Cambridge Infill and Small Developments

Everything is within 10 minutes or so... I mean Lechmere and Central are only 20 minutes away.
 
JohnAKeith said:
Also, the majority of Kendall Square (I'm in the wrong thread?) is a bit of a walk to public transportation, no? Makes it hard to then argue that Seaport District needs public transportation to succeed.

I've often been the one to make that argument, so I need to think about this.
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Most of the people I know who work in Kendall Square drive there, and not all of them from the suburbs. I interpret this to mean that the public transit access isn't that great and that the cost of driving and parking is an acceptable trade. Whereas it is generally not acceptable trade for people who work in the Back Bay and downtown (both far better served by transit). The SPID is very well served by car infrastructure, so I doubt that is at all an impediment to development.

Kendall probably is now at the point where it could use some enhancement over the single Red Line stop. The obvious and easy one for that would be light rail along the Grand Junction, connecting to MIT, BU, and ultimately the Harvard Allston campus. I'd extend in the other way to hook up with the Green Line trunk at Lechmere/North Station.
 
HenryAlan said:
Most of the people I know who work in Kendall Square drive there, and not all of them from the suburbs. I interpret this to mean that the public transit access isn't that great and that the cost of driving and parking is an acceptable trade. Whereas it is generally not acceptable trade for people who work in the Back Bay and downtown (both far better served by transit). The SPID is very well served by car infrastructure, so I doubt that is at all an impediment to development.

Kendall probably is now at the point where it could use some enhancement over the single Red Line stop. The obvious and easy one for that would be light rail along the Grand Junction, connecting to MIT, BU, and ultimately the Harvard Allston campus. I'd extend in the other way to hook up with the Green Line trunk at Lechmere/North Station.
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Henry -- there are a whole host of privately operated buses of various sizes traversing the Greater Kendall area (i.e. an area bounded by University Park, the MIT Campus, Cambridge center and the immediate Kendall Sq.) including:
MIT, Haaaaaahvd, Cambridge Galleria, Longwood Medical Area

The route of the Grand Junction doesn't go in the right direction to help much

at the risk of becoming a crazy transit pitch - What would work is a separate LRV in a tunnel operated as similar to the Mattapan line, a independent branch of the Red Line usng Green-Line-style single car LRV-equipment to enable high frequency and short platforms.

There would be an interchange on a separate underground platform at Leachemere then a tunnel between Leachmere down 1st to Binney, then along Binney to Galileo, along Galileo to Broadway, then Broadway to Prospect, and finally then Prospect to Mass Ave -- with an interchange to the Red Line at Central -- intermediate Stations would be located at:
1) 1st and Binney
2) Binney and Galileo
3) Broadway and Columbia

This route puts many millions of sq. ft. of state of the art labs and a multitude of the Knowledge Economy jobs just a few steps from transit

Later this line could be extended along Western Ave to the Charles and then under the Charles to the new Haaaahvd complex
 
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whighlander said:
Henry -- there are a whole host of privately operated buses of various sizes traversing the Greater Kendall area (i.e. an area bounded by University Park, the MIT Campus, Cambridge center and the immediate Kendall Sq.) including:
MIT, Haaaaaahvd, Cambridge Galleria, Longwood Medical Area

The route of the Grand Junction doesn't go in the right direction to help much

at the risk of becoming a crazy transit pitch - What would work is a separate LRV in a tunnel operated as similar to the Mattapan line, a independent branch of the Red Line usng Green-Line-style single car LRV-equipment to enable high frequency and short platforms.

