BU Development Thread

FK4, it looks pretty damn good in person. Its never looked better in my lifetime. This was an extensive and painstaking renovation. Concrete reno is not a paint job.
 
Sorry, I can't keep track of these institutional buildings. What's this going to be?
 
^^ Center for Intergrated Life Science.
 
No groundfloor retail? This stretch of Comm is dead. I realize it's the heart of BU but it's also a major thoroughfare in the city. Would it kill them to put some small shops in there I'm sure they'd do well with all the students. That side of the street is really dead to walk down
 
Suffolk 83 said:
No groundfloor retail? This stretch of Comm is dead. I realize it's the heart of BU but it's also a major thoroughfare in the city. Would it kill them to put some small shops in there I'm sure they'd do well with all the students. That side of the street is really dead to walk down
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BU doesn't get that concept. At all. Never have. They'd raze the entire row of bottom-floor retail buildings on the Cummington-St. Mary's block for another featureless tall box if they could, just like they did a number on the Guitar Center block. But thankfully the Brookline side of the city line has its thumb on that row in perpetual opposition of any such moves. (I'd hate to have to find another barber if Louie's got evicted.)


That Burger King across the street from here used to rake in the business by virtue of being nearly the only retail game in town on those blocks, but they razed it over 10 years ago for more parking and still haven't infilled that windswept asphalt parcel. Doesn't help that the fast food space under Warren Towers attached to the Bank of America ATM has a 20-year hex on it of revolving door tenants. I can't even count how many mainsteam chains (Taco Bell, Subway) and fly-by-night faddish wrap places or whatever have occupied that space since I was a student. And now Starbucks is all boarded up for yet another gut/rebuild.
 
I pushed really hard at several BRA meetings for ground floor retail here. They repeatedly insisted that it 'was not appropriate' in the building. Sigh. And if you scroll up in this thread I think you'll find some messages where I got in an argument with people about how BU is killing this zone with institutional uses.

And yes, the Warren Towers retail situation is wacky. They can't seem to be happy with anything they put in there. The Olecito was actually the best thing that happened there during my tenure -- cheap and good -- and it was gone two years later for god knows what reason, to be replaced by a Jamba Juice.

Didn't they renovate the Starbucks space just last year? When I started it was a Taco Hell -- didn't mind seeing that go away.
 
Matthew said:
I pushed really hard at several BRA meetings for ground floor retail here. They repeatedly insisted that it 'was not appropriate' in the building. Sigh. And if you scroll up in this thread I think you'll find some messages where I got in an argument with people about how BU is killing this zone with institutional uses.

And yes, the Warren Towers retail situation is wacky. They can't seem to be happy with anything they put in there. The Olecito was actually the best thing that happened there during my tenure -- cheap and good -- and it was gone two years later for god knows what reason, to be replaced by a Jamba Juice.

Didn't they renovate the Starbucks space just last year? When I started it was a Taco Hell -- didn't mind seeing that go away.
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Yes, just last year. And it was a completely fucked-up construction zone yet again when I was withdrawing cash at BoA a few weeks ago. I don't know if that's just Starbucks renovating itself or if short- attention span BU has developed compulsive tenancy wanderlust yet again.

Sketchy Meat-like Paste Substance Bell was the longest-serving tenant that I can remember. They were there for the duration of my undergrad years late-90's and several years after. Then the endless turnover started right about the time Guitar Center got kicked out up the street.

I have zero hope this is ever going to change. The tag-team duo of BU and BRA just don't get it and never will. If it weren't for the odd placement of the Brookline town line the whole stretch from Kenmore to 1 block past BU Bridge would be a giant retail and eats dead zone.
 
The Subway didn't entirely disappear - it moved into the City Convenience on the west side of Warren. That one's actually a net win for the students - CityCo is open till 3 anyway, so they pulled the Subway hours from 11pm to 2am. That saved my hungry latte-night ass a few times.

But in general, BU is absolutely terrible with retail. Cynical parts of me says it's intentional to herd BU students towards the dining halls which BU makes more money off.
 
bdurden said:
Good eye. I can see the Sert-inspired window treatments at work here.
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Are you referring to the thin, narrowly spaced brise-soleil or what? Otherwise, I'm not seeing any brutalist lineage here.

It's basically the same rendering before, but the earlier had a more open pattern of glazing on the east elevation that I preferred. The plans showed a sort of informal meeting corridor along that wall, so I'm not sure what necessitated the change.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
I have zero hope this is ever going to change. The tag-team duo of BU and BRA just don't get it and never will. If it weren't for the odd placement of the Brookline town line the whole stretch from Kenmore to 1 block past BU Bridge would be a giant retail and eats dead zone.
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The Brookline line runs through the front door of every building on the south side of Comm Ave. from Winslow Rd. to St. Mary's St. Everything inbound from St. Mary's to Kenmore is 100% Boston. Not that I want to make you more fearful about the long term prospects of Louie's, but it is what it is.
 
I always thought it odd that the sidewalk was in Boston and the buildings in Brookline. The BU 10 year Master Plan does not include replacing the buildings on Comm Ave east of St. Mary's, but that is no guarantee.
 
The EGE said:
But in general, BU is absolutely terrible with retail. Cynical parts of me says it's intentional to herd BU students towards the dining halls which BU makes more money off.
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Don't be cynical -- that is the case. BU Dining Services plays politics hard-core, pretty much tries to kill off everything around it not attached to it.
 
Matthew said:
Don't be cynical -- that is the case. BU Dining Services plays politics hard-core, pretty much tries to kill off everything around it not attached to it.
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Aramark-contracted. I worked there as a student manager as an underclassman, after-dinner snack bar shift. Was able to forgo a dining plan altogether and save myself thousands as part of it, so it served its purpose. Nasty, nasty lowlifes in management. I don't think I ever saw a city health inspector in 2-1/2 years. None of the other student managers across campus I would talk to on the job could remember seeing one either. The sanitary conditions in those kitchens are (I'm just going to take an educated guess that's still present-tense) deplorable. Deplorable. Dining Services didn't give a shit...because they knew it was ensured from above they would never see a health inspector as long as they lived.


Learned a lot of life lessons about corporate America under Generation Greed from that experience. Getting the baptism-by-cynicism part over with early probably kept me from being traumatized when I got my first real job for an employer that worshiped the cult of its stock price.
 
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