Assembly Square Infill and Small Developments | Somerville

whighlander said:
Arlington -- the idea of a topic of discussion is to localize the discussion while not rigorously restricting things -- otherwise the comments about a lone fire hydrant and other peripheral matters found on this thread over the past few months wouldn't be of any interest and value either
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I think I can better explain the complaints that you seem to be oblivious. You structure the entire "excerpt" of the Paul Revere House to be of a cut and paste post - thus a large tangent with way-too-little transition - than an example. At the minimum, you should have put it in a quote box.


Ava Somerville targets millennials
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$2,060 for a one- bedroom
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Either somethings off or I need to re-assess my position in my life as a Millennial.
 
ant8904 said:
Either somethings off or I need to re-assess my position in my life as a Millennial.
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Agreed. Although I could see the one-bedroom units being marketed towards two-income "millenial" couples, who are both a few years out of college and/or grad school. But your typical "millenial" is certainly not going to be able to afford $2,000+ on an apartment.
 
Matthew said:
Is it? I didn't take pictures of some of the giant streets. Actually, right at the corner of the new development is the largest frickin 4-way stop intersection I've ever seen. You could plop a whole separate roundabout between all the stop signs, that's how big it is. It was actually kinda strange going thru it because you couldn't see the drivers at all, they were all so far away.
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Ugh, well at least Assembly has some human-scaled streets.

The Seaport has Liberty Wharf and... a lot of blank glass walls. It was interesting to see how it was championed as a shining example of what was going right with the neighborhood and then how every subsequent development has more or less continued the old pattern.

ant8904 said:
Either somethings off or I need to re-assess my position in my life as a Millennial.
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Whenever you see "Millennials" in real estate discussions, think: living-off-your-wealthy-parents-while-acting-independant Millennials, not drowning-in-student-loan-debt-and-low-entry-level-wages Millennials.
 
Arborway said:
Whenever you see "Millennials" in real estate discussions, think: living-off-your-wealthy-parents-while-acting-independant Millennials, not drowning-in-student-loan-debt-and-low-entry-level-wages Millennials.
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You know there ARE successful Millennials. Many of whom are over 30 now and have been making good money for almost a decade.
 
Today at around 3:30 pm, was walking around this area, a camera around my neck, not even taking pictures. One of their security guys stopped me, told me it wasn't ok to take pictures if it was for "commercial purposes". I informed him it wasn't, but frankly it's none of his or FRIT's business. As far as I know, Canal St (where this incident happened), is a public street. Who the hell does FRIT think they are to think they have any say as to what I can and can't do with my camera in that area? Before today I had no interest in anything other than promoting their terrific development. No longer is that the case.

Any thoughts on this?
 
fattony said:
You know there ARE successful Millennials. Many of whom are over 30 now and have been making good money for almost a decade.
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Really, its just old-fashioned DINKs (Double Income, No Kids) that has always been the market for new-construction rentals. Its just that these days they happen to be of Millenial age, so it sounds hipper and less crassly commercial to call them Millenials.
 
pixelsand8 said:
Today at around 3:30 pm, was walking around this area, a camera around my neck, not even taking pictures. One of their security guys stopped me, told me it wasn't ok to take pictures if it was for "commercial purposes". I informed him it wasn't, but frankly it's none of his or FRIT's business. As far as I know, Canal St (where this incident happened), is a public street. Who the hell does FRIT think they are to think they have any say as to what I can and can't do with my camera in that area? Before today I had no interest in anything other than promoting their terrific development. No longer is that the case.

Any thoughts on this?
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This is a problem with police and security guards nationwide. Photography is not a crime. I wouldn't blame this incident on FRIT though. It's probably just a guard who doesn't know what he's doing. I'd write an e-mail to FRIT/Assembly Row explaining what happened including that you were actually interested in sharing this great development on social media. Assembly Row has been actively encouraging people to take pictures around the development and post to social media, often liking Instagram photos and retweeting posts from there. It's free advertising for them.
 
datadyne007 said:
This is a problem with police and security guards nationwide. Photography is not a crime. I wouldn't blame this incident on FRIT though. It's probably just a guard who doesn't know what he's doing. I'd write an e-mail to FRIT/Assembly Row explaining what happened including that you were actually interested in sharing this great development on social media. Assembly Row has been actively encouraging people to take pictures around the development and post to social media, often liking Instagram photos and retweeting posts from there. It's free advertising for them.
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The security guard seemed nice enough, and gave the impression he was just taking orders from above. When I questioned him he told me he'd try to get in touch with his employer at FRIT, but I told him to forget it and that I'd investigate the matter on my own. I'll try and contact them tomorrow by phone and see if I can get an answer for this. Like you say, it's free advertising to have people posting pictures so it seems stupid to be confronting people just for wearing a lens around their neck.
 
ant8904 said:
I think I can better explain the complaints that you seem to be oblivious. You structure the entire "excerpt" of the Paul Revere House to be of a cut and paste post - thus a large tangent with way-too-little transition - than an example. At the minimum, you should have put it in a quote box.
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Ant -- you make a good point -- I was sloppy in the quote from the Revere House website -- it has been fixed

The reason I did it the way that I did is that it really should be several quote boxes as there are more than a few breaks and even a re-ordering of paragraphs

However, it is still instructive on how even a historic icon has been reused, restructured and repurposed since its even-more iconic owner lived in it -- at least much of it still exists -- unfortunately, the same can't be said for the Province House or the John Hancock House
 
Somerville wants to double size of Assembly Row

Plans for 73 acres could double size of an already huge project

By Casey RossGlobe Staff December 02, 2014



Somerville officials are exploring plans to double the size of the massive Assembly Row project by allowing construction of homes, stores, and offices on surrounding property along Interstate 93.

