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

[shmessy]

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...

Great post, big, however what is the excuse for Sierra and Tango not even approaching 250'? Neither even reach 10 stories - - that's just terrible wasteful spending of the land/space credit card. I could understand the argument of "Hey, we are restricted, but they aren't even going halfway to where they are currently allowed.

.

 

[shmessy]

You know, I was originally joking in post #273 of the SBWTC/South Boston Garage thread.....

http://www.archboston.org/community/showthread.php?p=305684#post305684

.......but on second thought, perhaps that could become a thing? Adding on stubby lab space above stubby parking garages. Efficient land use.

I fear there may be safety issues???? Or they need deeper basements?

 

[bigpicture7]

Great post, big, however what is the excuse for Sierra and Tango not even approaching 250'? Neither even reach 10 stories - - that's just terrible wasteful spending of the land/space credit card. I could understand the argument of "Hey, we are restricted, but they aren't even going halfway to where they are currently allowed.

.

It's all natural business risk behavior. In the absence of thoughtful, appropriate zoning and planning on behalf of the city, a situation is created where developers are cashing in on low risk endeavors.

They are opting to shoot fish in a barrel, rather than trying to hook a giant marlin in choppy seas.

However, if the city thoughtfully planned and rezoned, developers would instead see a barrel filled with giant marlins. The latter is what cambridge truly is/could be right now.

 

[ivyhedge]

Hi...

I have commented a number of times about the reasoning for the height cap in Northpoint being based on zoning restrictions. A previous contributor is correct: ~250'-ish.

The plans for much of the site (including Twenty|20 and Avalon Northpoint...neither associated with the Cambridge Crossing development) were crafted, submitted, and approved before Volpe. During Twenty|20's construction, I recall a component of our meetings focusing on the hvac screen, for example, and how they extended the height right up to the maximum allowable. They were proud of that. Of course then the previous developer sold it. Ha.

In any case, JK, G, H, etc were submitted and/or approved prior to the Volpe decision. Hell, JK is getting concrete so it won't change. I suppose it's possible that A and B might. If you take some time to study DivCo, however, you'll learn that their speciality is tech and biotech, and that their success has come from building according to necessity, if not beauty or for earth shattering firsts.

As a resident owner, I have no problem with height, and voiced that sentiment to a DivCo representative during a conversation as recently as last week. To fill out our area, many of our residents feel similarly.

But don't forget that Zinc remains quite dark at night and Twenty|20 didn't really approach 85% occupancy until almost two years after it opened. I have no interest in rushing more apartments or condos, especially with Avalon AVA opening soon.

Maybe the site needs more. But this place is improving daily, and it's looking to be better than what was originally promised.

 

[bigpicture7]

^Hi ivyhedge,

Thanks very much for providing a local resident perspective. I realize in retrospect we can probably sound pretty cold in our demands for height and density in this area. Very much appreciate your open-mindedness about the future, though!! Wish all residents could share the perspective...

But I wanted to call out an interesting point you raise -
If residential occupancy rates in the Northpoint area are not as sky-high as in Kendall, it may be because the area is not yet fully woven into / tied to the Kendall ecosystem. It makes me wonder if our analyses take for granted that it will be. In my mind, it certainly should be - it's definitely close enough. But transit street/bus/transit connection to kendall is not nearly optimized yet, and it's not yet "advertised" (at least in my perception) as an extension of kendall...As someone who works in kendall and has spent an awful lot of time in the area over the past decade, I can definitely attest it's a short enough walk to make a wonderfully reasonable commute for the biotech workers in Kendall...

Thanks again for sharing the perspective. I think, in general, it will be very interesting to see how East Cambridge comes along in the next 10 years. I still strongly maintain that the area can support the high density myself and fellow aB'rs are asking for - but your thoughtful points go to show that good urban planning and transit planning need to be a part of how this all fits together too.

 

[stick n move]

Im not sure why the residential portions are scaled so small but everything inside NorthPoint is zoned for 1000' besides the already built buildings at Charlestown ave and NortPoint Blvd. A guess may be to keep everything within scale? Maybe they believe that already one green line stop serving this whole neighborhood is already at the very limit and adding some huge towers would put it over....although the seaport has 0 rail stops and kind of works. Im not really sure what the reason is, but the potential is there.

I would not mind some 400-600 ft towers here though and a crown would be pretty nice. Hell we could finally get our 30 park place that we need so badly finally built over here as the crown jewel of the city and it could even be the tallest building in the city at say 850'. Imagine that..... Build a 30 park place/tall liberty mutual type here but with a copper spire that turns green in 15 years giving us our 1920's gem that we are so dearly missing and our tallest all in one......and with a beautiful patina'd spire. Kill every single MF bird with one stone. That would be absolutely amazing if they did this here. They wont.

It is interesting though to note that this area, parcel 14 in the back bay over the pike, and the Cambridge waterfront are the three places that have skylines and are inside city limits with 1000' FAA zoning. If there was somewhere to do it I guess this would be it because its open land and the zoning is right. I wonder how weird our skyline would look with our only Supertalls in NorthPont. These are the places to do it though and the only proposal we have ever gotten even touching close to the FAA max is Volpe. I wonder why that is? Not even a proposal. I honestly wouldn't mind some Supertalls being built over here, its not the ideal location as the high spine, but that could make it kind of cool and interesting and something different. Were already sort of taking on a London approach vs NY where we are out of space on our mainland and starting to throw taller and taller buildings wherever we can, although so far they have stuck mostly to the beaten path, but that is starting to change. Anyways Commence growth in nether regions about FAA height.

 

[bigpicture7]

^ just a nomenclature nitpick...the FAA height limits are not the same as the "zoning" that's set by individual cities' development authorities.

