A redeveloped cleveland circle

Not sure if there was another thread for the cinema redevelopment, but from curbed:

Fresh plans are afoot for the development that would replace the old Circle Cinema and a nearby Applebee's in the Brookline-Boston hinterlands.

Recall that the old plans called for a five-story, 234,500-square-foot development with a 196-room Hilton Garden Inn; 74 apartments; around 18,000 square feet of medical office space; and 14,200 square feet of ground-floor retail, including restaurant space. In new plans filed with the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the office component is kaput. Also, the number of hotel rooms has shrank (to 180); the retail square-footage has grown by 200; and the number of apartments has grown (to 92).

Actually, the plans have shifted more than once; and it's likely they'll shift again. Per Matt Rocheleau at Boston.com: "The project, first proposed nearly three years ago, has undergone numerous design changes at the urging of both city officials and area residents. This past spring, some residents said they want to see more changes, namely to address traffic-related concerns."
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http://boston.curbed.com/archives/2013/08/big-part-of-cleveland-circle-plans-xed-out.php#more
 
Cool. Would you still route the trolleys through the open space like in Milan?

P.S. The NIMBYs would scream your head off about the loss of parking. C'est la vie.
 
^ Yep, as in the Milan example. And the relative amount of tracks (and, likely, the frequency of their use) would be less here.

Shame about the parking indeed. It isn't like there are three green line stops within sight of the intersection or anything.
 
Shepard said:
Shame about the parking indeed. It isn't like there are three green line stops within sight of the intersection or anything.
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This area suffers from a huge parking shortage as a result of the restaurants and businesses in the area. Plus, add in that virtually all of the apartments are multiple young adults/college students per unit and the car count jumps considerably. Not to mention, the D line is by far the busiest because it's the fastest way to get anywhere.
 
A redeveloped CVS parcel, including the CVS parking lot.

  • Two high-rise residential towers with views of the reservoir and Back Bay skyline
  • A two-story destination restaurant
  • 7000 sqft of street-facing retail
  • A parking garage pedestal backs against the train yards, invisible from the street - two stories with the potential for more below grade. Short access road to be built next to the existing brownstones on the Brookline line (where the crossover on the Beacon Street median already exists).
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Very much would like please.

I'm assuming that your driveway has a valet lane for the restaurant -- hopefully the valet station could be kept off Beacon and the cars would just end up in the garage.

Funny how this is just over the line from Brookline. Contextually these towers would be very much at home in the 1500s block up by Brandon Hall, where someone has to explain how any of those ever got built in the first place.
 
Matthew - that's a Shepard Original. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Ernie - Cleveland Circle with its confluence of trolley/light rail can definitely support this height. Like you I have no idea how Brookline's Beacon Street behemoths were allowed, and I imagine some prewar walkups were sacrificed in the process. Here on the south side of Cleveland Circle there is absolutely nothing of architectural value.

Speaking of which: I forgot to mention that this parcel also includes Mary Ann's (sp?) bar, the tear down of which would be another selling point!
 
Shepard said:
Speaking of which: I forgot to mention that this parcel also includes Mary Ann's (sp?) bar, the tear down of which would be another selling point!
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True story -- my only time ever spent in Mary Ann's happened because a friend of mine was arguing on the phone with his (almost immediately thereafter ex-)girlfriend and was deemed too drunk to enter Cityside by their door guy. No such problem across the street! What I'm saying is: tear it down with a vengeance.

Is your garage access dependent on the Beacon Street cross-over, or the placement merely fortuitous? I know people have talked on this board about wanting to eliminate it (and another up by Wash. Sq.) so that the C could handle 3-car trains. Plus it could be quite the cluster (or in need of a really smart signal) if exiting drivers are allowed to use the crossover to head west towards the circle. Or is that already the reality with the CVS parking lot?
 
