Reserved Channel Development | 300 West First Street | South Boston

Isn’t this site under the 4L/R approach or 22L/R departure at Logan?
 
RandomWalk said:
Isn’t this site under the 4L/R approach or 22L/R departure at Logan?
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Not quite directly under the approach, but still pretty restricted. Looks like 200 to 225 ft. max. across the site.
 
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shmessy said:
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I'm looking at that picture and I'm thinking 128 Burlington. That picture above is another soul-murdering architectural homicide. Whatever happened to the idea of Boston as a CITY?

Look, I know it's the Reserve Channel and all, but 12.9 FREAKING ACRES and all they can do is 205 residential units?????? I get that LEGO is now being used by engineers and architects over at MIT, but does every new building in Boston have to look like it was built by my 1967 set????

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I suspect the problem is American's just don't really know how to do urban design and developer's realize that doing urban design makes it harder to get through approval rather than doing the Office Towers in a Parkland setting.
 
393b40 said:
I suspect the problem is American's just don't really know how to do urban design and developer's realize that doing urban design makes it harder to get through approval rather than doing the Office Towers in a Parkland setting.
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Americans know how, but just like anything that costs money - -it's far easier and cheaper to make a Hershey bar than it is to make Toblerone.

American developers CHOOSE to build huge landscraping boxes with little or no detail to get the biggest profit for the least investment. It is what it is. And until the BPDA starts giving a shit and lays down some conditions, it will remain as such.
 
shmessy said:
Americans know how, but just like anything that costs money - -it's far easier and cheaper to make a Hershey bar than it is to make Toblerone.

American developers CHOOSE to build huge landscraping boxes with little or no detail to get the biggest profit for the least investment. It is what it is. And until the BPDA starts giving a shit and lays down some conditions, it will remain as such.
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Honestly this is also a market failure. If people who rented or leased buildings actually cared about the urban design and building architecture, the developers would do better, to attract tenants. Apparently not very many Americans care.

The only developers who care are ones who are developer/owner/occupiers, in for the long haul, usually institutions type developments.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Honestly this is also a market failure. If people who rented or leased buildings actually cared about the urban design and building architecture, the developers would do better, to attract tenants. Apparently not very many Americans care.

The only developers who care are ones who are developer/owner/occupiers, in for the long haul, usually institutions type developments.
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The developers and the tenants don't give a shit about the architecture - - and its not their job to. They only care about the cheapest cost and the greatest return. That's Capitalism - - it is what it is.

The responsibility is on the city government to be the protector of the overall urban life experience. The BPDA could be an effective agency or it could be a worthless paper tiger. Look what happened in Kenmore Square with Whoop - - and what it replaced. Boston's public voice is AWOL.
 
shmessy said:
The developers and the tenants don't give a shit about the architecture - - and its not their job to. They only care about the cheapest cost and the greatest return. That's Capitalism - - it is what it is.

The responsibility is on the city government to be the protector of the overall urban life experience. The BPDA could be an effective agency or it could be a worthless paper tiger. Look what happened in Kenmore Square with Whoop - - and what it replaced. Boston's public voice is AWOL.
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God help us if the BPDA suddenly decided that Brutalism is all the rage again -- central planning worked so well in our mega-urban renewal era.

And in the central planning model, who is the arbiter of taste? In Boston it has often been the mayor :rolleyes: ("The mayor says he likes the blue glass on that proposal". Six months later: "Why are all the new development proposals clad in blue glass?")
 
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Between existing regulatory processes and market conditions, I don't think we need any additional barriers to development for the aesthetic sensibilities of people who aren't party to these transactions.
 
Rather than encouraging/discouraging uses by limiting them directly let’s just use design guidelines instead. Residential? Any density, glass and steel if you want. Labs and offices? Well we don’t like those, so has to be masonry and you need cornices. Self storage, auto repair shops? Full blown neoclassical or don’t bother asking.
 
sean99090900 said:
Between existing regulatory processes and market conditions, I don't think we need any additional barriers to development for the aesthetic sensibilities of people who aren't party to these transactions.
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We already have the Boston Civic Design Commission that plays the design and aesthetics oversight role on many projects. We just don't like their decisions.

The BCDC Review Criteria include:
 
Some changes about how f street was a street to nowhere so they want to connect it into the greater seaport, create another connection. Looks like the new street grid is slowly getting better.

