🔹 What's Happening With Project X?

Any word on Northeastern's proposed dorm at 840 Columbus? Or are they waiting for Mayor Wu to extort more money from the university before approving it?
 
beck4537 said:
What about the flower exchange? Given the appetite for life sciences buildings I thought we'd have seen more progress on that.
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I also was wondering about this... with a bit of a follow on question for my market savvy colleagues here...

Life Sciences, The Concept: Is it a marketing pivot to get bodies into now-empty office space to focus on actual jobs that need to be done in person or the real deal?

It seemed like there was a smaller need for life sciences. Neighborhoods were afraid of having life sciences dedicated spaces because of BioScaryThings...
Aaaah! Anthrax! Ebola! Nanobots! Aiiiieeee! And there was often hysterical resistance.

Then Covid happened...

...and now damn near every commercial project gets a Baltimore Catechism LifeSciences blessing. Normal Class A office space gets the baptismal dunk and suddenly they're soaking wet bonafide Life Sciences specialty properties.
One Congress is pimping their planned short tower for Life Sciences... As part of a slick (gorgeous) hotel-condo-bank office complex, next to the some of the densest populations on the East Coast, and over two subway lines! This wasn't always the way.

I can't be the only one to remember back in 1995... BioGen was kinda forced to go to an empty lot in Lower Allston because of The Fear.
Now, it seems like everything is LS Space or has a lean that way! Next to a daycare or a school or anything. No bigs.

One could argue a bucket of cash was thrown at our local Pharma sector in a panic and the market pivoted to adjust.
My more cynical (usually correct) side thinks that the days of regular bodies working in old commercial spaces are largely over because the Masters finally see how you don't need to be in person to Get Shit Done. Remote work is fine, in fact, it's encouraged because your cubicle would rent for 10K a year! They don't want to pay for empty air. Everybody is on the commercial shrink because they can be. It's disruptive, but it makes sense.

...Except with Life Sciences. With actual, in person bodies, doing real white collar (top dollar) researchy stuff. And the Rentier class of property owner knows this. And is scared. And is ramping up the Life Sciences pitch.

Thoughts?
 
BeyondRevenue said:
Thoughts?
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Thoughts are that we've been discussing this ad nauseam in other areas of aB outside of the development forum, such as the 'post-covid urbanism thread' and 'covid in boston thread' and elsewhere (see, also, this helpful guide about all of the what-has-Covid-done-to-development? threads provided by a Mod), for nearly two years.

But since you asked: life science is for real and the office-pocalypse is grossly exaggerated (though there will be a non-trivial reduction in SF per employee per company). Developers are doing the 'hard pivot' now because, ya know, they have to figure out what to do in the near term.
 
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Reading the posts about the Buckminster Hotel conversion has me wondering about the Citizen's Bank parcel across the street for the "stalagmite" tower, as one of the other posters here referred to it. Anyone know if that's moving forward and if so when?
 
I doubt it means anything but there appear to be some new renders on this site for the Aquarium Garage. I'm sure I haven't seen the below one before.
https://tmrw.inc/gallery/

HOWEVER, before you get too excited, here's a new article to put a damper on that.
https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/...-allow-boston-to-withdraw-its-downtown-w.html

1642744295098.jpeg


Or this one???
1642744412475.jpeg
 
DZH22 said:
I doubt it means anything but there appear to be some new renders on this site for the Aquarium Garage. I'm sure I haven't seen the below one before.
https://tmrw.inc/gallery/

HOWEVER, before you get too excited, here's a new article to put a damper on that.
https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/...-allow-boston-to-withdraw-its-downtown-w.html

View attachment 20605

Or this one???
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At the risk of picking a scab - as striking as the building itself is - this angle doesn't do much for the argument that this development would help activate the greenway. From this render, the shadow makes that spot on the Greenway look somewhat unpleasant.
 
Any news on the Hotel Alexandra? Drove by it yesterday and it still looks to be in sad shape at least from Mass Ave. I know the project got approval just this last October, but does anyone know if construction has started or when it might?
 
DZH22 said:
I doubt it means anything but there appear to be some new renders on this site for the Aquarium Garage. I'm sure I haven't seen the below one before.
https://tmrw.inc/gallery/

HOWEVER, before you get too excited, here's a new article to put a damper on that.
https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/...-allow-boston-to-withdraw-its-downtown-w.html

View attachment 20605

Or this one???
View attachment 20606
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They’ve been trying to kill this since Menino. At this point, if Mayor Wu wants to kill it, I say go for it.

My girl and I were in Boston a while back and she said that the top of the garage could be used as an outdoor garden and I didn’t think that that was such a bad idea.
 
jdrinboston said:
At the risk of picking a scab - as striking as the building itself is - this angle doesn't do much for the argument that this development would help activate the greenway. From this render, the shadow makes that spot on the Greenway look somewhat unpleasant.
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The existing garage casts an even wider shadow across that portion of the Greenway right now.
 
The proposed design in and of itself looks okay, but at this particular location it really looks out of place.
 
I don't get what seems "oppressive" at all in that rendering. It looks like a really nice tower in a big city next to lots of great outdoor space. When will folks grasp that Boston is a city. Move to Concord or Marlborough or wherever if you find tall buildings oppressive.
 
chrisbrat said:
I don't get what seems "oppressive" at all in that rendering. It looks like a really nice tower in a big city next to lots of great outdoor space. When will folks grasp that Boston is a city. Move to Concord or Marlborough or wherever if you find tall buildings oppressive.
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1642795776107.png


All I'm saying is based on this angle and rendering, I don't think this plot of the Greenway will be particularly pleasant or enjoyable spot to be or hang out in, particularly during cold winter weather and spring/fall shoulder seasons.

Look, the building is stunning and would have been a net positive for the city and if I was on the BPDA board, I almost certainly would have voted in favor of it as depicted. But a lot of the selling of this project - through both official and unofficial channels - was that this project would be a significant boon to enhancing and activating this particular portion of the Greenway. And based on the depiction above, I think that argument is somewhat disingenuous.
 
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