I think the podium could be a lot taller to continue the street wall from the buildings farther east on Beacon. You could then mimic the design of those buildings with street retail and apartments above in the podium. Those units could be sold at a lower price point with minimal amenities with an entrance to each section of the podium. Your towers could still have separate lobbies from the apartment podium with the feature restaurant in between, though you'd pretty much have to get rid of the wrap-around drive you have behind the restaurant. I think you could cover that so you could still get apartments above in a more continuous street wall-reinforcing apartment podium. You might even be able to build a raised garden over the covered drive so that the back of the street-facing apartments in the podium get some light. Covering the drive and maybe even stylizing the entrances can resolve something that your model's lighting betrays - the drive would be shadowed most of the day since you've lit your model with the sun in the position of a late spring/early autumn evening.

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I hope this kindof makes sense. Maybe the towers need to be spaced farther apart for this concept to work - I couldn't resolve how the new raised podium would relate to the tower, but the more I sketched, the harder it looked to work in a raised garden/green space.

Either way, this is a 500% improvement over what's there now and could be an anchor development for the area, though as usual, I'd like to see less parking so close to the T, tucked behind the property or not. I guess it's as good a place to put it as any since the wall doesn't actually need to engage the rail yard, though that'd be nice.
 
I just like the idea because it's a big middle finger to the brookline town meeting crowd that won't be able to NIMBY it to death.
 
Ernie - yep, I purposefully placed the parking access by the cross-over. You're already allowed to leave CVS and turn left - usually you are fine to go whenever the ped cycle in Cleveland Circle itself is going, meaning that eastbound cars aren't coming through with the exception of right-turns from C.H. Ave. I actually didn't think about the impact on 3 car sets. The oval walkway (not driveway - it's ped only, see the bollards there) is purposely aligned with the crosswalk to the station.

DigitalSci- wow, I love the sketches you superimposed. The context I had in mind was actually drawing from the other side of Cleveland Circle, where the brownstones are set back behind single-story retail.
 
Looks like they've finally started gutting the interior of the Circle Cinema. Anyone know if this means anything?
 
I always assumed this project was crawling because it spanned the city line.

The NIMBYS there are also ridiculous, remember the stink they put up when the gas station was trying to build an apartment building that was the same height as the other apartment buildings around it, and shorter than the abutting trees?

Yeah. There's a reason that despite having three transit lines running through it plus a bus terminal Cleveland Circle feels like the hinterlands.
 
davem said:
I always assumed this project was crawling because it spanned the city line.

The NIMBYS there are also ridiculous, remember the stink they put up when the gas station was trying to build an apartment building that was the same height as the other apartment buildings around it, and shorter than the abutting trees?

Yeah. There's a reason that despite having three transit lines running through it plus a bus terminal Cleveland Circle feels like the hinterlands.
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That is why it's going so slowly.

Red Cab site (abandoned since the early 1990s)

2006 proposal
http://www.lmp.com/news/redcabsite.htm

Objections include:
Not wanting medical research (Offices only)
Possibly selling an abandoned building to a non-profit and losing out on tax revenue
New building may be too tall
Parking issues

2011 proposal... not many NIMBY objections here
http://brookline.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/new-better-proposal-for-the-red-cab-site



2013 proposal
http://www.wickedlocal.com/x393137705/Hotel-chain-eyeing-former-Red-Cab-site-in-Brookline
Brookline wants hotel rooms, but also doesn't want too many because they don't want to harm the other hotels already in town.

Based on how things have gone at the red cab site, I wouldn't be surprised to see that sit empty for 20 years.

Don't forget, the Chestnut Hill Star Market was built at a weird angle to avoid Brookline NIMBY issues

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3231036,-71.1661701,422m/data=!3m1!1e3
 
Ding Dong the Citibank is Dead...

Yes - that street-killing three-storefront-wide monstrosity has left Cleveland Circle. Could be a nice retail or restaurant opportunity.
 
CitiBank is actually getting rid of a lot of their retail presence and focusing more on financial services. So you are going to see a lot more dead Citibank spots.
 
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