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

stick n move said:
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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No you need 1000 foot buildings or it is not a real city. This city is weak, look at NYC. We should be building 1000+ buildigs in Waltham and Newton. /Odura
 
I will reiterate though, a little extra housing would have been better, they totally could have added a few extra floors.
 
stick n move said:
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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Stick, I'd agree with your post if the location was Malden.

However, you DO need more density when the LOCATION is so close to Kendall Square where there is a critical shortage of housing, lab space and office space.

You may think it's quaint and has nice architecture (I don't but that's all subjective). What is OBJECTIVE is that it is wasteful of prime space - - something that is a critical problem in Boston/Cambridge. Our region cannot irresponsibly spend down the square footage credit card like this. Developments like hurt Boston/Cambridge's competitiveness for decades to come.

No one thinks building a 60 acre golf course in Widett Circle is a good idea in 2017. In 1958? Sure.
 
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tysmith95 said:
Why should we compare ourselfs to silicon valley. Silicoln valley will never be economically powerful because they won't BUILD TALL.
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I get the sarcasm, however, Silicon Valley is a far different physical layout than Eastern Mass.

Roadwidth, narrower infrastructure, etc. dictate that getting around our region is far more difficult than getting around Silicon Valley - - and they have nightmares. Eastern Mass would be far worse.......and corporations know that when they are considering location.

Boston/Cambridge needs to go tall not because some posters here have that fetish (and some do) but because it is economically/competitively critical.

(That is until we get smart and do the NSRL, Blue-red Connection and (future) ban private cars from the central core.)
 
Smart development, people. Not height fetishes, not close-minded anti-height nimbyism. Just smart.

I think some still don't get the magnitude of what's going on in greater Kendall. The comments above about Waltham and Newton make a mockery of what's really going on here:
The city across the Charles River from Boston is the seat of the biggest life science cluster in the country and became a lab-dominant market for the first time in its history this year. Prices are high and space is at a premium, with lab direct vacancy rates in East Cambridge well under 1%, according to a Newmark Knight Frank Q3 2017 report. There is still unwavering tenant desire to be in the market, but it also presents an opportunity for other life science sub-clusters to emerge where one might not expect.

Read more at: https://www.bisnow.com/boston/news/...80552?utm_source=CopyShare&utm_medium=Browser
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Open your eyes please.

This parcel is so key because it stretches/extends greater Kendall further out toward different transit/highway connections than the current ones.
 
bigpicture7 said:
Smart development, people. Not height fetishes, not close-minded anti-height nimbyism. Just smart.

I think some still don't get the magnitude of what's going on in greater Kendall. The comments above about Waltham and Newton make a mockery of what's really going on here:


Open your eyes please.

This parcel is so key because it stretches/extends greater Kendall further out toward different transit/highway connections than the current ones.
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Exactly. What a waste of critical space. If those renders are what gets built, it will be an historical mistake for the region.
 
shmessy said:
Exactly. What a waste of critical space. If those renders are what gets built, it will be an historical mistake for the region.
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Kendall is lab space. You can't build lab buildings taller than about 250'. That's the height here, because that's where the money is. The "historical mistake" would be failing to provide enough high-value lab buildings in Kendall and forcing companies to look elsewhere, either in actual Waltham or Newton or, even worse, in New Jersey or Raleigh.
 
There is a reason that labs are always around the same height. You cant build tall with all of the extra ventilation/mechanicals that go into these buildings. You wont see a 700' tall lab building. Save that for the office/residential towers. They are doing exactly what they need to be doing here, they are the experts. They're going to build a dozen lab buildings in the 250' range and that is going to be a huge addition to the lab stock of the city. The city desperately needs these additions and they're finally coming. That was why I was saying this looks like a nice place to work and it looks cozy... because this is how it has to be built to be within the constraints of building lab space. By adding the park, nice architecture, and being right next to transit this is going to be a success. Remember theres also only a couple roads here so the scale has to be appropriate and I think they are going to nail it.


This is around 18 floors thats not bad at all.

CambridgeCrossing_Park_Parcel_I.jpg
 
Equilibria said:
Kendall is lab space. You can't build lab buildings taller than about 250'. That's the height here, because that's where the money is. The "historical mistake" would be failing to provide enough high-value lab buildings in Kendall and forcing companies to look elsewhere, either in actual Waltham or Newton or, even worse, in New Jersey or Raleigh.
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C'mon, not all those buildings are labs. Sierra and Tango are both residential and neither reaches 10 stories. Let's stop reaching for excuses here.
 
