Arsenal Yards | Arsenal Mall Redevelopment | Watertown

^ Be my guest! I was inspired by the spreadsheet I'm currently pouring over...
 
Equilibria said:
Home Depot has a strange staying power. It will be the last big-box store at Assembly, too.
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Between them and Lowe's, they are the only game in town. There are very few options out there for building materials and hardware. There are hardly any true lumber yards left, and only an occasional Ace Hardware and even less so, a neighborhood hardware store for your home needs.
 
Beton Brut said:
I spend a fair amount of time in the "Waltham-Watertown corridor," and I love the handsome, purposeful Arsenal buildings. The new additions seem carelessly impermanent. I've no expectation that any developer would replicate the brick and iron trusswork of the original buildings, but what we have here is little more than an inhabitable spreadsheet.
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The old arsenal buildings are beautiful and have some of the most gorgeous industrial windows around... I love the whole Navy complex between N Beacon and Arsenal. I keep hoping that someday the mall building (I think it was the old Ann & Hope) will replace the big, arched bricked off windows on the Arsenal St side with glass again.

The abysmal architecture - and it truly is abysmal - that’s cropping up on Arsenal and all the way down Pleasant St is unfortunate... but the real tragedy to me, as a biker, is the wanton giving away of the rail corridor by Waltham and Watertown. We could’ve had a rail trail straight to Moody Street, and with reasonable planning, still allowed for plenty of housing construction.
 
FK4 said:
The old arsenal buildings are beautiful and have some of the most gorgeous industrial windows around... I love the whole Navy complex between N Beacon and Arsenal.
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Branch Line has become one of my favorite places to eat and drink.

FK4 said:
I keep hoping that someday the mall building (I think it was the old Ann & Hope) will replace the big, arched bricked off windows on the Arsenal St side with glass again.
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Indeed (and you're right about Ann & Hope). The mall conversion was first-wave adaptive reuse, similar to what was done with the former Ford assembly plant in Somerville. We expect better these days, and sometimes thoughtful developers deliver the goods.

FK4 said:
...but the real tragedy to me, as a biker, is the wanton giving away of the rail corridor by Waltham and Watertown. We could’ve had a rail trail straight to Moody Street, and with reasonable planning, still allowed for plenty of housing construction.
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No doubt. This would have made my ladyfriend's commute better and safer.
 
Roche Bros is going in as the grocery store, just announced today...interesting as they're putting a Brothers Marketplace (upscale concept) in nearby Waltham at the Merc and in Kendall Square
 
Summarizing the roster of buildings/businesses are expected to be located in this 1M sq/ft redevelopment of the Arsenal Mall: https://www.bisnow.com/boston/news/...ns-grocery-movie-theater-anchor-tenants-87794

  1. Roche Brothers, 250k sq/ft grocery store
  2. City Works Eatery & Pour House
  3. The Majestic at Arsenal Yards
  4. Blvd & Bond, a 425 unit apartment building
  5. Yard Works, re-purposing an existing 200k sq/ft building into creative office and lab space
  6. 150 room Hampton Inn

5ae21956a88f6_Roche_Bros_.jpeg





5ae219a56a974_ArsenalYards_Aerial.jpeg
 
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I had the same thought as you, Beton Brut. This disposable cookie cutter crap that is proliferating like weeds all around the metro area is depressing. This doesn't happen in a place that cares about quality or design. This would not be built in Europe or Australia or even Chicago or Seattle or Miami. It's soulless.
 
sidewalks said:
I had the same thought as you, Beton Brut. This disposable cookie cutter crap that is proliferating like weeds all around the metro area is depressing. This doesn't happen in a place that cares about quality or design. This would not be built in Europe or Australia or even Chicago or Seattle or Miami. It's soulless.
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Dammit; let's get a big roundtable to discover the reasons for all of this!

Taxachusetts?

socialist/ fascist antidevelopment process?

Nimby's?

Unions?

licensing/permits/ inspections/ unrelenting environmental studies' bureaucracy?

endless special interest extortion payouts?

Lord Galvin?

let's find the reasons/ bad actors and eliminate 'em!!

Let's clean up the process to our VE'd Shytte Sheau!
 
sidewalks said:
I had the same thought as you, Beton Brut. This disposable cookie cutter crap that is proliferating like weeds all around the metro area is depressing. This doesn't happen in a place that cares about quality or design. This would not be built in Europe or Australia or even Chicago or Seattle or Miami. It's soulless.
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It would, and it definitely is. Change the material colors/finishings and the vegetation in the renders, rinse and repeat all over the world. Boston likes to think of itself as the dumping ground for the world's bad architecture, but sadly it is not the case (just a lot of it).
 
Bos77 said:
It would, and it definitely is. Change the material colors/finishings and the vegetation in the renders, rinse and repeat all over the world. Boston likes to think of itself as the dumping ground for the world's bad architecture, but sadly it is not the case (just a lot of it).
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I disagree. When I travel I see much better quality of construction and design. For starters, other parts of the world (and many parts of America) do not use cheap stick built construction techniques. I suppose it's the cost of labor, but Miami builds far cheaper with concrete than we do with wood. The sound attenuation is almost uniformly terrible.

The quality of design and construction is uniformly superior in Europe and compare the docklands in Melbourne to our Seaport, and you'll see the difference.
 
odurandina said:
Dammit; let's get a big roundtable to discover the reasons for all of this!

Taxachusetts?

socialist/ fascist antidevelopment process?

Nimby's?

Unions?

licensing/permits/ inspections/ unrelenting environmental studies' bureaucracy?

endless special interest extortion payouts?

Lord Galvin?

let's find the reasons/ bad actors and eliminate 'em!!

Let's clean up the process to our VE'd Shytte Sheau!
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Is this sarcasm? I can't quite tell. Whatever the case, I think there should be an inquiry by some entity to determine why costs are so outlandish and how we can bring them down. A union project costs $400 per square foot here even if it's stick built low rise product. Factor in land, soft costs, needed profit threshold and you can only build luxury product. I personally think its subcontractors who are raking it in...perhaps we need (as I believe we do) to spend more to develop our tradesmen with vocational schools. The pool is too small.
 
BosDevelop said:
Oh really? Miami builds some serious, "soulless" crap.
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You may not like the style, but it generally has some swagger and design sense. At very least it's made of concrete, which will age better than these matchboxes.
 
Sidewalks,

Land costs. Demo. Cleanup. Labor. Studies. Permits. Inspections. Safety..... more rounds of permits, studies.....

The multi layered, multi-jurisdictional, replicate, regulation bureaucracy appears to be the single largest reason costs have spiraled out of control in the last 30 years.

The Massachusetts' regulatory process has bloomed (at the state level) into an major industry unto itself that produces very little return on investment.

Lord Galvin's paradise.

Then add the CLF, nimby's and their associated gangs.
 
I'm just gonna mention... construction labor costs are cheaper in the south because they have more immigrant labor. I think New England zoning and regulations are a huge burden but we also have less people willing to do heavy physical labor on the cheap.
 
Blame everything but capitalist profiteering for high costs.
 
Coleslaw, you are making it more difficult for people to take the left seriously. If you want to make a positive difference you need to have some tact. Does every post you make need to use the word capital or some variation?
 
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