Arsenal Yards | Arsenal Mall Redevelopment | Watertown

Same developer is taking on 617 Arsenal:

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Next phase of Arsenal Yards project in Watertown to begin (wickedlocal.com)
 
WAY better than what's there now. Maybe we could get a nice median with trees, a paved road, and a wide sidewalk down Arsenal St. and this would feel even stronger.
 
Would be nice if they'd put the power lines underground along Arsenal St.!
 
shmessy said:
......aaaaaaannnnnnddddd another one!

The boom and spillover migration continues.

www.bostonglobe.com

ALS research lab is the latest life sciences group to call Watertown home - The Boston Globe

In need of more space, the nonprofit has relocated from Kendall Square.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
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Unfortunately this is the "straight outta a Waltham offramp" Arsenal Way side of the neighborhood over-defined by its pornographic parking glut. They're roomies with what's left of NESN studios. More "Coolidge Hill" in orientation...which the city is starting to get lackadaisically wrong in a way that gives off tangible Alewifey stink lines...rather than at the Arsenal-proper or anything Arsenal St.-facing where hewing to density best practices seems to be a more optics-driven discipline. I wish I had optimism about this side of the neighborhood being terraformed successfully to greater mixed density, but the city seems to be in acute identity crisis on how to proceed here. There's a few real sprawl-bombs tucked behind the Mall there, generating already nightmarish traffic on side streets through a heavily residential area. Sans a tighter 'vision thing' about what kind of commercial density can mesh with the incumbent residential density, this particular swath seems to be girding for an identity crisis when it all goes into conflict with itself. So a little premature to be calling this the next hawt biolab mecca unless the overall steering gets a little more intrepid than what the city has shown so far.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Unfortunately this is the "straight outta a Waltham offramp" Arsenal Way side of the neighborhood over-defined by its pornographic parking glut. They're roomies with what's left of NESN studios. More "Coolidge Hill" in orientation...which the city is starting to get lackadaisically wrong in a way that gives off tangible Alewifey stink lines...rather than at the Arsenal-proper or anything Arsenal St.-facing where hewing to density best practices seems to be a more optics-driven discipline. I wish I had optimism about this side of the neighborhood being terraformed successfully to greater mixed density, but the city seems to be in acute identity crisis on how to proceed here. There's a few real sprawl-bombs tucked behind the Mall there, generating already nightmarish traffic on side streets through a heavily residential area. Sans a tighter 'vision thing' about what kind of commercial density can mesh with the incumbent residential density, this particular swath seems to be girding for an identity crisis when it all goes into conflict with itself. So a little premature to be calling this the next hawt biolab mecca unless the overall steering gets a little more intrepid than what the city has shown so far.
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Watertown BETTER get the "vision thing" down pat pretty damn soon, because the tidal wave has already started.............if it puts up the "halt" sign, it will just spill over more to the environs - but Cambridge is bursting at the seams and we are watching the effects in real time. I see this as a once in a century opportunity for Greater Boston to grab the international economic reins. The potential is unimaginable at this time. Whether Greater Boston blows the opportunity is in its own hands. It all comes down to what the area wants to be - - we already saw one judgement (right or wrong) with the 2024 Olympics decision. Forces have grown to make this be another decision point.
 
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shmessy said:
Watertown BETTER get the "vision thing" down pat pretty damn soon, because the tidal wave has already started.............if it puts up the "halt" sign, it will just spill over more to the environs - but Cambridge is bursting at the seams and we are watching the effects in real time. I see this as a once in a century opportunity for Greater Boston to grab the international economic reins. The potential is unimaginable at this time. Whether Greater Boston blows the opportunity is in its own hands. It all comes down to what the area wants to be - - we already saw one judgement (right or wrong) with the 2024 Olympics decision. Forces have grown to make this be another decision point.
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Either that, or we're far overbuilding capacity in a speculative bubble that will soon burst.

Also, I'm not sure how it would be possible for the Boston Area to be building more lab space...
 
Equilibria said:
Either that, or we're far overbuilding capacity in a speculative bubble that will soon burst.
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Which, unfortunately, informs that Alewifey sinking feeling that redev in/around Coolidge Hill is coasting in neutral without an overarching vision because it's shorter-term speculation only. Which is how you end up with sprawl-bomb type facilities proliferating throughout a neighborhood that flat-out isn't equipped to handle the resulting traffic generation. Bubble-to-bubble thinking, rather than priming the pump for a full half-century's worth of sustainability.

