Assembly Square Infill and Small Developments | Somerville

Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

Ron Newman said:
I'm not any sort of mod here, but can we gently steer the discussion back to Assembly Square?
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Ditto. Here's a picture that might inspire on-topic conversation:
AROW_ACCESS_diagram_0512.png
 
Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

Love me a gateway and access diagram!
 
Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

Gateways = Explosions. Whoa.
 
Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

Yes, I have to feel that there is an excessive amount of parking. With the loss of the Ikea, I would presume from the comments on the news that it will be replace with more of the developments left of the Ikea which I think is a good thing.

I hope with the success of the area, the excessive parking lots will be curtailed for development. As it is, it's like a moat surrounding a miniature town. There's no way the development can be weaved with the surrounding neighborhood the highway will always cut it off, but an expansion of having more blocks would be nice in and of itself.
 
Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

I wonder how they'll enforce parking? Park at the mall, walk up Foley Street, and you're at the station. It's equivalent to walking from the Station Landing garage to Wellington, really. But free.
 
Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

BostonUrbEx said:
I wonder how they'll enforce parking? Park at the mall, walk up Foley Street, and you're at the station. It's equivalent to walking from the Station Landing garage to Wellington, really. But free.
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True, but how does Kappy's Liquor (or others at Wellington Circle) enforce it?

Also I'm amused by there being cars "randomly distributed" in the Mall's parking and none in Home Depot, did they only illustrate cars in lots FRIT controls?
 
Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

Arlington said:
Ditto. Here's a picture that might inspire on-topic conversation:
AROW_ACCESS_diagram_0512.png
Click to expand...

ParkingParkingParkingParkingParkingParkingParking
ParkingParkingParkingParkingParkingParkingParking
ParkingParkingParkingParkingParkingParkingParking

Honestly, even when Circuit City was still there the Home Depot lot barely hit >2/3 occupancy. And that's the single busiest HD location in the state. The current shopping center lot is about the right size/utilization. It gets pretty full (esp. on the 28 side), maybe 4/5 occupancy on a crowded weekend with shoppers needing to either park near the back by the new road or keep eyes peeled for something close. But it never completely taps out into overflow, even during holiday shopping season. There's no way 5 Middlesex's lots have to be bigger than that entire complex, and if HD is the measuring stick then the parcels that have even-acreage buildings and lots are going to have some slack space. I'm not even sure those new tenants next to HD are going to fill up the extra slack in that lot.

They can stay conservative with this. If they find themselves tapped out, take one of the lots vertical with a future garage. But let it breathe a little. Not all that asphalt is going to get utilized from Day 1 the tenants move in, and there's so much of it encasing the buildings that it becomes its own self-sustaining inhibitor. That's not the way this place is going to grow.
 
Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

^^^^
F-Line-Duddly Great stuff.......


Could use a bridge somewhere near the orange line runs through to connect to Gateway Center in Everett. This could relieve traffic in the area.
 
Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

5 Middlesex and Home Depot are not Federal Realty land. Maybe Federal Realty will buy them eventually, but until then, they can't plan to replace those parking lots with buildings.
 
Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

Thats not a true TOD , its a half assed attempt at one... These projects Give TOD a bad name...
 
Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

Nexis4jersey said:
Thats not a true TOD , its a half assed attempt at one... These projects Give TOD a bad name...
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Why do you say that? I'd say that TOD means different things in different places and that their plan is good enough to be at #2 on this spectrum:
1) Suburban / Commuter Rail TOD
2) Close-in TOD (brownfields and streetcar suburbs...which this is)
3) Urban TOD (as at Fan Pier / Seaport or at Lechmere/Northpoint)
..and because this TOD fits its sight (and its "close-in-but-not-downtown" location), I'd say its good enough to not give TOD a bad name.

Examples of "Type 1" Suburban / CR TOD are:
Wickford Junction
Wickford_Junction_Rendering.jpg

Old Colony Square
OCS%20Bondy%20Artist%20Rendering.jpg

or Winnetka, Illinois:
arheader.sm.jpg

Any of these would be totally lame if you built them at Assembly Row or Lechmere, but they give TOD an OK name for where they are.

