Dorchester Bay City (nee Bayside Expo Ctr.) | Columbia Point

You do understand that I would not want any tax dollars going to stadiums. Correct?

Which also has nothing to do about liking sports or sports fans or whatever those off-topic one-liners were about.

And it's more than just the tax breaks cut to the team owner for inking the deal in the first place. For the cost of the infrastructure support, use of public services during events (cops, emergency personnel, etc.), use of public services outside of events (security and police calls around empty lots/stadium), and land utilization outside of events (e.g. how much parking is appropriate before overkill starts to show permanent warping effect on car shares in the CBD?)...I want any proposals to be superiorly well-vetted against ancillary resource leaks. Because on balance cities over the last 3 decades have done an extremely poor job anticipating the 365-day-a-year public resource dings they take from maintaining stadiums regardless of how many nights per year they're in-service. The Seaport Megaplex got fingered specifically for its drag effects here just as the new neighborhood's blank canvas was graduating from dreaming to planning. If every resident of the city is paying the public services premium for that, the benefits package to be shared by all residents of the city for having the stadium there has to be enriched substantially or else it starts becoming another wealth-transfer grift.

Again...solve for that glitch or we haven't made any substantive progress on a more viable urban stadium since the Megaplex flunked that test and a bunch of other cities underscored the resource-drain shortfalls in triplicate. It's not impossible. I keep citing the Revs stadium thread where we are indeed putting the proposals to rigorous ROI test as a model for how there's a way to mount this while inoculating ourselves from the hidden inequities. Just because the top-line stakes go higher with NFL substituted for MLS doesn't mean things are suddenly so alien-different that we junk all that careful means testing. Just uphold the same damn standards to-scale to the stakes we're trying to attract. If the deal doesn't add up, it doesn't add up and taking a pass is the right decision (be it for local circumstance, or because other cities' reckless behavior has inflated a market bubble we don't want to be on the *pop* end of). If it does add up...awesome, Stadium ahoy.

I don't understand how that's so rife for misunderstanding in this thread.
 
Which also has nothing to do about liking sports or sports fans or whatever those off-topic one-liners were about.

And it's more than just the tax breaks cut to the team owner for inking the deal in the first place. For the cost of the infrastructure support, use of public services during events (cops, emergency personnel, etc.), use of public services outside of events (security and police calls around empty lots/stadium), and land utilization outside of events (e.g. how much parking is appropriate before overkill starts to show permanent warping effect on car shares in the CBD?)...I want any proposals to be superiorly well-vetted against ancillary resource leaks. Because on balance cities over the last 3 decades have done an extremely poor job anticipating the 365-day-a-year public resource dings they take from maintaining stadiums regardless of how many nights per year they're in-service. The Seaport Megaplex got fingered specifically for its drag effects here just as the new neighborhood's blank canvas was graduating from dreaming to planning. If every resident of the city is paying the public services premium for that, the benefits package to be shared by all residents of the city for having the stadium there has to be enriched substantially or else it starts becoming another wealth-transfer grift.

Again...solve for that glitch or we haven't made any substantive progress on a more viable urban stadium since the Megaplex flunked that test and a bunch of other cities underscored the resource-drain shortfalls in triplicate. It's not impossible. I keep citing the Revs stadium thread where we are indeed putting the proposals to rigorous ROI test as a model for how there's a way to mount this while inoculating ourselves from the hidden inequities. Just because the top-line stakes go higher with NFL substituted for MLS doesn't mean things are suddenly so alien-different that we junk all that careful means testing. Just uphold the same damn standards to-scale to the stakes we're trying to attract. If the deal doesn't add up, it doesn't add up and taking a pass is the right decision (be it for local circumstance, or because other cities' reckless behavior has inflated a market bubble we don't want to be on the *pop* end of). If it does add up...awesome, Stadium ahoy.

I don't understand how that's so rife for misunderstanding in this thread.

