16-Story Apartment Tower | 76 Ashford Street | Allston

dshoost88

dshoost88

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Apartment tower proposed across from future West Station

Article's behind a paywall, so I won't copy and paste it; however, the highlights:

- City Realty Group of Brookline is the developer
- Proposed 16-story apartment tower, 262 units (including 34 affordable units)
- Will replace a single-story industrial building
- Immediately abuts proposed West Station entrance.

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The only thing I don't love is how incredibly wide it looks. I hate the Partners Building's proportions and don't think we need to keep emulating that. It basically creates a series of oppressive walls. Instead of 16 stories tall and 25 stories wide, let's flip these things on their sides.

Otherwise, housing is needed and this looks like a good place for the density that is proposed.
 
This is a really cool proposal, especially coming from City Realty, which seems to focus on small projects in and around Allston/Brighton. I especially dig the potential bus lane or protected bike lane connecting to West Station.

I'm hoping it won't suffer the same fate as 1515 Comm Ave and Allston Green, both of which proposed similarly-tall towers only to cut them in half after community pushback. But I think this site is much better suited for a development of this scale it and will face less opposition, for a few reasons:

1) Replacing a light industrial site.
2) Most of the abutting properties on Trashford St are MF rentals typically filled with BU students in non-COVID times; i.e. not the type of people to show up and complain at public meetings.
3) This isn't far from StuVi and the Babcock St tower, both of which are taller (I think) than what is proposed here. So there's precedent for height.
4) Parking ratio is appropriately low given how close it is to Packards Corner / 57 bus (and West Station, whenever that gets built).

However, this will still probably go before the Allston Civic Association, which is comprised of a lot of anti-height/density NIMBY folk, but increasingly young people as well. The key way to win them over will be on affordability.
 
Given that it's smack dab between campus and the GAP (Gardner, Ashford, and Pratt), I wouldn't be surprised if this building ends up being nearly entirely filled with BU students. Probably could get away with zero parking.
 
PNF:

bpda.app.box.com

2021-02-18_Project Notification Form (PNF)_76 Ashford Street.pdf | Powered by Box

bpda.app.box.com bpda.app.box.com

Masonry >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Paneling.

I had forgotten about this. Btw - they do have a temporary park for the area next to the building in the likely event that Allston/West Station is kaput.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time anyone has rendered West Station, MassDOT/MBTA included.

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Love this project conceptually. This part of Allston is best suited for more height given the existing StuVi towers and transit access. Extending the spine from downtown through Back Bay along Comm Ave, through Kenmore Sq, BU campus (Warren, Law Tower, new Data Sciences Center, StuVi) to this, and then eventually another cluster at Boston Landing / Allston Yards.
 
#bancars said:
Love this project conceptually. This part of Allston is best suited for more height given the existing StuVi towers and transit access. Extending the spine from downtown through Back Bay along Comm Ave, through Kenmore Sq, BU campus (Warren, Law Tower, new Data Sciences Center, StuVi) to this, and then eventually another cluster at Boston Landing / Allston Yards.
Click to expand...
There is a second spine along Huntington Ave with several condos and the high rise residence halls being built by Northeastern and a couplie other colleges in that area.
 
Took a look at the set and what also stands out to me is the below grade parking is consolidated in to a 4 storey semi-automatic parking system. Innovative, unlike the massive excavations seen on a lot of projects that dedicate far too much below grade space to ramps and traffic flow.
 
Are the trees on the building new to this presentation / revision?

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DZH22 said:
"Reduction in Floor to Ceiling Height: To moderate building height, the Proponent has reduced the floor to ceiling height of each floor bringing the total proposed height from 220 feet to approximately 215 feet."
Click to expand...

If one assumes this floor to ceiling height reduction was performed only on the residential floors, you get a (5 feet * 12 inches) / 15 floors = 4 inch reduction in ceiling height on every floor.

Love making 254 units of housing perceptibly worse, for a 5 foot height reduction that will be imperceptible to everyone passing by.
 
theSil said:
Love making 254 units of housing perceptibly worse, for a 5 foot height reduction that will be imperceptible to everyone passing by.
Click to expand...
Hopefully it's not that, so much as the developer smartly going higher than normal floor to ceiling in the earlier version, just to be able to show some compromise at this point in the process.
 
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