Again...specific to Coolidge Hill off the north-facing side streets way more than Arsenal-proper, so needs to be emphasized that the troubleshoot here is specific and partial. But the leading indicators so far are not great that what's getting built is being built to last. We definitely can't be gambling that lackadaisically with a shrug on prime real estate this close to the CBD. How these pieces fit together MUST drive the considerations unless we want to watch Alewife clone itself multiple times over.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Which, unfortunately, informs that Alewifey sinking feeling that redev in/around Coolidge Hill is coasting in neutral without an overarching vision because it's shorter-term speculation only. Which is how you end up with sprawl-bomb type facilities proliferating throughout a neighborhood that flat-out isn't equipped to handle the resulting traffic generation. Bubble-to-bubble thinking, rather than priming the pump for a full half-century's worth of sustainability.

Again...specific to Coolidge Hill off the north-facing side streets way more than Arsenal-proper, so needs to be emphasized that the troubleshoot here is specific and partial. But the leading indicators so far are not great that what's getting built is being built to last. We definitely can't be gambling that lackadaisically with a shrug on prime real estate this close to the CBD. How these pieces fit together MUST drive the considerations unless we want to watch Alewife clone itself multiple times over.
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The problem is that vision is useless if developers can't get financing to build to the vision. Alewife was a blown opportunity because it was a boom and Cambridge could have gotten something much better if they'd bothered to ask. I'm not sure we're in that place at the moment... maybe in a year or two we'll be there again.
 
Equilibria said:
Either that, or we're far overbuilding capacity in a speculative bubble that will soon burst.

Also, I'm not sure how it would be possible for the Boston Area to be building more lab space...
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I keep on hearing that idea of a "speculative bubble that will burst", however each time someone mentions this (usually) very real concern keeps on forgetting the INDUSTRY that is being discussed here.

Biotech is DIFFERENT, given humankind's current demographic. People living longer, expecting more active lifestyles into the 70's, 80's and yes, 90's. Except for a meteor hitting the planet or nuclear holocausts, demand for biotech output will only continue and grow.

The people who are conflating this with tangible speculative bubbles like vcrs, phones, types of computers or Humvees are simply missing the fact that the only thing that could burst this biotech bubble is the demographic diminution or extinction of the human race. The need for biologics will not be a "fad". A hesitation stumble will cost Boston market share for centuries.

THIS is why Watertown (and other areas) need a COMPREHENSIVE VISION now. Hesistating = wasting opportunity.
 
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shmessy said:
The need for biologics will not be a "fad". A hesitation stumble will cost Boston market share for centuries.
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All the more reason Watertown needs to put its hands on the steering wheel to try to execute this right, instead of shrugging while ex-trucking lots get flipped into more park-at-work sprawl bombs. Those labs aren't going to be long-lived tenants if their own over-proliferation makes the entire area around Coolidge Hill unnavigable for a commute. They'll just as quickly trade the faux-Waltham environs for the real deal once the act of working there becomes too resource-intensive.

Labs in general can be the long-term future, but labs in Coolidge Hill ain't going to have a multi-decade shelf life the way these buildouts are staggering blindly along. That's where there may be a bubble at work: Coolidge Hill only being the transitory post-Kendall stopover amidst continued wanderlust for something better. It doesn't have to be that way, but that's how it's likely to trend if the city stays this utterly uninterested in steering it towards any sense of long-term fitting.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
All the more reason Watertown needs to put its hands on the steering wheel to try to execute this right, instead of shrugging while ex-trucking lots get flipped into more park-at-work sprawl bombs. Those labs aren't going to be long-lived tenants if their own over-proliferation makes the entire area around Coolidge Hill unnavigable for a commute. They'll just as quickly trade the faux-Waltham environs for the real deal once the act of working there becomes too resource-intensive.

Labs in general can be the long-term future, but labs in Coolidge Hill ain't going to have a multi-decade shelf life the way these buildouts are staggering blindly along. That's where there may be a bubble at work: Coolidge Hill only being the transitory post-Kendall stopover amidst continued wanderlust for something better. It doesn't have to be that way, but that's how it's likely to trend if the city stays this utterly uninterested in steering it towards any sense of long-term fitting.
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Counterpoint - doesn't the Boston area have a lack of office space in general? Even if this isn't a "destination" lab in 10 years, it will be serviceable as supplemental lab/office space.
 
Gameguy326 said:
Counterpoint - doesn't the Boston area have a lack of office space in general? Even if this isn't a "destination" lab in 10 years, it will be serviceable as supplemental lab/office space.
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Looking long-term, I don't see the same level of demand growth for "office space" (given the wfh technical improvements) as I do for bio-tech lab space, given it's need for in-person collaboration, etc. I think alot comes down to "It's just a different type of animal".

Honestly, firms like Fidelity, Liberty Mutual, State Street (gonna be interesting with that beautiful new tower) will be interesting to watch vis-a-vis their footprints. Bio-tech, on the other hand, is already taking up the slack and should for decades - - already seeing it happen over at 321 Harrison and others.
 
