93 Mass Ave (Other Side Cafe) | 93-97 Massachusetts Ave | Back Bay

Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

PaulC said:
The developers of the Mandarin are the likely bidders for some parcels since they just bought a parcel on St Cecilia St.
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I think it's the Taj group, right? Can't find a link, but I thought the Taj group won the bid.

That said, Gerry Autler (BRA) suggested in a public forum that the southeast parcels closest to Hynes are 8-10 years out, and the parcel where the Tower of Hate was proposed will probably not be developed in the next 20. Reasons: a combination of the disaster down in the South End, neighborhood opposition, finances, general fuckupery at the Turnpike.

caravaggiste said:
No wonder everyone moves to NY.
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Also, they move because it's cheaper, easier to navigate using public transportation, and is open later ...
 
Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

Developer?s new stage
As Gaiety site lies idle, Mass. Ave. plan OK?d
By Scott Van Voorhis
Saturday, June 14, 2008 - Updated 17h ago

A proposal that would extend Newbury Street?s posh retail boulevard onto eclectic Massachusetts Avenue is the second swing at a major Boston project in the last few years by travel company magnate.

Grand Circle Travel chief Alan Lewis and his son Edward are part of the development team looking to revamp a century-old building at the corner of Newbury Street and Massachusetts Avenue - now home to a mattress store catering to students - into an upscale retail and office complex.

City Hall recently gave a green light to the plan, with Lewis and a fellow building owner, doing business as Kingston Realty Trust, planning on launching work next spring.

But the Mass. Ave. retail plan comes nearly three years after the Lewis? Kensington Investments won permission to tear down the decrepit - and to its supporters, historic - Gaiety Theater on lower Washington Street to make way for an apartment and condo tower.

The one-time Combat Zone site, now just a few doors down from the Ritz-Carlton Towers, has since sat vacant and fenced off, with no signs yet of the promised tower.

However, comparisons between the two projects are difficult to make, contends Ralph Cole, a top executive at real estate services firm Leggat McCall, who is working on the revamp of 93 Massachusetts Ave.

Cole, who previously headed efforts to build the Washington Street tower for Kensington, said the Mass. Ave. project is more ?digestible.? The project weighs in at $23 million, compared to more than $120 million for the long-planned Kensington tower.

?Nothing is easy in this town, but in relative degrees, it is easier,? Cole said.

Some, though, are disappionted that after the big push to tear down the Gaiety, nothing happened.

?It?s sad and unfortunate,? said Lee Eiseman, who once led a group to save the turn-of-the-century vaudeville palace, Gaiety Theater Friends.

But Edward Lewis said Kensington is still working on its long-planned Washington Street tower and that some changes will be announced next month. He declined to offer more details.

By contrast, plans for the revamp of the key building at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Newbury appear to be moving forward without controversy.

The project won a thumbs up from the Boston Redevelpment Authority and on Tuesday sailed through a critical Zoning Board hearing.

Cole envisions the project extending the Newbury Street retail success story onto student-friendly Mass. Ave. A hunt is on to fill the new project?s 20,000 square feet of retail - the other half will be office - with a high-end retailer.

?Ideally, it would be a retailer of sufficient magnitude and attractiveness to draw the Back Bay shopper across Massachusetts Avenue and extend the Newbury Street corridor,? Cole said.


http://bostonherald.com/business/ge..._Mass__Ave__plan_OK?d/srvc=home&position=also
 
Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

All this talk of extending Newbury Street across Mass Ave is silly. So you get one store to open up here; then what? Next door is the blank brick rear of the Harvard Club (where their squash courts and cardio center is... good luck getting them to give those up), then a parking lot (potential there), then a parking garage (maybe?), then the back side of the Somerset (nope). The tenant will have to be a guaranteed traffic generator to get people to cross that hellish intersection for just one store.

Maybe once the air rights development gets built will things change, but without it that stretch of Newbury Street will continue to have all the ambience of what it really is: a back alley running next to a highway.
 
Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

It also refers to the kensington tower.

"But Edward Lewis said Kensington is still working on its long-planned Washington Street tower and that some changes will be announced next month. He declined to offer more details".
 
Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

kz1000ps said:
All this talk of extending Newbury Street across Mass Ave is silly. So you get one store to open up here; then what? Next door is the blank brick rear of the Harvard Club (where their squash courts and cardio center is... good luck getting them to give those up), then a parking lot (potential there), then a parking garage (maybe?), then the back side of the Somerset (nope). The tenant will have to be a guaranteed traffic generator to get people to cross that hellish intersection for just one store.

Maybe once the air rights development gets built will things change, but without it that stretch of Newbury Street will continue to have all the ambience of what it really is: a back alley running next to a highway.
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Representativ Walz (or maybe whomever was attending for Mike Ross, since he can't seem to get to any meeting, ever) recently alluded to a reconstruction of the Hynes bus shelter on the west side of Mass Ave. The 93 Mass Ave project suggested a street reconfiguration (very much needed) at Boylston/Newbury/Comm for traffic calming and better flow.

So, 93 Mass Ave, a new bus shelter, some development on Boylston between Mass Ave/Hemenway-Ipswich in the next 14 months, and a new tenant where Best Buy is? Hey, it could spark some life to this sad stretch of street.

That said, Newbury Alley (it's not even the Newbury Extension, it's just an alley to nowhere) is really desolate and tragic. It was never mean to be open to the world like that, and the Op/Ed in the Globe today is a good reminder for people how bad it is to have this gaping slit in the middle of the city.
 
Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

Back Bay Development downsized
By Thomas Grillo
Thursday, July 29, 2010


A plan to extend Newbury Street?s tony shopping district to Massachusetts Avenue has been downsized in response to a lawsuit from neighbors.

