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Big new site plan application for our emerging Douchebag District: Plan PL-002202-2022 No application documents have been uploaded yet, but the overview describes it as "blocks 4 and 6" (which suggests a future "Block 5" project). IIRC, according to the old master plan, block 6 would have been...

BTD has a separate project looking at contraflow lanes/traffic calming on Boylston, Atherton, and School Streets to connect the SW Corridor to Franklin Park...

The earlier planning approval was contingent on the SLAC funding increased METRO service as well (to run every 15 minutes, IIRC), and include a bus pass in the price of tickets, to encourage patrons to leave their cars at home or park in one of the empty downtown garages and ride the bus up the...

I believe it's been designed as a 2-lane rural highway (because very low traffic volumes), but I'd frankly be surprised if it ends up being constructed at all – contractors' bids are coming in orders of magnitude over budget all over the state, especially for isolated, hard-to-reach project...

Yuck, this really turned out poorly. What a mishmash.

These last few posts should probably get moved to "the existing built environment" thread, but since we're on this tangent anyhow, thought I'd express my appreciation for 511 Congress, which, though the plaza could use some TLC, is one of downtown's best examples of mid-century modernism IMHO...

The amount of real estate this scheme wastes on a parking garage makes me very skeptical about it ever happening. They've got about 1/3rd of their site locked up under a parking garage that's almost definitely going to lose money, and their office tenants are going to have to pay higher rents to...

Building permits are on the CSS site and have the most up-to-date info in them. Search for "BLDC2020-01426": https://selfservice.portlandmaine.gov/EnerGov_Prod/SelfService#/permit/51b47f21-7d69-4350-abdd-5311a01f051b?tab=attachments

Massing diagram screenshots from their most recent neighborhood meeting. The "near-term" concept would include a first phase of the academic building, renovation of the B&M brick building, a 170'-tall residential building for graduate student housing, and a hotel overlooking the exhaust hazes...

MIT and Harvard sure aren't spending millions of dollars on new parking garages (they've actually torn several down in the past decade to build more lab space and dorms instead). USM's administration has always treated it as a "commuter" school and their parking policies reflect that. It's...

LOL "the green glob on Anderson Street" – are you talking about Bayside Anchor, the winner of multiple national design competitions and an AIA citation? http://aianewengland.org/bayside/ https://gbdmagazine.com/passive-house-projects-winners/ I agree that the Fore Street view of this building...

Not gonna happen. MaineDOT's gas tax revenues are declining while its costs are increasing steeply. They had to get a $100 million bailout from the state's general fund last year, and they still even afford to maintain the roads and bridges they already have - much less spend tens of millions of...

The guy behind the "World's tallest flagpole" is the same guy who made himself rich with the "Wreaths Across America" racket. https://nonprofitquarterly.org/wreaths-across-america-is-a-nonprofit-built-on-conflict-of-interest-still-a-nonprofit/ More like the world's tallest red flag.

I know people who've lived on the same block as Oxford St. Shelter and are fine with it; but plenty of people are scared of homeless people, and if you're one of them, this isn't the neighborhood for you. There's also a lot of police in the neighborhood, which can also be threatening to a lot of...

They'll have to make an affordable housing linkage fee payment for the hotel component, too. $5K/hotel room, which may be higher now from inflation. As for parking for the Merrill, I doubt that's much of a factor here; valet parking services that make use of underutilized spaces in nearby lots...

Interesting! Looks like the revised project will have a roughly similar scale as the previous one, with a little less parking, less residential (no more nursing home, but more units of housing), and roughly the same number of hotel rooms. Looks like it's the same developers (Reger Dasco). Per...

That ground-floor parking garage fronting Congress St. in 2 Monument Square is an astounding waste of space – as far as I know, it's the only garage entrance that fronts Congress Street between City Hall and Longfellow Square. This is in a neighborhood that yields $30-$50/SF for ground-floor...

I got news for you, the Turnpike still gets backed up after the widening – according to their own data, there are more cumulative delays on the Turnpike today than there were before the widening project started, and according to the decennial Census, average commute times for the typical York...

Nah, don't blame it on eagles. The Wiscasset bypass would have cost north of $100 million and Route 1 traffic was already trending downwards for years when it was cancelled: https://www.clf.org/blog/shelving-the-wiscasset-bypass-is-smart/ MaineDOT simply doesn't have the money to throw away on...

The RR bridge has been partially demolished already. The pilings on the southern approach (from the E. Prom to the steel swing span) were set on fire a few years ago, and have since been removed. My hunch is that it would be extremely difficult to rebuild that bridge at this point with federal...