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

First time over there in a while and took some photos. The park is pretty nice, as are the new cycletracks. But right now it's REALLY loud with all the construction noise. That'll subside eventually, although you also get a lot of general traffic noise from the nearby highways.

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I love the idea of public restrooms as Boston could use WAY more publicly-accessible restrooms. Hopefully whatever business improvement association that runs CX keeps these clean and well-maintained.

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maxdatabook said:
At the last minute, I was able to attend a CX event. Apologies for the noisy audio but hopefully you'll find what he said interesting!

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dude.. no apologies necessary. i'm going to end up watching this video 20x to process all this information. So interesting how different cities get a say on the aesthetic. Incredible work.
 
maxdatabook said:
At the last minute, I was able to attend a CX event. Apologies for the noisy audio but hopefully you'll find what he said interesting!

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That 2 acre event lawn is maybe the most exciting part of all of this. That's enough of a venue to draw some really great bands. And next to that lamplighter pavilion....
 
I feel like office parks would be a lot less objectionable if they all had a beer garden in the middle like that.
 
Equilibria said:
Genuinely, though, this has way less parking lot than the typical office park. That's a meaningful difference.
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I find myself repeating this throughout this thread but I can't help it: with CX, I'll believe it when I see it. Until these parcels are filled in, the retail slots aren't mostly vacant, and park has buildings fully surrounding it (i.e., somewhat of a city streetwall), it's still a suburban office park to me. The park is very pretty, and I am rooting for CX to urbanize, but it's not there yet.

The reason I'm not comfortable yet is the extent to which this whole thing rests with one developer riding through good times and bad. There are SO many potential surface parking lots just sitting here as of yet. Let's hope they're never paved over and the steel keeps rising.
 
There is something to be said for an office park located in an urban area vs. a former piggery isolated on the outskirts of Waltham.
 
Yes, this is a better location for an office park. But what I'm saying is that I wish this was more of an extension of the city than a little island. Looking at how the Seaport has filled out, I have no doubt that this will be a hopping place once everything is open. But the bland glass boxes don't really inspire anything.
 
From a bike ride today. The cycle tracks are good, and this shed-like building feels like it has good potential to be a focal point for hanging out, cultural events, etc. But I was also at Assembly today, which was full of people (and a very diverse crowd at that), and I have a hard time seeing this development becoming as lively as over there without all the retail, the movie theater, Legoland, etc. Time shall tell.
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^ Looks boringly one-dimensional, like Charles River Park.
LtKije said:
From a bike ride today. The cycle tracks are good, and this shed-like building feels like it has good potential to be a focal point for hanging out, cultural events, etc. But I was also at Assembly today, which was full of people (and a very diverse crowd at that), and I have a hard time seeing this development becoming as lively as over there without all the retail, the movie theater, Legoland, etc. Time shall tell.
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Based on what you report, Assembly Square is a more lively mix of urban uses and people.
 
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Charlie_mta said:
^ Looks boringly one-dimensional, like Charles River Park.

Based on what you report, Assembly Square is a more lively mix of urban uses and people.
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It seems that Cambridge is still figuring out how to implement a really effective mixed use policy (though believe me, they are trying). Here and elsewhere, the city insists to developers that their plans include mixed use (as they should), but they do not seem to hold developers accountable for the full manifestation of this. What I mean is: fancy commercial buildings with swaths of ground floor retail get built in Cambridge, but the developers are rarely prompt with filling those retail slots. I know retail is tough in Covid era in general. But there's still a difference that predates Covid. Assembly and Seaport were designed with a deliberate strategy to ensure most/all retail are filled at/soon after construction completion (Echelon in Seaport is the big test which is admittedly at risk). Most Cambridge developments are not/were not.

My point is that how one is going to fill the retail slots, and what the mix of slots should be, can't just be an afterthought. In Cambridge, developers "answer the mail" by creating retail slots...and then that's it. Their lab leasing is so lucrative they hardly care how fast the slots get filled or who fills them. That's not how you build a vibrant neighborhood.

Cambridge needs to shift its expectations of developers from "provide retail slots" to "provide an active use programming strategy, with accountability milestones"

To me, the best recent example of success in Cambridge was the 300 Mass Ave development: lab building for Takeda, yet at/near completion had retail filled with a video game arcade, two affordable restaurants, one fancy restaurant, and a local stationery store. Of course, there the developer was essentially a non-profit (MITIMCo).
 
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Larger retail slots these days generally get filled with one of the following:
- Restaurants
- Banks
- Day cares
- Marijuana dispensaries

Other retailers can’t afford the rents charged, unless it’s a small format space, like Bow Market.

Most of the office park landlords would lean towards the first two as preferred tenants. In Cambridge, they can probably swing the empty retail spaces because they’re making their money on the lab leases.
 
LtKije said:
From a bike ride today. The cycle tracks are good, and this shed-like building feels like it has good potential to be a focal point for hanging out, cultural events, etc. But I was also at Assembly today, which was full of people (and a very diverse crowd at that), and I have a hard time seeing this development becoming as lively as over there without all the retail, the movie theater, Legoland, etc. Time shall tell.
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I'm not sure it's fair to compare both developments.
Assembly seems to have been specifically designed to bring people in from outside. The whole development is build around the outlet mall/cinema/restaurants which all went up before most of the housing and office space.
Cambridge crossing seems to be designed around people who will live and work there. Unlike Assembly, there are lots of near by attractions, from the Museum of Science to the galleria, even the garden is easily walkable from this development. The whole drive of the development seems to be the opposite of Assembly and I think that's appropriate for the location.
 
Ruairi said:
...Cambridge crossing seems to be designed around people who will live and work there. Unlike Assembly, there are lots of near by attractions...
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Right, if by "design" the neighborhood, you mean counting on existing entities across the 6-lane O'Brien/McGrath highway. Hey, at least the developer funded that pedestrian underpass beneath the O'Brien so that CX feels less like an island.
 
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