 

[stick n move]

Yea I know sorry wrong wording. Im not sure what the zoning for NorthPoint is but at least the potential is there with the FAA and its not really surrounded by anything magnificent so you never know.

30 Park place

+

Copper Crown

= win for the city that we have needed since the day 1920 happened until today. Now that buildings like Liberty Mutual and 30 Park place are going up art deco is back in style and being perfected with modern materials and I think its time to make up for what missed us....for the most part.

Just don't pull a Dubai and it can be incredible... I guess they figured they can be twice as good as NYC is they build twice the Chrysler Buildigns.......sucks lol.

Another example of how to ruin a skyline:

Decent new art deco tower going up in like Germany or somewhere...getting close

These were proposed for downtown LA not too long ago, didnt happen though.

Another example of how to do it right in NYC....they always do.

Those good examples are limestone art deco towers, which after Liberty Mutual we could definitely use some more. If not as the tallest then at least as some very very high quality infill. If we want a new tallest than we could go modern art deco in Northpoint or just tall in the back bay or downtown.

One Vanderbilt

Finally Brooklyn:

This would be pretty badass standing out there alone in NorthPoint towering over the entire city, in a way sort of like it will be in NYC standing alone across the river in Brooklyn.

Anyways none of this is going to happen, but my main point is lets get some limestone art deco in this city, and a modern art deco somewhere downtown. If NorthPoint decided to go tall theres plenty of options other than a blue glass box to build there, although nobody seems to know this yet here. The drums need to be beating for this to happen. Our infill is brown box towers, we need at least a couple more limestone towers to offset this. Anyways why NorthPoint has not proposed anything tall in one of the 3 areas in the entire region that can go tall I have no idea, hopefully someone else does. Anyways rant over....

 

[Czervik.Construction]

I dunno if the Nortpoint area should go classic like 220 CPS. I think a shorter version of that would go perfectly where the 1 Bromfield site is located. I think that site should be tall, but more edgy -it is a tech / bio center after all.

As an aside, if ever in NYC, go check out 220 CPS, the quality of the stone cladding is pretty amazing.

 

[stick n move]

I posted 520 park ave, but do you mean 220 cps? That tower looks amazing.

Night time:

Anyways back to NorthPoint. Heres the site "today" not literally but you can get the overall site in mind here:

Before:

After:

And Heres some renders:

This retrofit was also a great addition

Ive always been a huge fan of the Northpoint Condos

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

Every time you post an unrelated post abut why there aren't 1000' towers in Boston God kills a kitten.

 

[stick n move]

Thats not very often at all tbh, your thinking of other people. My post was saying maybe 400-600 would be alright after multiple calls for height but it is actually zoned for 1000' surprisingly so I said whatever we get I hope one day we can get a 30 park place somewhere in the city.

I actually mostly post why we don't need them which I even did earlier in this thread post 1011 until I looked at the FAA map after other people started saying we need more height here and then saw that this is one of the few areas that is at 1000' on the FAA map. I was actually jumped on like 1 page back for saying I like the renders and the human scale of the area and everyone said nooooo we need more height which lead to me look at the FAA map to see what we are even working with here and I was like well this is like the only spot left so I see what they're saying.

I do post a shit ton of renders tho I am guilty of that. The way I see it pictures are worth 1000 words so I don't really need to give my opinion if I can just post some pictures and people can see for themselves and form their own opinions from there. So anyways.......

 

[FitchburgLine]

Sticking up (hah) for stick here- I literally can't remember him demanding more height as an end in itself. Are you thinking of Oba?

 

[stick n move]

I appreciate it but its all good were about to derail, its no biggie at all.

 

[SeamusMcFly]

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.

Sure you can. You just have a fat residential building above the labs. The core houses all the duct shafts. The mechanicals probably go in the middle of the building like at vertex, so you lose the supply air shafts. The exhaust shafts continue up, so you could still probably have a setback, again like vertex, to have a slimmer res tower above.

The mechanical level in the middle does a could job of separating the two uses in the building.

The fallacy that says you can't build labs tall needs to die. But, it only will when someone actually does it. They're getting taller, but ..... We're using a lot of buildable lots to get there.

Now, put the labs on top of the office, and you can build as tall as you want. The solvent delivery systems are the added cost to comply with building code limits for chemicals on upper floor levels.

 

[CSTH]

That's a massing model right? Because if not - my god those corners...

 

[Jrubbs]

As a skateboarder I dig the extra sidewalk bubble, as it provides more space to weave through people on the sidewalk which is always difficult at corners. I do hate the 90 degree angles on those buildings, they should round the first floor in at the corners.

 

[Charlie_mta]

The two massive twin buildings straddling the greenspace in the above photo may not technically be brutalist, but they come damn close. Brutalism making a comeback?

 

[stick n move]

I do not think they are finalized at all and most renders of the area are place holders unless showing a specific project.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Sure you can. You just have a fat residential building above the labs. The core houses all the duct shafts. The mechanicals probably go in the middle of the building like at vertex, so you lose the supply air shafts. The exhaust shafts continue up, so you could still probably have a setback, again like vertex, to have a slimmer res tower above.

The mechanical level in the middle does a could job of separating the two uses in the building.

The fallacy that says you can't build labs tall needs to die. But, it only will when someone actually does it. They're getting taller, but ..... We're using a lot of buildable lots to get there.

Now, put the labs on top of the office, and you can build as tall as you want. The solvent delivery systems are the added cost to comply with building code limits for chemicals on upper floor levels.

Engineering is doable. But the finances simply do not work yet. Everything you are describing is massively expensive, and both increases the cost per square foot and decreases the usable space. Both are killers in real estate.

It hasn't been done yet because it doesn't make financial sense to do it yet. There is still easier money to be made.