Assembly Square Infill and Small Developments | Somerville

They really shouldn't have used three shades of blue-grey and then put transparent overlays on top. I know that's the courthouse on the top left, why is it "proposed building" colored instead of "existing building" colored? Why is the new building in the courthouse parking lot (that doesn't exist today) "existing building" colored? It is confusing.
 
Worth noting (given prior comments) that the plan envisions significant road diets. They're diagrammed starting on p.88, but for some damned reason the authors decided to split them over two pages like this is the Fishbook, it's 1971, and people will view this on anything other than a vertically-scrolling computer screen.

Some additional screencaps.

The overview (stitched together from being pointlessly split for the book view). One interesting thing this illustrates is the difference between the new urbanist vision (right) and the master-developed garage-heavy superblock reality (left). The vision is great, but if FRIT has only built the left-hand side for the past 15 years, I have no idea why they'd suddenly start building the neo-Paris envisioned for the Marketplace. This vision would also make Grand Union Boulevard really wacky, with blank parking blocks all up one side and an urban boulevard frontage on the other.

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Middlesex Avenue:

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Assembly Square South (Home Depot and Circuit City):

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The "Micro-District" at the south end, the only part of the "Barrow" concept (that got a hilariously dominant 47% of the preference vote before it was mostly canned, FWIW) to survive:

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The problem is that 28 is not considered part of the plan, so the whole development is walled off by highways from the rest of the city. It might as well be annexed to Boston.
 
RandomWalk said:
The problem is that 28 is not considered part of the plan, so the whole development is walled off by highways from the rest of the city. It might as well be annexed to Boston.
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It is considered, actually. It might have been obscured by my ranting about the layout. See p.88.
 
Ah. Interesting choices, like extending Putnam Rd to 28 shortly after the Middlesex Ave intersection, but not connecting Ten Hills Rd at a four way intersection.
 
RandoWalk said:
Ah. Interesting choices, like extending Putnam Rd to 28 shortly after the Middlesex Ave intersection, but not connecting Ten Hills Rd at a four way intersection.
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Or why not extend more of the streets from the Assembly side under 93 to Mystic (southbound)? I get that the ramps block stuff, but the whole point of this is that they want simplified ramps. This 2050 shoot the moon stuff, so why not make all the connections you can?

And one they could do today: eliminate the pointless "Lombardi Street" name and extend Grand Union Boulevard to Broadway, where the street signs currently bear the name of a street with no addresses that continues seamlessly after a block into a road people might be looking for. I did a quick google search on whether the name is meaningful - it's referred to as A. Alfred Lombardi Street on a few websites, but I didn't see any quick reference as to who that was. If he's worthy of the street name, then change the jingoistic and inane "Grand Union Boulevard" to "Lombardi Street" all the way through Assembly Square before it has any mailing addresses active (other than the CVS in the new Puma building, apparently).
 
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Equilibria said:
It is considered, actually. It might have been obscured by my ranting about the layout. See p.88.
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DCR/MassDOT should cone off a lane in each direction and one turn lane just for a week to see the hell that it will create driving through there. Personally, I don't think a road diet would be the best course of action here
 
DrFreewind said:
DCR/MassDOT should cone off a lane in each direction and one turn lane just for a week to see the hell that it will create driving through there. Personally, I don't think a road diet would be the best course of action here
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I bet that if you dropped 3 lanes total (one through in each direction plus a left) combined with taking away lefts (and thus the signal) from Middlesex you could actually speed up northbound. With the incredibly long pedestrian walk time to cross the massive road, northbound crawls in the evening.
 
DrFreewind said:
DCR/MassDOT should cone off a lane in each direction and one turn lane just for a week to see the hell that it will create driving through there. Personally, I don't think a road diet would be the best course of action here
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I'm guessing it would create none, and I commuted on that stretch every day for the three years prior to COVID. A lot of the backups in that stretch come from too many lanes converging in short stretches with lots of people trying to cross multiple lanes to make turns.

More lanes <> More capacity
 
Equilibria said:
This once had its own thread, and I assume it still does, but the search feature remains broken:

www.bostonglobe.com

Proposed pedestrian bridge across Mystic River would connect Assembly MBTA station and Encore casino - The Boston Globe

The Baker administration has committed to building a 785-foot-long pedestrian-and-bike bridge across the Mystic River, connecting the Assembly MBTA station in Somerville and the Encore casino property in Everett.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

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Here: Assembly Sq <-> Casino Footbridge

Note: Even when the aB search functionality is "working," Google works much better:
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I always use google searching for threads too. Just type archboston and the name youre looking for in the search bar.
 
Ok, so I was sorta knocking Assembly the other day for its design philosophy centered on ‘must have car to get in, must have car to get out.’ But the record-breaking footbridge changes that premise I’d say, especially with the T access that jumps over the commuter rail.
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JS38 said:
This may be what is going in on eastern empty parcel at Assembly, looks like a mini-Partners building but labs of course...
www.cbtarchitects.com/project/confidential-urban-lab-office-building-0
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That's consistent with designs posted here before for Block 7. Odd that they'd call it confidential when it's blatantly obvious to anyone with local knowledge where this is.

Vagabond said:
Block 7 in design: https://theofficesatassemblyrow.com/properties/block-7/

7A
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7B
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