible to maintain.
 
Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

statler said:
There is usually a sweet spot right in the middle, but like most sweet spots it is almost impossible to maintain.
Click to expand...

Srat -- Exactly -- like balancing a pencil on the tip -- equilibrium exists and it will stand if there are no external forces -- but in the real world -- it falls one way or the other as there is always something to destabilize it.

My neighborhood in Lexington was quite comfortably stable for about a decade after we moved-in - a mix of us (then) young folk, people who'd been around for a few years, and some old timers who remembered when the houses were built in the late 40's and 50's. All this was accompanied by an about a 10% a year turnover of neighbors, and an occasional in-place home improvement including what I'd now call mini mansionization -- two neighbors added a 2nd story to capes

Then suddenly a year ago about 5 houses owned by old-timers came on the market within a few months -- suddenly the neighborhood seemed to be at risk -- Mansionization took 4 of the houses: 2 were torn down and replaced with much bigger houses; one added an ell the size of the original house; one just had a 2nd story added; and didn't change -- it stayed as it was physically with a new "young" family as the new owners. Now as winter ends -- we the now members of the "older crowd" are anxiously awaiting the new arrivals this late spring / summer -- how many dogs, how many young kids, etc.
 
Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

Union Square in Somerville used to be as run-down as Dudley is today. It's come back quite nicely, even without (yet) new transit, and even though it still has some notable 'missing teeth'.
 
Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

whighlander said:
Actually by moving the jobs from Gov't Center to Dudley there will be many jobs for people local to Dudley -- it will just take time:
1) for a while nothing will change except the specifics of the commute
2) eventually some number of the existing employees will become fed-up with having to commute to Dudley and either:
a) move to near Dudley -- gentrification the area
b) quit with the jobs undoubtedly wired for local residents -- gentrification of the area
3) as a result of the gentrification -- support services for the Dudley area will open / expand / improve and hire more local residents -- who will have more money
4) improving the overall local to Dudley economy
Click to expand...

Hopeful thoughts, but given the number of government offices already moved to Roxbury (see the BPD HQ) and proximity of universities and hospitals, you'd think it would have seen a pick-me-up long ago. Reputation can haunt an area for a long time after its objective conditions have been seriously improved...
 
Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

The large number of housing projects in lower Roxbury don't help. No one wants to invest a significant sum of money or live next housing projects where shootings and other unpleasantness still frequently occur. A wide swath of urbanity bulldozed for projects, vacant lots, and what amounts to a surface highway at Melnea Cass, sure sounds like a great place for investors and fine place to live for almost no one. The city sticking large parking facilities and anti-urban office buildings in the area hasn't helped either. Nor has the addition of newer housing projects which are quite anti-urban compared to the neighborhoods that they've replaced (Madison Park). If Melnea Cass was turned into more of a Mass Ave and the housing projects were either removed, replaced, or drastically reconfigured, perhaps that would help. But right now it has too much of a wasteland feeling. More like the Lynn Way than a Boston boulevard.
 
Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

The longstanding existence of housing projects doesn't seem to be holding back Kendall Square or Mission Hill these days.
 
Re: Dudley Sq's Ferdinand Building to be Restored/ Renovated

Other than the recent trouble at the Villa, none of those housing projects are known for having frequent shootings and being epicenters of the heroin trade. The demographics, level of renovations and maintenance at those are different than those at Lenox/Camden/Whittier/etc. If the Lower Roxbury projects were similar to Maverick Landing or, a closer example, Orchard Gardens, I think it would be far easier to find developers willing to invest in the area.
 
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