Kensington Investment Co., owners of Grand Circle Travel, have reduced the scale of the project at 93 Massachusetts Ave. Under the revised plan filed with the Boston Redevelopment Authority today, the developer will renovate the existing four-story brick retail building and construct a four-story addition at the rear on Newbury Street. The previous plan called for improvements to the older building and a five-story addition.

In 2008, the BRA and the Zoning Board of Appeals approved the original plan. But abutters, including the Eliot Hotel and the Harvard Club of Boston, filed suit against the ZBA in Suffolk Superior Court. They argued that the new retail development would exacerbate traffic in a congested part of the city, increase shadows, eliminate views of Newbury Street and diminish property values.

he new plans do not require ZBA approval because they comply with zoning rules. Under the revision, the total square feet of the retail development will be reduced to 30,000 square feet from nearly 49,000 square feet.

Ralph Cole, Kensington?s project manager, said he expects the lawsuit to be withdrawn because the developer no longer needs zoning relief. ?We have designed a totally zoning compliant project,? he said. Construction on the $20 million project could begin next summer.

An attorney for the abutters did not return a call seeking comment.


Link
 
Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

Youd think Massachusetts would be a republican stronghold, based on the local populations love of the word "no".
 
Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

A 5 story building would trigger life-altering shadows? Boston is just hopeless.
 
Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

They argued that the new retail development would exacerbate traffic in a congested part of the city, increase shadows, eliminate views of Newbury Street and diminish property values.
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Well I'm sure none of this will come to pass now that one whole story of the planned building has been eliminated.

If anything, replacing all the businesses on this block with one superstore (or, in all probability, a bank branch) will halve the intersection's vitality.

Which you'd think the NIMBYs would just love.
 
Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

NABB needs to get chopped down to size. I wanted blood after they objected to Berklee's propsoal at the BPC.
 
Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

If anything, replacing all the businesses on this block with one superstore (or, in all probability, a bank branch) will halve the intersection's vitality.
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Depends on the superstore. Tower Records made the area quite lively. Best Buy is a real waste of that corner.
 
Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

Is it possilbe that a judge would ever rule that people have a limited amount of say over what gets built on property they don't own if the beneifts of the project out weigh whatever their complaints are? I'm assuming no.

Also, what view of Newbury St is being blocked? The back alley named Newbury st that is next to the Mass Pike? I guess it sounds better to say their views of Newbury St are being blocked than their views of the Mass Pike are being blocked.
 
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Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

GW2500 said:
NABB needs to get chopped down to size. I wanted blood after they objected to Berklee's propsoal at the BPC.
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There is a bright side for the Berklee School: the neighbors' scaredy-shadow short-sighted approach with the school will actually get the better of the themselves.

Fact: Berklee is immediately (1) building the McDonalds-City Sports building for a dorm and music rooms. (2) Daddy's across the street will be renovated/expanded next, and (3) then the tower on the corner will be built.

They have a good relationship with the Mayor's office, Kairos/BRA, and the business association. No one has a good relationship with NABB, not even other NABBsters.

Now: the rest is all hearsay but:

The idiot neighbors think the first 2 phases will be all that Berklee has money for. They also think the BRA won't approve a tower because they want big development on the adjacent parcels. Hint---the BRA (the Mayor) wants all of it. A tower. Yes. Development of parcels. Yes.

Having an approved master plan for all 3 phases is how Berklee gets the money to do phases 1 and 2 and success there gets big money for the tower. The Mayor wants that tower to anchor the corner of the cough, high spine. Getting phases 1 and 2 done is the only way the Mayor gets a tower.

Again, this is just what I've heard around the block but I am amused at Berklee's development coup.


EDIT TO ADD: Added one thing for clarity and I guess I should probably posted this in the Berklee thread. I was trying to point out that NABB is getting backdoored. They don't know it and can't really stop it either!

gooseberry the terrible shadows were on the Eliot hotel windows.
 
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Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

The Mayor wants that tower to anchor the corner of the cough, high spine. Getting phases 1 and 2 done is the only way the Mayor gets a tower.
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It's clearly his sandbox and he only lets other kids in to play when he feels like it.
 
Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

The consolidation of Boston continues. Where there is now four active storefronts, there will soon be one. Some progress.

These assholes shouldn't be granted another building permit until they build on the lot where they demolished the Gaiety, what? FIVE YEARS AGO?
 
Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

Ron Newman said:
Depends on the superstore. Tower Records made the area quite lively. Best Buy is a real waste of that corner.
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Why? Because Tower Records was "hipper"? Best Buy generates similar foot traffic. I understand bad mouthing a Best Buy because it's a box in a suburban parking lot. I don't understand bad mouthing chain stores just because they're chains.
 
Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

Tower Records generated constant traffic because everyone went there to buy the latest music, and there were often special release parties and appearances by musical acts. Best Buy is just a place to buy a TV.

(Both are or were national chains. This isn't about chains as such.)
 
Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

Ron Newman said:
Tower Records generated constant traffic because everyone went there to buy the latest music, and there were often special release parties and appearances by musical acts. Best Buy is just a place to buy a TV.

(Both are or were national chains. This isn't about chains as such.)
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Like it or not Best Buy is where alot of people go to buy the "latest music" now (when they're not buying online). Are you lamenting the death of record stores (or are you suggesting the death of destination retail)?
 
Re: 93 Massachusetts Ave

Tower was a destination store because it was almost the only one in the Boston area. (There was another much smaller Tower in Harvard Square, but everyone knew that Mass Ave & Newbury was the place to go.)
 
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