A 1000' foot tower just isn't necessary in Metro Boston and never was.

i'd like to see 65 Martha hit 840' and call it a day. But East Cambridge? Shit, you could put 10, 20 floors of housing over every other damn lab,

and a pair of 40 story crowns in at Northpoint with no vacancies in 3-5 years.
then a 56 story for the grand finale when all else is complete in less than 10 (years)....

come on guys; wipe the crud out of your cracks. ....we got ourselves a hit! it's a big fat big titted hit...... Cambridge doesn't have to go running around with Boston anymore!!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxqkrmkhrjw
 
stick n move said:
lol you confuse the hell out of me
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Odurandina's attempt at height fetishist humor aside, we are making almost the same point.

People are hiding behind the "Oh, but they are labs....." argument when many of the buildings in North Point are not labs at all, but residential or office. What's the reasoning there?

....and no - that 18 story "tower" is not what I'm talking about.

Dear Lord, only ONE of the top 10 tallest buildings in Cambridge was built in the past 30 YEARS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_and_structures_in_Cambridge,_Massachusetts

All of the first 10 on that list are residential or office.

So, I repeat the question, without Odurandina's histrionics getting in the way, 'Why the wasteful height caps in Northpoint for the residential and office components?"
 
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odurandina said:
But East Cambridge? Shit, you could put 10, 20 floors of housing over every other damn lab
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Actually you cannot do this (sorry to burst your bubble). Severe HVAC/safety ventilation requirements for lab space prevent over-building in almost any form. You are stuck with moderate height lab space, for purely practical engineering accommodations, with nothing over the top of that space.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Actually you cannot do this (sorry to burst your bubble). Severe HVAC/safety ventilation requirements for lab space prevent over-building in almost any form. You are stuck with moderate height lab space, for purely practical engineering accommodations, with nothing over the top of that space.
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Can someone focus on the sober question instead of Odurandina's comic ramblings that diminish the conversation?

There are several non-lab buildings in the Northpoint plans. What's the reasoning there?

Hell, the city council just approved a residential 500 footer in Kendall Square

https://www.bisnow.com/boston/news/...skyscraper-in-cambridge-is-now-possible-80836


.....why not North Point?
 
shmessy said:
Can someone focus on the sober question instead of Odurandina's comic ramblings that diminish the conversation?

There are several non-lab buildings in the Northpoint plans. What's the reasoning there?
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I have commented before that the height of the non-lab space in Cambridge Crossing (Northpoint) is very disappointing. Residential and office in the complex should be much higher.

I just didn't want people latching onto the fantasy of building 20 stories of residential over a lab building as a cost effective solution.
 
JeffDowntown said:
I have commented before that the height of the non-lab space in Cambridge Crossing (Northpoint) is very disappointing. Residential and office in the complex should be much higher.

I just didn't want people latching onto the fantasy of building 20 stories of residential over a lab building as a cost effective solution.
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Agreed. Please don't feed the troll. :)
 
^ Jeff and shmessy, great points.

A few points to compliment yours:
1) As seamusmcfly discussed earlier in this thread (convincing me), you can reasonably build labs taller than they've been building labs in cambridge...and he's been doing this for a living. Granted, you're not going to get skyscraper lab buildings, but certainly higher than the ~10 floors they've been topping out at. The Center for Lifesciences Boston building in Longwood is evidence that you can at least do 300' for an all-lab building.
2) Housing is extraordinarily crunched in kendall. These facilities employ lots of people...and the roads/transit leading there are clogged...so these people have to live (or commute from) somewhere. The fact that this has become a mega biotech cluster means it has also become a mega employment cluster. The rents to live near there are insane. Where are the people going to live? They would fill 400'+ residential towers in a heartbeat.
3) we finally saw progress w/ the "cambridge mentality" regarding the Volpe parcel rezoning. Cambridge was adamant about capping at 250' (that was the city-wide official zone cap) for forever...there was definitely a cultural/mindset aspect to this. 250' was arbitrary, yet was clung to by the locals. So the designs we're seeing here at Cambridge Crossing may very well have been put forth with the thought that "250' is what it is...we're not going to spend the effort challenging that" -- well, since then, someone else did put forth that effort (at Volpe) and it paid off (they got 500'); maybe someone should do it here...
 
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