Brookline Place | Boston Children's Hospital | Brookline

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West

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I haven't been able to find this elsewhere so I'm assuming it needs a new thread.

Boston Children's Hospital doing a major redevelopment of the parcels between the Brookline T stop and route 9. Demolition has commenced.

The Hospital's project page, with a handful of renders and simple site plan.

http://www.childrenshospital.org/brookline-place
 
Re: Brookline Place

Spitting distance from my desk, which occasionally shakes as the demo progresses.
 
Re: Brookline Place

West said:
presentation to Brookline Planning back in 2015:

http://www.brooklinema.gov/DocumentCenter/Home/View/7152

Doubled the square footage, also doubled the parking, but calls itself TOD.
Click to expand...

West when you look at the presentation it seems to meet reasonable criteria to be called TOD

For one -- it removes a surface parking lot and converts the space into a garden and a pedestrian path directly connecting to the Brookline Village T Stop -- that sounds as if its oriented toward the Transit

2nd -- to be correct the sq ft went from 140k sq ft to 330k sq ft [237%] while parking in the garage increased from 359 to 683 [190%] -- so it actually got less car friendly as 850 spaces would be necessary to keep the spaces / sq ft ratio constant in the garage

If you include the total parking it goes from 435 spaces now to 820 spaces but some of the new spaces are valet parking, Zip car parking

Finally -- This is a medical office complex for Children's Hospital Doctors -- you can't expect that all of the patients and there parents can take the T as they may be coming from quite far afield [the presentation quotes a peer reviewed study that says 60% of patients and visitors arrive by automobile]

This forum needs to stop the Knee-jerk reactions triggered by every proposal -- its getting too predictable and sounds like just more of the Presidential Campaign

On one hand there's an instant condemnation on seeing the render concerning the siding materials and /or the color of the glass. Then there's the immediate condemnation as being a stump or a landscaper. And of course we can't omit the immediate condemnation due to the excess parking or not enough engagement with the T.

Many of these may be valid criticisms -- but only after a thorough review of the full submission can it be fair to judge so harshly.
 
Re: Brookline Place

Whigh,

Who's judging harshly? Who's being knee-jerk? Nobody here has said anything about height or finishes, except you, and you mention them to shoot down straw men from other threads. If you're going to respond to my posts, respond to my posts. If you want to push back on people for their height fetish - which is fine by me if you do, I get tired of the incessant "NEEDS MOAR TALLER" ranting, too - go find one of those posts and push back accurately.

We will not likely see many instances in the Boston metro area of pure TOD. You've got to go to places like Manhattan or Tokyo for that, and even there buildings with no parking still have a loading dock for deliveries, and hence are not 100% TOD. What we get here are developments that fall somewhere in the grey zone.

On this plan specifically, yes, they increased square footage by more than they increased parking, thereby reducing ratio of building to parking, fair point. But not by a hell of a lot. And as you yourself point out, this structure will to some very significant extent be oriented to people driving in from afar. Given its use, that may well have been inevitable, but it's still oriented towards drivers.

Despite the lower ratio of floor area to parking, though, this one seems to skew closer to the auto-oriented end of the development spectrum. A garden with a foot path orientated to the T stop is indeed one of the factors tipping the scale the other way.

Tipping back the other way, though, the presentation notes that the increased parking is meant to serve the surrounding (off-site) business district. To such an extent as the City of Brookline sought increased parking for the existing nearby businesses, and to such extent as the developer is cooperating, that is a step away from transit oriented development.

You add it all up, all the pros and cons, try to blend them into one score on a scale of 0 (pure suburbia greenfield development) to 10 (deepest Manhattan infill), this looks to me somewhere in the 4 to 5 range. Maybe you can convince me that should be 5 to 6 range. It does not look to be in any way a stellar example of TOD. It's also not pure suburbia either. Kind of a semi-lost opportunity without being a full disaster.
 
Re: Brookline Place

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Re: Brookline Place

At least they are matching up the path to the T with the crosswalk at Washington St/Brookline Ave. They had this silly "use path" sign and chain so that people didn't cut across the grass after crossing in the crosswalk. I used to purposely trample the grass (like everyone else) because it was THEIR fault that the paved path was out of the way.

Also, are they building or contributing to their frontage of Gateway East?
 
Re: Brookline Place

Saw a large crane in the vicinity of the site from the E this evening. I'll try and take a peek this weekend, but it looks like this is chugging along at any rate.
 
Re: Brookline Place

Lego kit building?

Are they at least installing piles before 1/2 the building is up?

i'm way behind the curve on these.

Thanks Beeline!
 
Re: Brookline Place

Our very own Centre Pompidou!
 
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