Mayor Joseph Curtatone said Monday that the city will consider making road and utility upgrades to encourage additional construction on 73 acres that abut the Assembly Row complex.

Already one of the biggest projects in the state, the 56-acre Assembly Row development includes several large apartment buildings, a recently completed MBTA station, and dozens of outlet stores and restaurants. On Monday, officials formally began construction of a 750,000-square-foot office headquarters for Partners HealthCare.

“There is a great amount of velocity and energy in Somerville that the development community wants to be a part of,” Curtatone said. “Over the next year, we as a community will script out what we want to be built on the remaining parcels.”

The additional 73 acres are situated between Interstate 93 and the existing Assembly Row development site along Grand Union Boulevard. The property is occupied by the Assembly Square Marketplace, a Home Depot, and a large office building and other businesses.

Somerville officials want the property to more closely resemble the dense city blocks at Assembly Row, where stores and restaurants are situated below new office space, apartments, and parking garages. They acknowledged that vision would probably take another 10 years or more to implement, as many of the properties within the 73 acres are owned by private entities that may not want to redevelop them in the near future.

Curtatone said he expects construction around Assembly Square to continue for 20 years. He has already laid out goals to build as many as 9,000 homes in the area to accommodate surging demand for housing from young professionals and others moving into urban neighborhoods.

“We’re in the midst of the greatest demographic shift in this nation’s history,” Curtatone said. “Somerville is in the middle of that, and developers want to profit from it. We want to leverage that profit motive to meet our community goals.”

The mayor has asked the Board of Aldermen to appropriate $500,000 to hire consultants to help plan uses for the 73 acres during the next year. The effort will identify road improvements and other upgrades needed to accommodate additional development.

The neighborhood’s economic future got a huge boost Monday when construction formally began on the Partners HealthCare headquarters. The project will bring to Assembly Row more than 4,500 administrative employees who are now scattered among 14 sites around the region.

Those employees will be housed in a 13-story building with 100,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space that’s expected to contain a health club, stores, and restaurants.

“This is a huge validator of the vision we’ve laid out here,” said Don Briggs, an executive with Assembly Row developer Federal Realty Investment Trust. “The quality of that company makes this a location that everybody has to look at.”

In addition to the 13-story building and an adjacent parking garage, Partners has an option to build another 300,000 square feet of offices at Assembly Row. Future development will also bring another 1,400 homes, additional outlet stores, a hotel, and office buildings.

Briggs said Federal Realty, which also owns Assembly Square Marketplace, has explored buying additional property within the adjacent 73 acres. But so far, he said, the company has not found a seller.

“There’s still a lot of development opportunity here,” Briggs said. “We have a vested interest in seeing the balance of the neighborhood built out in the right way. Whether we’re the developer or not remains to be seen.”
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Boston Globe
 
It is great news, and more significantly, so far there's no obvious NIMBY opposition (could the Globe not find the folks who screamed for years about potential IKEA traffic?)

While they're at it, they should upzone the Stop N Shop's parking lot (5 stories) and moderately upzone (tall townhomes) the transitional block bounded by Garfield, Cross, & Blakeley Streets, and do a way better job of connecting the Stop N Shop to Assembly.

I'm thinking they need something like this underpass in Birmingham, Alabama, from artist Bill FitzGibbons (additional photos)
 
The map is a bit crazy with pretty much every acre other than the buildings for the shopping plazas shaded - including the parking lot. I guess that means they are going to try and deal with that problem. Assembly won't come close to meeting it's full potential till it connects with the rest of Somerville's urban fabric.

As for lighted underpasses, seems to be the idea;

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Walked to Assembly on Sunday night, down Cross st. and through the Stop n shop parking lot. I was surprised at the amount of people walking under 93 to go to Assembly. It was covered in trash and stank of piss. Seems strange to landscape it right up to the underpass and then stop. These lit up solutions look cool!
 
pixelsand8 said:
Assembly won't come close to meeting it's full potential till it connects with the rest of Somerville's urban fabric.
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I disagree with this statement.

Assembly is an island and will remain so for the foreseeable future. I don't see that as any kind of limitation. The area discussed in this article is humongous and at full build could be a completely self-sufficient neighborhood. Hell, it'll be more populous than many towns just a few miles away. Urban connections to the rest of Somerville might be a little icing on the cake, but the full potential of Assembly rests in converting the big box retail and surface parking into urban forms.

People will be coming and going primarily by car and rail and considerably less so by foot and bike. That is a result of the history and geometry of the site. I think that is the full potential of the site.
 
fattony said:
I disagree with this statement.

Assembly is an island and will remain so for the foreseeable future. I don't see that as any kind of limitation. The area discussed in this article is humongous and at full build could be a completely self-sufficient neighborhood. Hell, it'll be more populous than many towns just a few miles away. Urban connections to the rest of Somerville might be a little icing on the cake, but the full potential of Assembly rests in converting the big box retail and surface parking into urban forms.

People will be coming and going primarily by car and rail and considerably less so by foot and bike. That is a result of the history and geometry of the site. I think that is the full potential of the site.
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I dunno, East Broadway is looking really well now and it's not too far from the new Partners building. Places like La Brasa and east end grill won't be much further from partners than Earls and Legal seafoods. A lot of people living in Assembly will want to explore East Somerville and visa-versa, this should be made as easy as possible.
 
Taming the Fellsway and Sullivan Square are probably your best (possibly only) bets for connectivity improvements. Good news is, that'll get you pretty far, especially with Sully getting completely redone (fingers crossed).
 
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