Similarly, I'd say that Assembly Row is a fine/sufficient example of "Type 2" of something close-in but not urban, which has to mix park-and-ride and drive-to-office commuters in with the car-free residents/workers. In this it is like Cambridge near Alewife or
Station Landing (one stop to the north on the Orange Line)
shops_at_station_landing-436x302.png


I don't think this site can be expected (initially) to be a fully-urban "Type 3" and have the kind of almost-no-parking that TOD can have at a place like Northpoint (Lechmere) which really is fully-urban and is planned with almost no parking.

On the Green Line Extension thread, I'm the first guy to accuse Somerville of not doing enough to encourage/ plan for "tall" TOD (and car-free) along the GLX, but at Assembly Row, they're going about as dense & car-free as the site demands.
 
Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

I'm very mixed about Station Landing. In many ways it's just a strip mall oriented differently so that rows of retail face each other along a Dinseyfied "Main Street" which is otherwise completely cut off from any larger grid or pedestrian area. On the other hand, people do live there and there's a walkway over to Wellington. I guess I would be more impressed if the condos went up 20 or 30 stories... or if the rest of the Wellington nightmare could be remade alongside it. As it is it seems halfway to good, as I expect Assembly Row will be too.
 
Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

Shepard said:
I'm very mixed about Station Landing. In many ways it's just a strip mall oriented differently so that rows of retail face each other along a Dinseyfied "Main Street" which is otherwise completely cut off from any larger grid or pedestrian area. On the other hand, people do live there and there's a walkway over to Wellington. I guess I would be more impressed if the condos went up 20 or 30 stories... or if the rest of the Wellington nightmare could be remade alongside it. As it is it seems halfway to good, as I expect Assembly Row will be too.
Click to expand...

Station Landing's a footbridge across 28 to the Mystic trail system away from having some connectivity bona fides, and better Wellington sidewalk access to Commercial St. and less terrifying 16 sidewalk access to Gateway Ctr. away from knitting into the other adjoining areas of interest. Latter two get an enormous boost by the planned replacements for the Mystic drawbridge and the bridge over the tracks/station driveway which should have much more sidewalk breathing room.

As for Assembly and linking that non-intimidatingly to both Station Landing and the neighborhood across 28, they simply need to bite the bullet and lop 28 down to 4 lanes between Middlesex Ave. and the U-turn lane ahead of Wellington Circle. Especially those absurd dual left-turn lanes NB at Assembly Sq. Drive and Middlesex. Use the reclaimed space to move the sidewalk jersey barriers on the bridge several feet and widen those sidewalks so you don't have to shield yourself next to the railing from sand and crud kicked up by speeding trucks. The road's so comically over-wide there (8 lanes from Prez Landing to the Circle...8 at the underused Middlesex/Assembly lights...6 in-between) that it's an odd little traffic dead spot in between the clusterfucks of Wellington Circle and the 93/28/38 interchange. Try it at rush hour...it's like the calm between storms, and there's never ever a queue at any of those supersized turn lanes. Unfortunately the lack of congestion means it's a drag strip with crosswalks not intended for actual bipedal use.
 
Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

F-Line to Dudley said:
Station Landing's a footbridge across 28 to the Mystic trail system away from having some connectivity bona fides, and better Wellington sidewalk access to Commercial St. and less terrifying 16 sidewalk access to Gateway Ctr. away from knitting into the other adjoining areas of interest.
Click to expand...
I think they should have included a footbridge from Wellington across the Mystic River (on the upstream side of the Orange Line bridge) in the plans, but maybe then it would have called attention to the fact that Station Landing is about as far from Wellington as Assembly Row is. Sullivan-Assembly-Wellington strike me as 3 stations worth of infrastructure chasing 2 stations'-worth of territory.
 
Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

Station Landing's a footbridge across 28 to the Mystic trail system away from having some connectivity bona fides
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A bike/ped underpass below 28, like the one soon to start construction on the Somerville side, is more likely.
 
Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

The new storage facility popping up along side 93
img1096l.jpg

By gw1980 at 2012-08-19
img1097vw.jpg

By gw1980 at 2012-08-19
 
Re: Assembly Square Redevelopment

GW2500 said:
The new storage facility popping up along side 93
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Seems like it is the least "Assembly Square-full" of all the locations shown on the Gateway and Access diagram, being that it is far from the future station and has its back up against I-93. It seems like it isn't part of any big developers parcel, right?

But what's going to be stored there? Just the junk that doesn't fit in basement or garage?
 
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