1280-1330 Boylston Street, Brookline

As is the norm now, rich people who oppose any change and care about no form of diversity accept as a token statement on email autosignatures and gesture votes will refuse development that could bring the town tax dollars. Then they will also oppose tax hikes that are necessary, but ultimately more palatable than dealing with physical change. And in the end? The population who can afford to live here dwindles to a narrower and narrower slice. This is exactly what has happened and continues to happen across every democratic metro area across the country.
 
Hey, this is Sam from Brookline.News. Long-time lurker. I keep a close eye on where our reader clicks are coming from (social media sites, etc) and I notice our stories get posted here or other threads on AB pretty much any time we write about development or zoning or transportation. Wanted to say thanks for sharing our work and for the very interesting threads!

You may have noticed I've been covering this Route 9 project quite closely, despite having a tiny team and a million other newsworthy things happening in town -- I think it's a great stand-in for a lot of the bigger questions Brookline is facing around development (commercial and residential), town governance goals vs neighbor/abutter interests, opaque zoning processes, etc.

Always happy to answer questions (within reason as a journalist) and glad to be part of the conversation.
 
sean99090900 said:
brookline.news

Developer of key Chestnut Hill site weighs residential 40B if commercial project talks falter - Brookline.News

The developer planning a major commercial redevelopment on Route 9 has floated the possibility of turning the project into a residential development, if the town fails to make progress on a study aimed at rezoning a stretch of the thoroughfare. City Realty, which owns a mostly-vacant office park...
brookline.news brookline.news
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Build the 40B project! The neighbors will never be satisfied with whatever the developer puts forward! Residential is in short supply, and 40B makes it easier for City Reality to build! Time is money!
 
atlantaden said:
Build the 40B project! The neighbors will never be satisfied with whatever the developer puts forward! Residential is in short supply, and 40B makes it easier for City Reality to build! Time is money!
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Globe with a render of the 40B... I hope they don't have to build it. I'm guessing they designed it to be ugly on purpose.

Can we figure out who is responsible for popularizing the offset window trend and go TP their house?

www.bostonglobe.com

In Brookline, a mostly vacant office park could soon become one of the largest developments in town history - The Boston Globe

Developers are proposing converting an old office park on Route 9 to a 600-unit housing complex. But opposition is stiff.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

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My childhood/high-school friend is now on the Brookline Select Board, and cant believe the abutter/neighborhood area intransigence -
to paraphrase H.L. Mencken, they're gonna get what they don't want, good and hard!
 
-Awesome haha! So looks like theyre dead serious. Theyre pushing ahead one way or another. The towns people can either work with them in good faith and get something theyre happy with or get bulldozed over.


In Brookline, a mostly vacant office park could soon become one of the largest developments in town history​

Developers pitching a 600-unit housing complex say they could add even more if permitting doesn’t speed up.​

JM4EJYU6QU76XLGP3EMBIVXV5M-6874d879774df-768x432.jpg


“On a low-slung stretch of Route 9 in Brookline near the border with Newton, a mostly vacant office park may soon give way to one of the biggest developments in the town’s history.

Brookline officials have called the 5.4 acre site in Chestnut Hill an opportunity to create a new commercial center, and developer City Realty, who purchased the site last year, presented a vision for exactly that: A new mixed-use complex with a hotel and condominium building as tall as 20 stories, including 215,000 feet of retail space, and nearly 600 units of housing.

But the sheer scale of the proposal has set off alarm bells among neighbors, and approvals have stalled amid deliberations over how much height and density might be acceptable at the site. So last week, City Realty launched a backup plan: the developer filed to develop the project under Massachusetts’ Chapter 40B housing law, which would allow them to build housing there without approval from the town, as long as 25 percent of it is affordable.

A 40B of this scale would be drastic step, especially in a town with a recent history of 40B developments that some residents loathe, and the developer emphasized they are still focused on pushing their mixed-use proposal through normal city permitting. But it was a signal that City Realty will not wait for years for Brookline — which is notoriously slow when it comes to approving development — to bless the project, which would be among the biggest ever seen in the town of 62,000.

”We’re not trying to skip or rush the process. But we’ve been meeting with the town for awhile now, and we’re at the decision making time,” said Cliff Kensington, City Realty’s director of acquisitions. “ We can’t wait around forever, and hold onto this property for years while we get unanimous approvals from every constituency. At a certain point, things need to move forward……..”

www.boston.com

In Brookline, a mostly vacant office park could soon become one of the largest developments in town history

Developers pitching a 600-unit housing complex say they could add even more if permitting doesn’t speed up.
www.boston.com
 
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This literally wouldnt actually affect any of their lives in any way if built, but all of the homes that would be built definitely would positively impact many people.

Nobody even notices these right across the street because theyre already there
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Or this next door
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Or these
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Or this
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Theyre acting like theyre trying to build this in the middle of a cauldesac of single family homes.

This is the problem with the community input process, the people who would be future tenants dont know they would be, so they cant advocate for the housing, and on top of that most people dont even know these meetings take place, and of the ones that do only someone whos really mad would take time out of their day to go voice opposition. Having to go through meetings for every single project is biased towards the people who live near the specific project and are against it. People who are generally in favor of housing cant keep track of all of the dozens of meetings going on across the state, but the people who live nearby and are against it get informed that theres a way to bitch about it and show up.

