Archstone-Smith, the same developer that is building Archstone Boston Common (Park Essex). This is the biggest apartment complex under construction in Boston or Cambridge, even bigger than Trilogy:
Former Wasteland Sprouts Housing
NorthPoint among Wave of Construction
by Brian Kladko, Boston Business Journal
EAST CAMBRIDGE -- It's not much to look at now -- a couple of gaping holes, lots of dirt, a former factory stripped down to its shell. But by the end of next year, a mostly industrial wasteland on the far eastern edge of Cambridge will be transformed by three residential projects now under way.
The projects, totaling nearly 1,300 condos and apartments, will make this small corner of East Cambridge -- once comprising a railyard, warehouses and factories -- one of the most densely populated areas in Greater Boston. It could rank as one of the country's most sudden transformations of an entire neighborhood, said Dennis Carlone, an urban design consultant to Cambridge.
"East Cambridge is really coming of age," said Mark Garber, a vice president of Spaulding & Slye, which is building the massive, 45-acre NorthPoint development that will anchor the neighborhood with 2,700 units by 2015.
The activity isn't limited to construction, either. The Regatta Riverview Residences, a pair of apartment buildings formerly called Museum Towers, are being sold off as condos, with more than half of the 436 units already taken. The company handling that conversion, Crescent Heights, finished selling off 104 units at the Glass Factory, just north of NorthPoint, last month.
As often is the case, it's all about location -- a short walk over the Monsignor O'Brien Highway to the TD Banknorth Garden area and a somewhat longer walk down Third Street to the intellectual and entrepreneurial hub of Kendall Square. It affords easy access to the Lechmere T stop for commuting to work, and equally easy access to a new riverfront park on the Charles.
"I just think it was inevitable," Carlone said.
For the past decade, however, the only residential outposts in this area just north of the Museum of Science were the 168 condominiums in Thomas Graves' Landing and then, in 1998, the Museum Towers. Anyone choosing to live in either place had to make a deliberate choice to do without such niceties as trees, shops or street life.
The coincidental timing of the different projects has fostered a strange mix of competition and synergy among the developers. While they want to keep customers to themselves, salespeople at the smaller projects are using NorthPoint to convince prospective buyers that they aren't just buying into a building, but a neighborhood.
"I think it's beneficial for us, absolutely," said John Soininen, the senior project manager for Leggat McCall Properties, which is turning the old Haviland Candy factory into 196 condos called One First. "It helps to have more residential product in the neighborhood."
The building of One First has been a painstaking process of preservation and restoration, by order of the Cambridge Historic Preservation Commission. For example, it is disassembling a brick wall only to rebuild it, brick by brick, to maintain the original facade. The constraints of remaining within the existing building's shell have resulted in 86 different floor plans, ranging in price from $400,000 for a one-bedroom unit to $1.5 million for three bedrooms.
In contrast, the sleek glass towers of NorthPoint and the adjacent, 767-unit apartment complex by Archstone-Smith, are being built on a relative blank slate. NorthPoint's units, priced from the mid-$300,000s to $800,000, won't be habitable until the middle of next year, but about 25 percent are already sold, Garber said.
As NorthPoint proceeds, however, it will include other features that will alter the locale's landscape -- 2.2 million square feet of commercial space, a 10-acre park, and a new T stop to replace the rundown Lechmere station.
Spaulding & Slye said it hasn't set a start date for the commercial space, but is "actively marketing" lab and office buildings that could be built to suit. The master plan also includes a hotel and retail space that could support a 24/7 community.
Link
Here are various construction shots from different times:
Fast-lane - 7/26/06
kz1000ps - 12/31/2006
3/26/2006
3/31/06
Former Wasteland Sprouts Housing
NorthPoint among Wave of Construction
by Brian Kladko, Boston Business Journal
EAST CAMBRIDGE -- It's not much to look at now -- a couple of gaping holes, lots of dirt, a former factory stripped down to its shell. But by the end of next year, a mostly industrial wasteland on the far eastern edge of Cambridge will be transformed by three residential projects now under way.
The projects, totaling nearly 1,300 condos and apartments, will make this small corner of East Cambridge -- once comprising a railyard, warehouses and factories -- one of the most densely populated areas in Greater Boston. It could rank as one of the country's most sudden transformations of an entire neighborhood, said Dennis Carlone, an urban design consultant to Cambridge.
"East Cambridge is really coming of age," said Mark Garber, a vice president of Spaulding & Slye, which is building the massive, 45-acre NorthPoint development that will anchor the neighborhood with 2,700 units by 2015.
The activity isn't limited to construction, either. The Regatta Riverview Residences, a pair of apartment buildings formerly called Museum Towers, are being sold off as condos, with more than half of the 436 units already taken. The company handling that conversion, Crescent Heights, finished selling off 104 units at the Glass Factory, just north of NorthPoint, last month.
As often is the case, it's all about location -- a short walk over the Monsignor O'Brien Highway to the TD Banknorth Garden area and a somewhat longer walk down Third Street to the intellectual and entrepreneurial hub of Kendall Square. It affords easy access to the Lechmere T stop for commuting to work, and equally easy access to a new riverfront park on the Charles.
"I just think it was inevitable," Carlone said.
For the past decade, however, the only residential outposts in this area just north of the Museum of Science were the 168 condominiums in Thomas Graves' Landing and then, in 1998, the Museum Towers. Anyone choosing to live in either place had to make a deliberate choice to do without such niceties as trees, shops or street life.
The coincidental timing of the different projects has fostered a strange mix of competition and synergy among the developers. While they want to keep customers to themselves, salespeople at the smaller projects are using NorthPoint to convince prospective buyers that they aren't just buying into a building, but a neighborhood.
"I think it's beneficial for us, absolutely," said John Soininen, the senior project manager for Leggat McCall Properties, which is turning the old Haviland Candy factory into 196 condos called One First. "It helps to have more residential product in the neighborhood."
The building of One First has been a painstaking process of preservation and restoration, by order of the Cambridge Historic Preservation Commission. For example, it is disassembling a brick wall only to rebuild it, brick by brick, to maintain the original facade. The constraints of remaining within the existing building's shell have resulted in 86 different floor plans, ranging in price from $400,000 for a one-bedroom unit to $1.5 million for three bedrooms.
In contrast, the sleek glass towers of NorthPoint and the adjacent, 767-unit apartment complex by Archstone-Smith, are being built on a relative blank slate. NorthPoint's units, priced from the mid-$300,000s to $800,000, won't be habitable until the middle of next year, but about 25 percent are already sold, Garber said.
As NorthPoint proceeds, however, it will include other features that will alter the locale's landscape -- 2.2 million square feet of commercial space, a 10-acre park, and a new T stop to replace the rundown Lechmere station.
Spaulding & Slye said it hasn't set a start date for the commercial space, but is "actively marketing" lab and office buildings that could be built to suit. The master plan also includes a hotel and retail space that could support a 24/7 community.
Link
Here are various construction shots from different times:
Fast-lane - 7/26/06
kz1000ps - 12/31/2006
3/26/2006
3/31/06
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