Gameguy326 said:
Counterpoint - doesn't the Boston area have a lack of office space in general? Even if this isn't a "destination" lab in 10 years, it will be serviceable as supplemental lab/office space.
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Double-counterpoint: Is "Overflow Trailer" really the long-term identity Watertown wants with this? Perenially transient tenancies and frequent disruptive turnover, and frequently needing to hustle for better occupants when one gets caught leaning towards the exit door? Where's the tax-base stability when maintaining occupancy is that high-maintenance? It's almost inviting that white-knuckle market bubble to market bubble ride while eschewing stability. What business does any prime location that near to the CBD have chasing lazy transience over structured stability? That's the Alewife-as-dirty-word risk in what going too laissez faire with the terraforming of Coolidge Hill buys City of Watertown.


You can plunk a lab mecca in Coolidge Hill. But the area is singularly unequipped to pull it off unmoored to any sort of guided planning. And that's the entirety of the problem: no guided planning. The area already gridlocks hard from the light-industrial flippers now trying to cram hundreds of park-at-work employees in former truck/shipment lots on side streets that flat-out cannot handle the time-of-day commuter surges. Those former warehouses dispatched their trucks on shifts spread evenly around the clock. Wasn't pretty and wasn't buff land usage for the tax base, but it worked when there was still a market for light industry there. You can't just say "Gut, reno, stripe all that pavement that used to stage tractor-trailer hitches into hundreds of sedan spots" as if that's suddenly going to make the environs amenable to 9-5'ers without consequences. That's not conducive to long-term manageability for a growing employer, and lab/office anchor tenants will (and already have, given Tufts Health Plan's abdication of the ex- Sears building on Mt. Auburn) develop wanderlust for spaces better-equipped to handle it quicker than you'd imagine. There's always shopping options for a cheaper pop-up site if you're not locked into too long-term a lease. And none of the leases here are going to be long-term if "serviceable as supplemental lab/office space" is the damning-with-faint-praise raison d'etre such purely accidental planning is chasing over trying to meld a lasting identity. This boom-bust & transience roller coaster will be a barf-bag quality ride for the City if it's treated like "Oh, lab space just happens any old where it fits" without any additional context being applied through steering.

Overflow Trailer to the Stars is not an aspirational outcome for East Watertown over something...anything...executed with a little more applied foresight than that.
 
Honestly, I don't think Watertown, as a whole, HAS huge aspirations here. It's not Boston or Cambridge. It's Watertown. And overflow trailer might be just fine for Watertown.
 
Gameguy326 said:
Honestly, I don't think Watertown, as a whole, HAS huge aspirations here. It's not Boston or Cambridge. It's Watertown. And overflow trailer might be just fine for Watertown.
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I think the region is going to need Watertown to put on its "Big Boy Pants" whether Watertown likes it or not. It is situated where it is, and if it forfeits to either extreme - NIMBY or Overcrowded/Unorganized Sprawl, - it will cost Greater Boston its international market share for what is probably the best growth industry of the next several centuries (other than space travel/colonization).

They can't play Buford T. Hayseed on this. If they don't like the reality of their location, then Watertonians should move to the Berkshires.
 
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shmessy said:
I think the region is going to need Watertown to put on its "Big Boy Pants" whether Watertown likes it or not. It is situated where it is, and if it forfeits to either extreme - NIMBY or Overcrowded/Unorganized Sprawl, - it will cost Greater Boston its international market share for what is probably the best growth industry of the next several centuries (other than space travel/colonization).

They can't play Buford T. Hayseed on this. If they don't like the reality of their location, then Watertonians should move to the Berkshires.
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Exactly. It grew ~10% last decade and has a density pushing 9k/sq mi. They are going to need to go dense and taller.
 
curcuas said:
Exactly. It grew ~10% last decade and has a density pushing 9k/sq mi. They are going to need to go dense and taller.
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.....with some better mass transpo infrastructure.........Watertown needs to do "The Vision Thing" now.
 
.....and here we go, right scross the street.......

www.bostonglobe.com

A heavyweight life science developer is looking at the Watertown Mall for new lab space - The Boston Globe

The mall is along an Arsenal Street corridor that is fast emerging as a new hub of the region’s life sciences industry and as an attractive place for development in general.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

....and, at least we now know who the key person is regarding "vision thing" if Watertown is to be a long-term boon to Biotech in Greater Boston:

"..... Steve Magoon, Watertown’s director of community development and planning, said no one had approached the town about redevelopment or notified officials of a sale...."

Although the above sentence doesn't bode well for the moment, I'm rooting for you and Godspeed, Mr. Magoon, humanity needs you!
 
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