There would be an interchange on a separate underground platform at Leachemere then a tunnel between Leachmere down 1st to Binney, then along Binney to Galileo, along Galileo to Broadway, then Broadway to Prospect, and finally then Prospect to Mass Ave -- with an interchange to the Red Line at Central -- intermediate Stations would be located at:
1) 1st and Binney
2) Binney and Galileo
3) Broadway and Columbia

This route puts many millions of sq. ft. of state of the art labs and a multitude of the Knowledge Economy jobs just a few steps from transit

Later this line could be extended along Western Ave to the Charles and then under the Charles to the new Haaaahvd complex
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BERy considered extending the Green Line under Cambridge St. as a subway to the Harvard trolley tunnel as a follow-up to the 1912 Lechmere extension. Too bad that one never happened before Cambridge got too built up to do any more under-street digging. Would've put Inman on the transit system and created its own de facto Urban Ring: Harvard/71 trolley/A-line/Kenmore/downtown/Harvard. With a Red Line 'slash' right through the center of it hitting Central and Kendall. That would've been the most perfect transit solution of all for Cambridge.

Consider also that subway up Mt. Auburn to East Watertown (i.e Shaws @ Belmont St.) was the originally considered Red Line extension alignment in the 1945 plan. Would've dumped onto a Mattapan-style trolley transfer going to Arlington Heights on the Watertown and Lexington RR ROW's. Well, had Harvard been accessible to trolleys they probably would've reserved that Mt. Auburn routing for trolleys and done Porter for the Red Line like they eventually came around to 35 years later. Go trolley to E. Watertown then you're at the Watertown Branch RR and can run contiguously grade-separated off the subway to both Arlington and Watertown. OK...that knocks out the 71 street-running trolley. They planned a second Riverside line through Allston on the '45 plan back when the Worcester Line was 4-track in the pre-Pike days, branching off the Boylston tunnel and hitting Back Bay out of downtown. OK...now you're a short Galen St. subway away from the full grade-separated circuit working both sides of the river.


It probably would've fallen into place exactly in that sequence if BERy hadn't let up after it got to Lechmere. Most definitely the Mt. Auburn-H20/Lexington Branch part. Unfortunately under-street tunneling in that heavily-developed an area has been impossible for 70 years. They needed to move on the Harvard connection back when Cambridge was still a "trolley suburb" of largely undeveloped land between the edges of East Cambridge and Mass Ave. They put in the Red Line to attract development, not the other way around. This subway under Cambridge St. to Harvard would've been the second flank of that bit of enterprising land speculation, but for whatever reason they backed off on doing it after they built the Red Line.
 
Kendall probably is now at the point where it could use some enhancement over the single Red Line stop. The obvious and easy one for that would be light rail along the Grand Junction, connecting to MIT, BU, and ultimately the Harvard Allston campus. I'd extend in the other way to hook up with the Green Line trunk at Lechmere/North Station.
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You mean the Urban Ring?
 
Any word on what is being built outside Kendall, at the corner of Binny & Galileo Galilei? The last "open" parcel of Cambridge Center. Trees and grass are long gone and they're driving piles this week. But with all the other construction on Binney, this project seems to have been lost in the fray...
 
johnmcboston said:
Any word on what is being built outside Kendall, at the corner of Binny & Galileo Galilei? The last "open" parcel of Cambridge Center. Trees and grass are long gone and they're driving piles this week. But with all the other construction on Binney, this project seems to have been lost in the fray...
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John -- I believe that it is an extension to the existing Biogen building

From a globe article last July
http://articles.boston.com/2011-07-...eston-building-office-buildings-new-buildings

Biogen Idec expanding Cambridge footprint
Return from Weston includes new buildings
July 20, 2011|By Casey Ross and Robert Weisman, Globe Staff

Biogen Idec Inc. will construct two office buildings as part of its move back to Cambridge, where the biotechnology company is planning an expansive office and research campus to replace the headquarters it opened just a year ago in Weston...

George A. Scangos, chief executive, said the return of 530 employees to Kendall Square will put the firm’s entire Massachusetts workforce in a single location - at the heart of a rapidly growing cluster of pharmaceutical companies near Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology....

The company wants to break ground on its new office buildings there later this year. One will be a 190,000-square-foot building with an address of 17 Cambridge Center; it will be developed by Boston Properties. The other will contain about 305,000 square feet across Binney Street and will be developed by Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc., which is planning to construct five new buildings in the area in coming years.

