BU New Balance Field

[kpeabody]

Babcock/Ashford Street

Coming soon:

Today:

More:

More shots:
http://imgur.com/a/IYYvO#0

 

[Lrfox]

That's one of the two spots I used to nab free parking for visiting BU/Allston friends and going to Sox games.

 

[czsz]

It looks like there will be parking underneath (though prob not free). I wonder how much adding that actually ballooned the cost of what would otherwise be a fairly simple construction.

 

[stellarfun]

It looks like there will be parking underneath (though prob not free). I wonder how much adding that actually ballooned the cost of what would otherwise be a fairly simple construction.

I'd estimate 80+ percent of the $24 million cost is the parking.

 

[Ron Newman]

Why does it need parking? It does not look like the field has room for any spectators at all.

 

[Matthew]

It's a drive-in sports field. You drive-in, park underneath, imagine people playing sports above your head, and leave. All from the comfort of your car.

 

[whighlander]

Why does it need parking? It does not look like the field has room for any spectators at all.

Ron -- seems to me that on the right hand side of the plan view of the field there are bleachers -- my guess is it provides seats for a few hundred folks

 

[bdurden]

Why does it need parking? It does not look like the field has room for any spectators at all.

That parking lot services the sporting events on Nickerson Field, Agganis Arena, and now New Balance Field. Had it been eliminated entirely, that would have been a pretty severe shortage of parking for sporting and extracurricular event traffic.

The field will have 500 portable seats.

 

[tmac9wr]

It's a drive-in sports field. You drive-in, park underneath, imagine people playing sports above your head, and leave. All from the comfort of your car.

Thanks for the laugh haha, that's good

 

[Matthew]

But on a more serious note, how else do you expect all the students living in StuVi to get to Nickerson Field, Agganis Arena, and New Balance Field if there is nowhere to store all their cars that they'll be driving there?

 

[shmessy]

Why does it need parking? It does not look like the field has room for any spectators at all.

IT doesn't. The area around it does - - hence it is re-placing the current parking lot - not eliminating it.

 

[DominusNovus]

But on a more serious note, how else do you expect all the students living in StuVi to get to Nickerson Field, Agganis Arena, and New Balance Field if there is nowhere to store all their cars that they'll be driving there?

Good thing BU doesn't want any alumni or parents with money from out of town to come to any of their events, or those students would have nowhere to park.

 

[datadyne007]

Why does it need parking? It does not look like the field has room for any spectators at all.

Fixed seating is a wave of the past. It's all about flexible bleacher space.

WIT's proposal for the new Sweeney Field is identical to this, essentially a carbon copy (except we have a historical brewery on-site for a little character). Apparently putting parking garages under sports fields is the new thing. It's cool in the front/at-grade portion, but really blights the back where the garage is exposed. WIT has initially budgeted new Sweeney at $20.8 mil, about $3.2 mil cheaper than this one.

Does anyone know if Perkins + Will is doing this field/garage too?

 

[ErnieAdams]

Apparently putting parking garages under sports fields is the new thing. It's cool in the front/at-grade portion, but really blights the back where the garage is exposed.

Providence College did an excellent job with theirs a few years back -- they had a footprint for the project that worked to the advantage of your description.

http://www.smma.com/sites/default/files/project/slideshow/2_7.jpg

The front part is downhill from the rest of the campus, so pedestrians can see the games and practices as they walk by. The back part runs up against a neighborhood that's fenced off from the campus and never would have wanted a connection anyway. PC has another turf field in the pipeline, but because of its location (at grade with the campus and with more single-family neighbors) I don't think they're adding parking underneath.

In any event, it's not like this block of the BU campus was a smashing pedestrian success beforehand. I think these things are a net positive most of the time, some life being better than no life.

 

[metasyntactic]

WIT's proposal for the new Sweeney Field is identical to this, essentially a carbon copy (except we have a historical brewery on-site for a little character). Apparently putting parking garages under sports fields is the new thing. It's cool in the front/at-grade portion, but really blights the back where the garage is exposed. WIT has initially budgeted new Sweeney at $20.8 mil, about $3.2 mil cheaper than this one.

Do you know if the plan for that is to replace the current Sweeney Field or relocate it to a less prominent location and build academic/residential buildings on Huntington?

 

[Ron Newman]

I still don't really see why the parking deck is needed, though. Do people from outside BU watch BU athletics in any significant numbers?

 

[HenryAlan]

I still don't really see why the parking deck is needed, though. Do people from outside BU watch BU athletics in any significant numbers?

Depends what you mean by outside BU. A lot of alums go to hockey games, although I tend to park on a neighborhood street in Brookline rather than at a BU lot. But on the occasion when it makes more sense to park in a lot, they definitely do not have enough capacity. There is the two level garage under Agannis, and then several pocket lots distributed around other buildings, but they all fill up and create a traffic nightmare. Many of the facilities are also used by outside groups, mostly from suburban or even out of state locations. They all drive in, and cause a lot of "lot full" signs to go up.

 

[SeamusMcFly]

Depends what you mean by outside BU. A lot of alums go to hockey games, although I tend to park on a neighborhood street in Brookline rather than at a BU lot. But on the occasion when it makes more sense to park in a lot, they definitely do not have enough capacity. There is the two level garage under Agannis, and then several pocket lots distributed around other buildings, but they all fill up and create a traffic nightmare. Many of the facilities are also used by outside groups, mostly from suburban or even out of state locations. They all drive in, and cause a lot of "lot full" signs to go up.

Well, see you missed the wording of the question. He asked about athletics and you answered that people got to hockey. This is a sport, the only real sport BU has. People go to Hockey, being that BU is pretty much top 5 in the country as a system.

 

[bdurden]

^Hockey is BU's most widely followed sport, it is not it's only "real" sport.

 

[Ron Newman]

I consider that a sufficient answer; not sure why Seamus feels otherwise.