Again, I’m not misunderstanding you. Your points are well taken and I get it. But if you actually listened to what I had to say instead of these soliloquies, you might actually get people on your side. I agree with you about fixing the glitches so that the neighbors don’t get grifted. But you come on too intense. You’re smart. You don’t need to post this way my dude.
 
It's incredible to me that there's no street connections proposed between the site and Harbor Point. Pedestrian paths are good but the efficiencies of directly connecting the two areas by even a single road seem obvious
 
It's incredible to me that there's no street connections proposed between the site and Harbor Point. Pedestrian paths are good but the efficiencies of directly connecting the two areas by even a single road seem obvious

I think it's mostly a pre-emptive response to concerns about through-traffic, and it's dumb. Same thing at Northland Newton - master developers are told to contain all traffic and access within their site, which leads to a series of new urbanist cul-de-sacs.

It also reinforces the idea of Harbor Point as a compound, not a neighborhood, which isn't helpful to anybody.
 
BCDC (on resiliency):


They're raising the whole site above the 2100 sea level.

Looking at these site plans makes me wonder: what would happen if the BPDA just told developers they had to have more than one building per block?
Equilibria -- the first thing the developer must be told -- Fagetaboutit -- this isn't going to be another Kendall or Harvard's Ksq imitation or even the Seaport -- just not the right place and time for that
Focus on Bio/pharma mfg -- and tell the developer to work with UMass Boston, Wentworth and Franklin Institute of Tech to develop a curiculum for bio/pharma mfg worker training
 
I think it's mostly a pre-emptive response to concerns about through-traffic, and it's dumb. Same thing at Northland Newton - master developers are told to contain all traffic and access within their site, which leads to a series of new urbanist cul-de-sacs.

It also reinforces the idea of Harbor Point as a compound, not a neighborhood, which isn't helpful to anybody.

I'd bet you it's coming from Harbor Point--they don't want people driving on their streets. The City isn't willing to go against the community too much, which in many ways is a good thing but does result in this kind of stupid thing. It's even worst at Suffolk Downs where there is no connection to the East Boston neighbohood.
 
I'd bet you it's coming from Harbor Point--they don't want people driving on their streets. The City isn't willing to go against the community too much, which in many ways is a good thing but does result in this kind of stupid thing. It's even worst at Suffolk Downs where there is no connection to the East Boston neighbohood.
Suffolk Downs is so early in its evolution that connectivity will undoubtedly evolve over the next few decades
You have to view these totally in a different context -- Suffolk Downs today is like the South Boston Seaport was about 50 years ago -- there is virtually a blank slate
Harbor Point has been through several iterations already from garbage dump to Columbia Point to Harbor Point and it has been evolving along with UMass Boston, the once shopping plaza, etc. -- Harbor Point has a much more complex relationship with its surroundings than does Suffolk Downs [with the exception of the very severe restrictions imposed by proximity to Logan in both cases]
 
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So far its improving with each iteration as they figure out what this is going to look like.
 
So how much money is this development giving to public transportation and road improvements in the area?
 
It's good there's no auto connection with Harbor Point as long as there is ample pedestrian and EMS access. The peninsular as a whole is so car-centric and it doesn't need to be
 
The file above is way too big for its own good (1681 pages!!!) but on page 34 it shows the tallest structure has gained an additional 44' since the prior iteration of the proposal. The highest building is now listed as 338'. No idea whether or not that includes the mechanicals or if it will be even higher than that. The complex is basically on the scale of Kendall Square as it exists today, just less expansive as it's shoehorned in there.
 
-1,970 units
-4,395,600 SF of lab/office
-165,000 SF of retail
-building heights varying from 110'-338'
-15.4 acres of new open space
-6.3 acres of new infrastructure (roadways)
-15% affordable at 70% AMI
-$57,900,000 affordable housing fund commitment ($13.00/Commercial SF)
-$10,000,000 home ownership fund commitment
-$12,570,000 job training/economic development fund commitment

Build it.
 

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