Cambridge Infill and Small Developments

I haven't seen this posted anywhere, so please direct me to the appropriate thread if so.

Lesley's new Art Institute of Boston, Mass Ave Cambridge

http://www.lesley.edu/artsconstruction/

http://brunercott.com/featured_projects/in_progress#3

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This is the second moving project on Mass Ave in what, 3 or 4 years? Is this purely coincidental or is there something in the Cambridge water?
 
This got tied up for years by a lawsuit filed by a Harvard law prof who lived something like .5 + miles away across the street (go figure). After working a bit on Lesley property issues in 2010, I'm glad to see this moving forward.
 
Remarkable Transformation on Cambridge in just about 100 years:

Circa 1910 -- largest private non-U employer is: Kendall Boiler & Tank* and rest of Blake and Knowles Steam Pump Company @ Third & Binney -- almost 1700 employees -- mostly mechanics, machinists, foundrymen and a few engineers and managers

Circa 2010 -- largest private non-U employer is: Novartis on Mass Ave @ Albany
State-of-the-Art Drug Discovery Campus -- almost 2000 employees -- mostly research professionals and support staff

Novartis Cambridge occupies about 1.2 million square feet of laboratory and office space and is investing more than $600 million to expand the research campus on
Massachusetts Avenue. The new campus is designed to create an environment where
drug discovery teams can thrive. The internal spaces will be modular and flexible, suited
to meet the needs of our teams working to change the practice of medicine.
Click to expand...
http://www.nibr.com/cs/www.nibr.com/downloads/about/NIBR-Cambridge-FactSheet.pdf



* Note FYI Kendall Boiler & tank is still in business -- now located in Chelmsford now a service business specializing in 24X7 repairs of industrial and commercial boilers

The old building in Cambridge is now the home of hack/reduce whose mission is to help Boston create the talent and the technologies that will shape our future in a big data-driven economy.

At hack/reduce you’ll get access to our large-scale compute cluster, hands-on workshops, and a physical space in the heart of Kendall Square...... a non-profit established in partnership with the State of Massachusetts, a number of local and global firms committed to innovation, and in collaboration with MIT, Harvard and other local universities. Working closely with our partners and the community, we’ll bring developers, data scientists and domain experts across disciplines together to create the next generation of Big Data technologies and applications.
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AND SO IT GOES
 
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FACEBOOK IS COMING HOME!

Cambridge Innovation Center Managing Director Geoff Mamlet had this to say of the CIC's new neighbor at 1 Broadway:

We are really excited. We think that Facebook opening here reflects the increasing recognition that Kendall Square, and Cambridge as a whole, is getting in the wider world.
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^ I knew Zuck couldn't stay away forever. His retrospective comments about moving Facebook to the Valley strongly suggested this move.
 
^^Hahaha.

Wait, who is Menino. Was that the previous mayor?

I always wondered if MZ meant it when he said the regret in moving to Palo Alto, but I see now that there may be more truth in it than I thought.
 
Type001,

Who are you kiddin you probably own the building in Kendall that Facebook is leasing.

you Winny guys are all the same. $$Cha Ching
 
Anyone know anything about the fairly substantial construction now underway at the beginning of Concord Ave and Wheeler where there used to be a gas station?

563/603 Concord Avenue, Cambridge MA and 19 Wheeler Street, Cambridge MA

Structure appearing is steel frame multistory
 
whighlander said:
Anyone know anything about the fairly substantial construction now underway at the beginning of Concord Ave and Wheeler where there used to be a gas station?

563/603 Concord Avenue, Cambridge MA and 19 Wheeler Street, Cambridge MA

Structure appearing is steel frame multistory
Click to expand...

Looks to be about 7 stories of mixed use. Here is a downloadable pdf from their application to Cambridge:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...zIHoCA&usg=AFQjCNGUKkrA_4smj4tQz0MuouXP0gxlIA

"...The Applicant proposes to demolish the existing structures on the lot (gasoline station, auto repair shop, and parking lot) to construct 61 residential apartment units on 5 levels above ground floor retail comprising of 7,112sf. The residences and compatible retail uses will be supported by a total of 77 parking spaces located both at grade and in a single-level underground parking garage. The Project will provide a variety of unit types: approximately 16% will be studios units, 43% will be one-bedroom units, 23% will be two-bedroom units, and 18% will be three-bedroom units...."
 
Some renderings here.
http://www.abodez.com/concord-wheeler.html

Looks good to me: holds the corner well with a substantial building at a more urban density, scale and height than most everything else around it and it is handsomely designed. Good luck co-existing with that traffic rotary though.

Also this developer is not afraid of prefab construction as they have already built that way a couple of times in the immediate area.
 
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