With its new structures, Biogen Idec will have its 2,000 Massachusetts employees in six buildings in Kendall Square. The company was represented in its planned move by FHO Partners, a Boston real estate services firm.
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ahhh. the 17CC address sounds like that could be it. All the current news hype has been about the new executive building across Binney street - very little about the CC site. Unfortunately, that may mean the building could be as mundane as the existing building it will be attached to. Interesting though - that they are driving piles right against the sidewalk - perhaps a building with any kind of recess from the sidewalk??

Thanks for the reference
 
johnmcboston said:
ahhh. the 17CC address sounds like that could be it. All the current news hype has been about the new executive building across Binney street - very little about the CC site. Unfortunately, that may mean the building could be as mundane as the existing building it will be attached to. Interesting though - that they are driving piles right against the sidewalk - perhaps a building with any kind of recess from the sidewalk??

Thanks for the reference
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And before anyone starts complaining about the street-level activity not being urban enough

Right across the street is Metropolitan Pipe -- a vestige from the Kendall industrial era -- where you can still get a external thread put on a 6 inch OD stainless steel pipe and have some custom made pipe hangers welded while you wait -- I sure hope that ol Met Pipe is still there 10 years from now
 
com.17cambridge.jpg


http://www.leekennedy.com/p.com_17Cambridge_Biogen.htm

quick google came up with this.
 
I think there are at least 12 buildings just like that along 128.
 
Including the current (soon to be vacated) Biogen HQ in Weston...apparently new location doesn't = new architecture.
 
Hutchison said:
Including the current (soon to be vacated) Biogen HQ in Weston...apparently new location doesn't = new architecture.
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Hutch -- why should one change something that works

Specifically on several levels:

1) The tenant in the building wants that look:
a) the people you (Biogen) are trying to recruit will have several to many offers from companies all over the world
b) the people being interviewed will see the same kind of building everywhere they interview - except in the rare case like Novartis where the building's tenant is also the owner
c) when the people visit you as Biogen -- you want them in the brief time available to focus on what goes on inside - not how the building looks

2) The developer of these kind of specialized buildings such as Alexandria are developing the buildings for the world market -- and if Biogen leaves another Biogen will move in
a) thee is a huge investment in the infrastructure of these kinds of buildings
b) you don't see many purple walls in a dining room of a newly built house -- they are all white

What you need to do is contrast the "cookie cutter" off-the-shelf buildings like most of Cambridge Center with the buildings being built by and for Novartis, Broad Institute or MIT
 
I don't think there is to be street or driveway access from Harvey Street to these new developments, which are on the other side of the Linear Park path. Maybe I'm missing something here?
 
Article in the subscription side of the Globe today discusses objections by several Cambridge city councilors to Boston Properties / Google's taking part of the rooftop park for the building connector. Article had no mention of Menino reaching out to Google yesterday and suggesting they move to the Innovation District.

However, article did bring up what might be the underlying concern on the part of some Cambridge officials, in that Google currently has 350 employees in Kendall, and 500 employees in the travel software subsidiary half a mile away. So that may be a 1,000 job prize which Menino would dearly love to grab.
 
Why can't this connector be a glass bridge up a few stories higher. The Globe has a picture and that is all it seems to be.
 
BostonObserver said:
Why can't this connector be a glass bridge up a few stories higher. The Globe has a picture and that is all it seems to be.
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I'll guess that the floors and walls of the two buildings were never designed to be the anchors for a suspended 'air' bridge.

I'll also guess that 90 percent or more of the users of this park are people who work in the adjacent buildings. So in effect, at the moment, its predominately a park for Google employees, which the public can visit.
 
I'll guess that the floors and walls of the two buildings were never designed to be the anchors for a suspended 'air' bridge.
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I've seen modern skybridges attached to historic buildings that were probably not designed before these became common...
 
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