Seaport Neighborhood - Infill and Discussion

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Arborway said:
LA is all about trains these days and they're fighting WWIII against NIMBYs over TOD.

Metro did open a new BRT transitway less than a year after the MBTA Silver Line began running. Like the T, they ended up with a terrible, rutted, crumbling mess.

Unlike the T, they had a contractor repave it until the job was done properly and didn't just pretend like everything was fine while their brand new line literally crumbled away.

Metro has lots of issues, but they have much more forward momentum than the T. There's no comparison.
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What would you recommend for the Seaport District?
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

TheRifleman said:
What would you recommend for the Seaport District?
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Not repeating over and over what cannot be changed, what should have been done.

What can be done? How about a little bit of optimism.Repeatedly reminding ourselves that this shoulda been that and that shoulda been this does nothing to further the discussion.

As a wise man has said " "An ignorant of history is a fool to repeat it"!!!"
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

There's so much jaded disdain on this board for the direction of the Seaport planning, yet I walked by thousands of joyous excited good folks enjoying the experience as I walked from Atlantic Ave down Seaport and ending up at the Harpoon Brewery. This included people coming out of work and people arriving to enjoy the evening.

Somebody needs to get the word out to these people that they are living a lie.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

type001 said:
There's so much jaded disdain on this board for the direction of the Seaport planning, yet I walked by thousands of joyous excited good folks enjoying the experience as I walked from Atlantic Ave down Seaport and ending up at the Harpoon Brewery. This included people coming out of work and people arriving to enjoy the evening.

Somebody needs to get the word out to these people that they are living a lie.
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People have fun in Phoenix. That doesn't mean we should congratulate the city's planners.
 
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Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

type001 said:
There's so much jaded disdain on this board for the direction of the Seaport planning, yet I walked by thousands of joyous excited good folks enjoying the experience as I walked from Atlantic Ave down Seaport and ending up at the Harpoon Brewery. This included people coming out of work and people arriving to enjoy the evening.

Somebody needs to get the word out to these people that they are living a lie.
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Never have so many had so much to say about something so incomplete.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

AmericanFolkLegend said:
People have fun in Phoenix. That doesn't mean we should congratulate the city's planners.
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I don't disagree. I'm not talking about praising anything. I'm conversely refering to the endless pages of repetitve "they did it so wrong."

@FortPointGuy: Exactly.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

type001 said:
I don't disagree. I'm not talking about praising anything. I'm conversely refering to the endless pages of repetitve "they did it so wrong."

@FortPointGuy: Exactly.
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I'd like to hear more suggestions about what we should do next. Realistic suggestions.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

ParkerChris said:
I'd like to hear more suggestions about what we should do next. Realistic suggestions.
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Apartments. Apartments. Apartments. (with accompanying essential retail like corner stores, CVS, quick food options, etc)
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

datadyne007 said:
Apartments. Apartments. Apartments. (with accompanying essential retail like corner stores, CVS, quick food options, etc)
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Agreed. Very excited for the ones in development to start renting, then we should see the retail that you mentioned trickle in. CVS or another drug store is rumored to open up at Waterside Place. The more micro units the better, in my opinion.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

datadyne007 said:
Apartments. Apartments. Apartments. (with accompanying essential retail like corner stores, CVS, quick food options, etc)
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There are literally 1000s of apartments planned for this neighborhood. There are almost 1200 alone planned at Seaport Square lots that are in advanced pre-construction stages (Parcel A, B plus Skanska parcel next to Q Park), 450 at Sausage Parcel, 300+ at Pier 4, and 300+ at Waterside Stage 1. These are near term projects and do not even include the Fort Point projects (Melcher, 381 Congress, 315 on A) or Fan Pier. Or the rest of South Boston that falls within SBID boundaries, the frenetic development of which is virtually an untold story on this forum save for the brave adventures of one Mr. BeeLine. Nevermind the rest of the core space that is still coming along in terms of development.

WS Development (Legacy Place) is handling retail at Seaport Square. Expect something along the lines that is happening in the Fenway. There are 4 (!) new restaurants opening up in Fort Point before year's end. The convention center's expansion is practically a fait accompli.

But the place totally sucks because it has two 4-lane roads and the office buildings lack first floor arts centers. They should just burn it down and start over. The throngs of people that visit are imbeciles from suburbia or [non-eastern seaboard city], their physical endorsement by simply hanging out there having zero meaning.

The place isn't immune from criticism. But it's apparently too tempting for some to resist shitting on what's basically a giant construction zone / new neighborhood that is maybe 20% complete.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

FortPointGuy said:
There are literally 1000s of apartments planned for this neighborhood.
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I'm well aware of all the apartments going up right now. I'm saying more need to come to fruition, more specifically Seaport Square needs to finally be built out.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

How should the roads have been restructured? I've seen a number of people suggest that the road grid be better planned out to distribute traffic better, or make it more of a neighborhood. How do you do this? The bridges are where they are relative to Downtown. Any other roads you build paralleling Seaport/Summer/Congress will just have to merge with them somewhere around Fort Point bottlenecking anyway. There are so many semi-active freight lines that the grade-separation is still necessary so there's not much you can do with that. What do you guys think could practically be done about the roads?
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Summer Street was already there with an established streetwall.
Ditto most of Congress Street (which I think looks fine for the most part anyway).
The only street that I think is laid out poorly is Seaport Blvd. Even when it's just two lanes in each direction, the median is like another 2.5 lanes so it feels like your crossing a highway.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

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My argument remains that the waterfront will not reach its potential in architecture, land use, civic engagement and ultimately its real estate value with a standard evident here, a standard that IMHO does not live up to $8 billion in public investment and -- as a result, may not merit signficant further public investment.
 
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Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

It's so unfortunate that the Renaissance and Park Lane block the JH/Manulife building from that vantage point. That picture would be totally different.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

That picture is a classic 8 Billion dollars in Public Investment.

I would have rather them use the 8 billion for a Massive MBTA upgrade running through Seaport and let the private industry expand at a Natural pace.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Is there some sort of itemized list out there detailing the $8 billion in public investment? I've been searching the web for it and I can't find it. The only $8 billion I've found is the amount of goods that travel through the port on an average year.
 
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