Cambridge Infill and Small Developments

If economically feasible this should be twice as tall and double the amount of rooms. Design is standard issue Greater Boston Drab.
 
I wonder if this area will ever feel pedestrian friendly, even if NorthPoint gets to full build out and Lechmere ends up on the east side of McGrath/OBrien. This building will still be pinched between the boulevard and the T tracks. The NorthPoint schemes hint at building pretty, pretty parks all the way up to where the Green Line tracks cross over the Fitchburg line. Think they'll include pedestrian connections to this area, which will still feel like no man's land?
 
Would love to see this happen. Of course, the guests would smell roasted nuts as the Superior Nut Company is attached. I drive by the Genoa building everyday as I just opened my own home decor store around the corner in the old Crosby Steam Gage and Valve Co. building (1888) in Charlestown. Always wished they would do something with Genoa. It's an eyesore. Glad to see the area continuing to 'clean up'. They are also working on McGrath Hwy overpasses. Rusted steel and exposed rebar doesn't look too safe (or pretty).
 
That overpass needs to be demolished not repaired. It will be the biggest contribution to urbanization of that area. I drive on it every work day and am willing to sit extra time in traffic if thats what it takes.
 
What confuses me about the overpass discussion is that there are two overpasses on McGrath: the Lowell Line overpass by Twin City Plaza, and the McCarthy Overpass which is the one falling apart. As far as I know only the McCarthy would come down, essentially creating a new "square" one Medford St between Washington St and Somerville Ave. The railroad overpass obviously can't come down, and it probably wouldn't be worth the cost to demolish it just to build a "downsized" one. The railroad overpass is just as anti-urban as McCarthy, and is affecting the Lechmere area much more than McCarthy.
 
The railroad overpass next to Twin City Plaza is for the Fitchburg Line (and the future Green Line branch to Union Square). McGrath crosses the Lowell Line (and the other future Green Line branch) much further north, after Highland Avenue.
 
Right Twin City is the Fitchburg, my mistake. The point remains though. Grounding McCarthy will be great for opening up East Somerville/Inner Belt with Union/Prospect Hill, but the Twin City overpass isn't going to come down, so Lechmere will still be "cut off" by the overpass.
 
Yep. I don't see any good solution to this, either. You have to grade-separate the busy railroad (and future Green Line) from the busy highway. Depressing the tracks would be very expensive, and a bad idea in this low-lying area.
 
The only thing they need to do to the Fitchburg/Twin City overpass is lane-drop it from 6 to 4 lanes (and the Somerville Ave. onramp from 2 to 1) and move the sidewalk barriers out a few feet so it's more ped-friendly. Other than that, there's no real options for modifying it or the large incline.
 
Argh, another facade with no depth. I do like the aesthetic they were aiming for, but the opaque panels look as if they glued cardboard to a glass box.
 
It looks very antiseptic for housing to me... like a hospital or maybe elderly housing... would fit right in the West End towers-in-the-park.
 
I don't entirely mind it, but it does kind of remind me of a lame, flattened, scenographic version of Torre Plaça Europa by Roldan + Berengue in Barcelona. That building at least has some depth and perhaps a bit more of a sense of actual habitation. The Watermark is just like pretty much every tower everywhere else in the world; regular, gridded, stacked up steel frame with the emphasis on the skin wrapped around. Yawn.

Torre_Europa_06.jpg
 
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