This entire empty part of the seaport should have an entire street grid laid down and broken down into individual parcels imo, but this is a good move so far. This should just be a continuation of the existing grid. Theres so much land here south of the bcec, this could be an enormous amount of development. The project description says building uses can change due to demand so hopefully they put in a shit ton of housing because you could fit a lot here and we need a lot.

















bpda.app.box.com

2026.02.24 RCD BCDC_Meeting 2 Presentation-r.pdf | Powered by Box

bpda.app.box.com bpda.app.box.com
 
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Suffolk 83 said:
I love the idea of the silver line going into southie this way but where does it go when it hits 1st st?
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Yeah, I'm not clear on that either. In theory, an SL branch that goes to the City Point Bus Terminal is a good idea, and this branch could do that by turning left on to 1st St, but I'd rather a more direct route if that's the destination, such as turning on Summer Street. If the goal is to make the Silver Line more accessible to people in South Boston, it makes sense for it to hit a major transfer node for the local bus routes. Continuing along F street won't do that, and would instead essentially turn that SL branch into another Southie local route that gets stuck in traffic.
 
curcuas said:
So with the lab market crash, have they realized this needs to be ~all resi + the grocery?
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This will be a good start to giving Seaport a better name. Aside from the lack of accessible transportation, the food desert will ease. Also, not sure how much more commercial space we need that's definitely NOT offices, additional recreational spaces on D Street would surely make the area feel more lively.
 
stick n move said:
Hope so, the seaport has sooo much lab/office. The city needs so much housing, they should honestly go 100% housing here on a copy/paste extension of the southie street grid.
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If the Gillette master plan stays the same, we will be getting more housing nearest to the waterfront alongside the taller structures being offices. It should've all been housing regarding that end of Seaport, but it's still a win.
 
Suffolk 83 said:
I love the idea of the silver line going into southie this way but where does it go when it hits 1st st?
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This was kinda brought up last year in Crazy Transit pitches when we were discussing how to send the SL into Southie (although this was thinking more long-term after an LRT conversion alongside larger implications past South Station). @Riverside brought up the idea of sending branches via Pappas Way and Summer Street to hit multiple areas along the peninsula and get 10 minute walkshed for all of South Boston. The terminus of these branches would be Dorchester St at E Broadway and L St at E Broadway. @Teban54 added the potential idea of looping the branches into each other.
Riverside said:
Assuming an LRT conversion of the Silver Line, I would probably look at some way to extend SL2 to City Point, or add a second branch that pops down along Summer St. Yhe original SL3 did poorly due to competition from the 7, but an LRT line would offer a 1SR to Back Bay and either Kenmore or Huntington, so it would probably command greater interest. I like @samsongam's thought process and visualization.

Heck, you could even have a second branch into Southie proper, with one going down Summer St (like @samsongam showed) and a second one reclaiming some space for a semi-dedicated ROW along Pappas Way, with about a quarter-mile of running on Dorchester St, into a transit plaza at the intersection with the Broadways:

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Teban54 said:
That's quite an intriguing idea, even if not the most relevant.

But it got me thinking... How about a unidirectional loop that joins these two "branches" together?

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HenryAlan said:
Yeah, I'm not clear on that either. In theory, an SL branch that goes to the City Point Bus Terminal is a good idea, and this branch could do that by turning left on to 1st St, but I'd rather a more direct route if that's the destination, such as turning on Summer Street. If the goal is to make the Silver Line more accessible to people in South Boston, it makes sense for it to hit a major transfer node for the local bus routes. Continuing along F street won't do that, and would instead essentially turn that SL branch into another Southie local route that gets stuck in traffic.
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In the last few months I've been rethinking the routing of this idea on my fantasy map. Pappas Way is a bit tight with the existing road and may not interface well with the channel and waterside paths. F St being wide enough for a reservation through the channel development would be a much better routing. The planned width accommodates a transit ROW which would help it avoid car traffic and terminating at F St. and W Broadway gives you an easy transfer to the 9 and puts you close to a decent amount of density/TOD potential in the center of the neighborhood. F St is tight once you get past 1st St, which is why in my ideal scenario it would go into a tunnel for the past few blocks while the street rises up the existing hill.

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The value of this is for all South Boston residents to have a 10 minute walk to a rapid 1SR Downtown (and wherever the SL extends West after South Station in the future) without having to jump on the 9 first. I think it would go a long way to making the area a lot less car dependent. Now, I think this would be a lot better as LRT then BRT, which hopefully will happen eventually, but the identification of F St. as a potential transit corridor does a lot to keep the door open to that connection for the future.
 
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