Cambridge Crossing (NorthPoint) | East Cambridge/Charlestown | Cambridge/Boston

Re: NorthPoint Cambridge (The one that was train yards, the big plan.)

Equilibria said:
From WCVB:

cambridge-crossing-rendering-1508422724.jpg
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'Put a park in the middle and you can get away with any architectural abomination imaginable.'

Divco West
 
Suffolk 83 said:
Everything that's built in this metro area is short squat boxes.... its ridiculous
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It looks that way particularly because in Stick's last picture (by the way, Stick, great renders - thank you!) there is no Avalon North Station or Millenium.
 
It is sad how closely this resembles the Seaport, despite the fact that the Seaport has the legit airport height restriction, and this one doesn't. I am not a height-no-matter-what guy, but I just can't fathom that more value couldn't be derived from this parcel (by going further vertical) than is currently proposed.

This is a lazy plan. I am convinced it has to do with risk management. Foundations and structures for tall buildings require a disproportionately high up-front investment. Despite this site's immense promise, there's still no guarantee the developer would recover costs (including the drawn-out zoning battles that would ensue with stuck-in-the-past-Cambridge). These designs reflect a developer dangling cheap bait to see who bites, rather than embodying true strategic thinking and investment.
 
bigpicture7 said:
It is sad how closely this resembles the Seaport, despite the fact that the Seaport has the legit airport height restriction, and this one doesn't. I am not a height-no-matter-what guy, but I just can't fathom that more value couldn't be derived from this parcel (by going further vertical) than is currently proposed.

This is a lazy plan. I am convinced it has to do with risk management. Foundations and structures for tall buildings require a disproportionately high up-front investment. Despite this site's immense promise, there's still no guarantee the developer would recover costs (including the drawn-out zoning battles that would ensue with stuck-in-the-past-Cambridge). These designs reflect a developer dangling cheap bait to see who bites, rather than embodying true strategic thinking and investment.
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Honestly I think plan is well laid out. The site is challenging. It’s in a flood zone, geographically locked in by highways, train tracks, a bridge. I actually think it’s aggressive at 2,000+ residences, businesses, retail etc. There is one road into this place and gridlock in every direction at rush hour. Building a Hudson yards here is not feasible.
 
Challenging site, flood zone...can't disagree. But I gotta push back; I work in Kendall and this is literally among the hottest/most aggressive tech office/lab (and residential) zones in the WORLD. It is completely choked/starved. This is the time to do something very bold. There are biotech workers paying $3000+/month to live (in a small, minimally appointed) apartments to be near where they work. Lab square footage is among (if not the) most expensive on the planet.

Despite the challenges and risks, this site can support much more than this. The Harbor Towers are built on the freakin ocean...deep piles are costly but they let you do a lot.

Cambridge sells itself short when it doesn't think more boldly about the possibilities. The nice thing about this site is that there's no demo of historic buildings, or worrying about shadows on the common, or planes overhead.

Due respect, but I just believe it's a candidate for something very bold.
 
Re: NorthPoint Cambridge (The one that was train yards, the big plan.)

shmessy said:
'Put a park in the middle and you can get away with any architectural abomination imaginable.'

Divco West
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And the sneaky best part is that "park" is really a disposal zone for some of their most contaminated material. That "drumlin" is 3' of clean fill and marker barrier over very contaminated soils.
 
bigpicture7 said:
Challenging site, flood zone...can't disagree. But I gotta push back; I work in Kendall and this is literally among the hottest/most aggressive tech office/lab (and residential) zones in the WORLD. It is completely choked/starved. This is the time to do something very bold. There are biotech workers paying $3000+/month to live (in a small, minimally appointed) apartments to be near where they work. Lab square footage is among (if not the) most expensive on the planet.

Despite the challenges and risks, this site can support much more than this. The Harbor Towers are built on the freakin ocean...deep piles are costly but they let you do a lot.

Cambridge sells itself short when it doesn't think more boldly about the possibilities. The nice thing about this site is that there's no demo of historic buildings, or worrying about shadows on the common, or planes overhead.

Due respect, but I just believe it's a candidate for something very bold.
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I agree with this. Cambridge has very little land, and a whole lot of people who want to live/work/play there. They need to start building upwards where they can, and this is one of the places where they can.
 
Jouhou said:
I agree with this. Cambridge has very little land, and a whole lot of people who want to live/work/play there. They need to start building upwards where they can, and this is one of the places where they can.
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The density in this site is a huge disappointment.

It has it's own T station.
It is walking distance to the hottest employment market in the metro area, Kendall Square.
It has essentially no Logan-related height restriction (1,000 ft!).

This could be a super high density, transit oriented development (F*** the traffic issues, you do not need a car here). Instead we get a suburban office park design.

We need much better planning vision (and development agency guidance/pressure) to get the needed density.
 
JeffDowntown said:
The density in this site is a huge disappointment.

It has it's own T station.
It is walking distance to the hottest employment market in the metro area, Kendall Square.
It has essentially no Logan-related height restriction (1,000 ft!).