For projects in boston at least theres bostonplans which is pretty easy to use and shows the upcoming meetings, for ALL of the rest of the towns its a complete hodge podge. Some town websites are ok, most of them not so much, and basically all of them its really hard to find when community meetings are taking place, if you can find it at all. Ive not had a lot of luck. Each town has a different website and a different place to meet and for pro-housing people alone its already hard enough to keep track of, let alone youre average person who is pro housing but not going to take time out of their day. Its basically designed so only the people who live near some big project and are against it hear about it through word of mouth.
 
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Came across this render which seems to line up with some others that have come out

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Like this one for example
cityrealtylatest.png

brookline.news

News in brief: City Realty's latest Chestnut Hill West proposal, Transportation Administrator Ingles to leave, new BIG partnership focuses on job training - Brookline.News

Read the latest updates from town departments and local nonprofits.
brookline.news brookline.news

A vote on the project is expected in may

www.facebook.com

City Realty’s Rte 9 East development across from The Street in Chestnut Hill: | Facebook

City Realty’s Rte 9 East development across from The Street in Chestnut Hill: “High-stakes Route 9 rezoning vote could be delayed again after rival developer’s last-minute objection by Sam Mintz...
www.facebook.com www.facebook.com
 
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I'm just seeing/noticing this thread for the first time... I had to go to the Compass offices at 1330 back in October 2023 because I had to use their wifi to upload photos for my job as a real estate photographer because the Compass realtor needed them to be edited and delivered that day because he gave me COVID a week before and I couldn't work for a week and so he needed the shots ASAP because that's real estate. Luckily I actually like the guy and we've since become pretty decent friends so no hard feelings or anything and we actually text back and forth about the Celtics fairly often.

Anyway there I was pulling into the parking lot at 1330 on a sunny October afternoon and was like where is everybody? Then I go up to maybe the second or third floor to the Compass offices where they have the full floor, a good 10k sf or so, and there couldn't have been more than 20 people there... I know realty offices are ghost towns these days but this was particularly vast and empty. It was good for me because it meant I had as fast of upload speeds as I could hope for (which is usually the achilles' heel in same day deliveries) but it also meant I had like 20-30 minutes to just sit there looking around at a whole lot of nothing while my laptop did its thing. Classic hurry up and wait, classic Murphy's Law, classic real estate absurdity.

What's the point to this dumb story? Really not much... I suppose this is just indulging in a silly memory. But I did for the first time ever pay attention to this property and was immediately struck by how forlorn and from a different decade it felt. Buhbye, you won't be missed.
 
kz1000ps said:
What's the point to this dumb story? Really not much...
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Off-topic, but please allow me a quick moment to say: 1) How clearly it stands out to me, in this day and age, how everything about your delightful post really could never have been AI-generated, and, relatedly, 2) to thank you for all your contributions to aB over the years that contribute to this being a most human of discussion boards (save for the random Russian bot posts that have to be deleted by mods periodically)
 
bigpicture7 said:
Off-topic, but please allow me a quick moment to say: 1) How clearly it stands out to me, in this day and age, how everything about your delightful post really could never have been AI-generated, and, relatedly, 2) to thank you for all your contributions to aB over the years that contribute to this being a most human of discussion boards (save for the random Russian bot posts that have to be deleted by mods periodically)
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And THANK YOU for the feedback. I'm not here to fish for compliments, but given how much content I create and throw out into the world that just gets a "nice!" or thumbs up or literally zero response whatsoever it really does mean something to get genuine feedback once in a great while. So thanks for the kind words 🍻

EDIT: let me add that I haven't forgotten about ablarc and how he batted nearly 1.000 at infusing this forum with thoughtful posts that pushed the conversation FORWARD -- not sideways, not backwards. He may as well be the patron saint of aB (not to mention Wired NY or Cyburbia) and I'm just trying to keep things in that ballpark.
 
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kz1000ps said:
I'm just seeing/noticing this thread for the first time... I had to go to the Compass offices at 1330 back in October 2023 because I had to use their wifi to upload photos for my job as a real estate photographer because the Compass realtor needed them to be edited and delivered that day because he gave me COVID a week before and I couldn't work for a week and so he needed the shots ASAP because that's real estate. Luckily I actually like the guy and we've since become pretty decent friends so no hard feelings or anything and we actually text back and forth about the Celtics fairly often.

Anyway there I was pulling into the parking lot at 1330 on a sunny October afternoon and was like where is everybody? Then I go up to maybe the second or third floor to the Compass offices where they have the full floor, a good 10k sf or so, and there couldn't have been more than 20 people there... I know realty offices are ghost towns these days but this was particularly vast and empty. It was good for me because it meant I had as fast of upload speeds as I could hope for (which is usually the achilles' heel in same day deliveries) but it also meant I had like 20-30 minutes to just sit there looking around at a whole lot of nothing while my laptop did its thing. Classic hurry up and wait, classic Murphy's Law, classic real estate absurdity.

What's the point to this dumb story? Really not much... I suppose this is just indulging in a silly memory. But I did for the first time ever pay attention to this property and was immediately struck by how forlorn and from a different decade it felt. Buhbye, you won't be missed.
Click to expand...
Yeah that whole office park area south of RTE 9 seems really dated. Besides the "Chestnut Hill Square" (not to be mistaken for the chestnut hill mall, chestnut hill square, or the old Atrium mall), everything on that side seems empty, with things closing one after another.
 
cburns said:
sure it's gauzy but the "IRL" manifestation of this would still be such an improvement; just build it already.
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I think it's just the gaudy style of the render. The finished built product will probably look more normal.
 
What is this the "meridian" of? The whole purpose of it is because it's at the edge.
 
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