Whats left to build on?

stick n move said:
I didnt paste the full article, that also appears to be a free article as I dont have a subscription and was able to see the full article. Either way I edited the post just incase.
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They are free for the first 24 hours, then behind a paywall.

kdmc said:
I am also upset about hear about places like Sligo in Davis Sq closing (although I'm not even sure that lab is still happening...?) but I disagree that it always goes this way. Lyndell's in Ball Sq is being rebuilt as a 5-over-1, and they plan to remain open during construction and eventually move back into the first floor: https://www.cambridgeday.com/2024/0...tomers-need-never-go-without-its-baked-goods/

I think that the difference here is that the landlord and the bakery owner have a good relationship and respect for each others' goals. I don't know why that isn't the case in more of the city. Probably corporate ownership of property?
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It is definitely corporate ownership. While you can pull up Lyndell's as an example, I think it's more the exception rather than the norm. For the Sligo project, I can't imagine the executives in the UK for Scape really caring if they keep Sligo or Dragon Pizza on this project - they just want a return. Scape (probably the Boston team) did say they will "work with the existing businesses" to permanently or temporarily relocate them, but it seems like it wasn't going to financially work for many of them - I talked with the owner of Sligo about relocating, and he was going to apparently try, but didn't go through with it.

I think you'd need a local developer or standalone projects by small landowners (becoming less frequent now with cost of construction and land prices) to see more Lyndell's-type projects. That, and I'm not really sure you could recreate Sligo in a brand new lab building...

Similarly, it's partly a weak-government issue - the out-of-state company that has taken over Harvard is the same company now moving to Davis (not the Sligo parcel, but across the street), promising the same thing they promised in Harvard, but for some reason, Somerville didn't call them out on the fact that they have pushed out many of the small/local businesses and made Harvard much more corporate.


With all that said, I often reflect on how we're losing some pretty great local establishments in Davis for new lab buildings, when I'd consider there are some much easier parcels to work with directly in Davis - the former Wallgreens and adjacent parking lot, the two (large) parking lots on Day Street, this massive single-story commercial building, Winter Hill Bank, Dominos, and the many small infill plots across the square. It really is a great opportunity in my eyes - I'm sure the land prices are not cooperating, and the locals on the Facebook pages scream at the thought of anything taller than a public bench being built within a 5-mile radius of Davis, but in another world I guess...
 
I was looking at the FAA height allowance map and found that a lot of notable buildings are squeezed in right into areas over where the heigh allowance changes. As there's a lot of low heigh allowances in buildable places like Seaport, Waterfront, South End, and so on. Was there an exception made for One Dalton, since it's right on the line of 500 ans 1000, and technically within 500 ft-600 ft? I've always thought this map explains a lot of why we struggle to get 500+ ft tall building proposals. Bank on Cambridge and Somerville to progress fater with 400-700 ft proposals...
 

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I've always thought this spot was super underdeveloped given its location lmao. No idea what the ownership structure or neighborhood organization looks like, but I feel like there must be so many residents and nurses and postdocs willing to pay extra for a 5-minute walking commute to the hospital from a new build residential building

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sean99090900 said:
I've always thought this spot was super underdeveloped given its location lmao. No idea what the ownership structure or neighborhood organization looks like, but I feel like there must be so many residents and nurses and postdocs willing to pay extra for a 5-minute walking commute to the hospital from a new build residential building

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Is this one of those areas that exists to house elderly residents in ground-floor units near LMA? Because frankly it doesn't seem to do a very good job of that, most units seem to have stairs. Seems like an excellent use-case for a building style like this, row-houses split between all ground floor units and walk-ups between the 2nd-4th stories. Every unit actually has its own front door, something I think actually makes a pretty large difference. Unit sizes in the example shown are around 700-800 square ft, enough for couples, but I've seen examples of the same style on only a slightly larger footprint with units more like 1000-1200 square feet, easily enough for families. The ground floor units also generally (although not always) have a small yard.
 
TheRatmeister said:
Is this one of those areas that exists to house elderly residents in ground-floor units near LMA? Because frankly it doesn't seem to do a very good job of that, most units seem to have stairs. Seems like an excellent use-case for a building style like this, row-houses split between all ground floor units and walk-ups between the 2nd-4th stories. Every unit actually has its own front door, something I think actually makes a pretty large difference. Unit sizes in the example shown are around 700-800 square ft, enough for couples, but I've seen examples of the same style on only a slightly larger footprint with units more like 1000-1200 square feet, easily enough for families. The ground floor units also generally (although not always) have a small yard.
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Unfortunately, I don't know exactly what the arrangement is other than that a lot of the units in the area have listings on apartments .com. I do think there are lots of places in JP that would make a lot of sense in the configuration you describe.

I feel like the ideal use case for this plot would be more like mid to high rise apartments. What got me thinking about this was that the new apartments at the back of the hill (what seems to me a less convenient/desirable location) can get tenants for 3500-4000/mo in a 600 sqft 1bed. Those types of economics seem to justify more density and cost-of-construction than the 5-over-1s can provide.
 
Also owned by a single tenant-owned group, RTH, including the Mission Park towers and townhomes after much community organizing. Those homes were previously owned by HMS as part of their expansion plans until voraciously opposed. While I appreciate their mission, I've also previously posted that their inward looking mission can detract from urbanism, especially the Mission Park area which feels like an exclusive gated community despite being 100% affordable. Ultimately, their resistance to redevelopment can hurt the bigger picture - and here I think they really should take HMS money for those lots and build more and bigger on neighboring parcels - like their own Mosaic on Riverway. All of those houses are nice enough, but the value of the location to me outweighs the desire to change nothing ever.

Our Story - RTH

roxburytenants.org roxburytenants.org
 
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