This could be a super high density, transit oriented development (F*** the traffic issues, you do not need a car here). Instead we get a suburban office park design.

We need much better planning vision (and development agency guidance/pressure) to get the needed density.
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+1. Architecturally it's fine, location-wise it's great, connections-wise and buildup-wise this is a huge waste of potential. We should be getting a lot more towers and a lot fewer boxes.
 
A symptom of the 5+1 construction fetish. Cheap, easy, and profitable for developers. Fine, even preferable, in outlying commuter rail zone 3 TOD areas, but problematic in dense areas when we have a housing crunch.

You could feasibly double the units on the 4 buildings on the left hand side.
 
bigpicture7 said:
Due respect, but I just believe it's a candidate for something very bold.
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There is quite so much of this plaguing the development parcels throughout the metro.

America grew by 80~120 million people since very recently (depending how you choose to define that word). Some of them will inevitably want to come here. During that time Boston became one of the highly prosperous places. People are free to move as they wish. Professionals move in. Other people come from far and wide, without the housing to match creating problems.

The politico's try to remedy the market. But strong forces are exerted by the powerful to dress down development, almost like it was 1870 (in some areas). The politicos respond in kind with this odd form of political correctness, bending mostly to their will. [/I]...Others push strange false conspiracy theories that anti-development will rescue the poor from gentrification.

Economic forces combine with the politics and the result is fits and starts.... leaving the marketplace and it's consumers right where we started. It's not about how much housing we built in the last 3 years. It's more like about how much we built in the last 30 years.

The process as designed and at the current density will NEVER put enough affordable units within reach of enough people who desperately need it ....and worse; soon there will be significantly less land in the category of 'highly attractive for development,' or the political will to bring back the bulldozers.

Well all l really want to say is,'There is quite so much of this plaguing the development parcels throughout the metro.'
 
Re: NorthPoint Cambridge (The one that was train yards, the big plan.)

AmericanFolkLegend said:
And the sneaky best part is that "park" is really a disposal zone for some of their most contaminated material. That "drumlin" is 3' of clean fill and marker barrier over very contaminated soils.
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Well, one of the drumlins is now gone. Does that mean we are now exposed to highly contaminated soil? Was this done when the park was created years ago? There has been so much digging and moving of soil over the years. With all of the dirt available I would be surprised if they used highly contaminated soil on the site. What are your sources?
 
Re: NorthPoint Cambridge (The one that was train yards, the big plan.)

Tango said:
Well, one of the drumlins is now gone. Does that mean we are now exposed to highly contaminated soil? Was this done when the park was created years ago? There has been so much digging and moving of soil over the years. With all of the dirt available I would be surprised if they used highly contaminated soil on the site. What are your sources?
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Source: I was involved in the site work construction.
You are not exposed to highly contaminated soil. IIRC, all the highly contaminated soil that was going to be under pervious surface was required to be was covered in marker barrier and a minimum of 3' of clean fill. So even if they exposed the contaminated soils their permits state that they need to cover it back up with marker barrier and clean fill. You don't have anything to worry about as long as they keep the piles wet and there's not a TON of dust.
And they didn't "use highly contaminated soils on the site." They left it on the site. It would have been very expensive to dig it all out and ship it out of state. So they left it in place and covered it with a safe material. This site is a big "export site" because of all the building foundations and roadway subbases and utilities being installed, so they have a ton of material to ship offsite. The drumlins were a way of keeping some of the more expensive materials on site.
 
How did this site get so contaminated ?
 
Re: NorthPoint Cambridge (The one that was train yards, the big plan.)

AmericanFolkLegend said:
Source: I was involved in the site work construction.
You are not exposed to highly contaminated soil. IIRC, all the highly contaminated soil that was going to be under pervious surface was required to be was covered in marker barrier and a minimum of 3' of clean fill. So even if they exposed the contaminated soils their permits state that they need to cover it back up with marker barrier and clean fill. You don't have anything to worry about as long as they keep the piles wet and there's not a TON of dust.
And they didn't "use highly contaminated soils on the site." They left it on the site. It would have been very expensive to dig it all out and ship it out of state. So they left it in place and covered it with a safe material. This site is a big "export site" because of all the building foundations and roadway subbases and utilities being installed, so they have a ton of material to ship offsite. The drumlins were a way of keeping some of the more expensive materials on site.
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Thanks for the explanation. I see kids and people with dogs playing on the drumlins every day. We were told by the developers years ago that the drumlins were created so that there would not be pick up games of baseball and football played in the park. Everybody kind of laughed at that response. Now part of the park is under construction again in order to connect the infrastructure. I was thinking that maybe the transportation of coal by rail could have created some of the contamination?
 
This looks like it will be a generally nice place to be. You dont always need huge buildings. It looks cozy here with bike lanes a pretty nice park and some interesting architecture. I like the renderings so far. Looks like a nice place to work with good access to transit.
 
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