Cambridge Infill and Small Developments

shmessy said:
What a shame. We're talking about Cambridge Freaking Massachusetts. The city planners there could not have had a better urban vision than that?
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I think you have answered your question. Despite being world known, and while there are a few architectural gems, the majority of it is a mish mash of ugly shit.
 
More from the Taco Bell Condos (Inman Square, 168 Hampshire @ Prospect). So far I kind of dig the way it's changing the look of that intersection.

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7nQ3qW4.jpg


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Oh no, the character of the 7/11 is being damaged.

Won't somebody think of the Hess gas station?
 
Woulda loved this to have been zoned mixed-use for some retail space.
 
Problems with the Courthouse redevelopment (the massive East Cambridge cement block);

http://www.cambridgeday.com/2014/02...-tower-okd-to-replace-courthouse-monstrosity/

Neighborhood opposition to plans for East Cambridge’s former courthouse is growing again, taking form in a new group called the Neighborhood Association of East Cambridge that met Sunday to rally public pressure before a March 4 meeting of the Planning Board.

The board hearing, which could lead to the granting of a special permit to Boston developer Leggat McCall to “reskin” the tower into 460,000 square feet of office space, some retail and 24 to 48 units of housing, has signaled a flurry of public activity in addition to Sunday’s meeting. Another is planned by city councillor Dennis Carlone for 2 p.m. Monday at City Hall, and the issue is on the agenda for a 7 p.m. Wednesday meeting of the East Cambridge Planning Team, an older neighborhood group the new association hopes will endorse its “insurrection,” in the words of organizer Seth Teller.
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022314i-courthouse.jpg


The oppositions website;

http://40thorndike.org/
 
pixelsand8 said:
Problems with the Courthouse redevelopment (the massive East Cambridge cement block);

http://www.cambridgeday.com/2014/02...-tower-okd-to-replace-courthouse-monstrosity/



022314i-courthouse.jpg


The oppositions website;

http://40thorndike.org/
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Pixel, as sympathetic as I am toward the plight, I see no solutions offered by the petitioners. I stared at this pig for 6 years from my office, and while it is true that it is nonconforming, the time for action was 40 years ago.

As a taxpayer, my belief is that not $1 of taxpayer funds should ever be doled out for this beast. And if the state can make some money off of it, so be it. There are far more pressing expenditures facing the state than to placate a relatively small group of interested parties, the vast majority of which moved there after this was built.

If the opposition group is not careful, they are going to end up with a vacant asbestos-filled brutalism albatross left to rot, which will take a long, long time and will only get uglier during its course.
 
It's not as though the state is proposing a brand new construction. The tower already exists. I don't see a basis for their complaints. Other than to hear the sound of their own discontent.
 
It sounds like the East Cambridge neighborhood group would prefer a total demolition followed by new construction on the site. (And if I lived there, I might prefer that, too.)
 
^^ They'd probably perfer to get a $100 check in the mail each monday too, dosn't mean it should happen. If these same individuals are also green minded, which there is a decent chance they are, they'd recognize how much energy and resources are conserved by not demolishing and then constructing. Really what leg do they have to stand on here. The buidling already exists, infact it was a prison, it's getting converted to something else, something that isn't a prison. So again the structure is already there and it's new use is inarguably beter, whats the issue.
 
kz1000ps said:
Land of the fatties...waterfall glass or not, this area has all the style of an aging Midwest couple.
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KZ and Shmess -- sometimes the owner and developer have some rights as well as the "Vaunted City Planners"

EF when they told Cambridge that they wanted to expand was emphatic about having some decent sized floors to make their business more efficient

Despite modern technology not every company wants to occupy a Popsicle stick. In point of fact their is increasing demand by high tech & even more for the "New Tech" for large open-floor plan spaces which can be used for multiple purposes

And of course datacenters have gotten larger typically demanding tens of thousands of contiguous square feet
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
It's not as though the state is proposing a brand new construction. The tower already exists. I don't see a basis for their complaints. Other than to hear the sound of their own discontent.
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Busses -- to quote something from an earlier portion of this thread:

shmessy: We're talking about Cambridge Freaking Massachusetts.
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whighlander said:
KZ and Shmess -- sometimes the owner and developer have some rights as well as the "Vaunted City Planners"
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Thanks for your condescending reply...I had no idea private property owners have rights!

PS isn't it about time for another one of your sabbaticals from here?
 
HalcyonEra said:
Pixel, as sympathetic as I am toward the plight, I see no solutions offered by the petitioners. I stared at this pig for 6 years from my office, and while it is true that it is nonconforming, the time for action was 40 years ago.

As a taxpayer, my belief is that not $1 of taxpayer funds should ever be doled out for this beast. And if the state can make some money off of it, so be it. There are far more pressing expenditures facing the state than to placate a relatively small group of interested parties, the vast majority of which moved there after this was built.

If the opposition group is not careful, they are going to end up with a vacant asbestos-filled brutalism albatross left to rot, which will take a long, long time and will only get uglier during its course.
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I agree with you although staring at this thing while driving down McGrath overpass is one of my more treasured experiences in urban dystopia - I feel a kinship from one cement albatross to another. I imagine I'd feel differently if I had to look at this thing every day, not just in passing.

The only way I'd prefer demolition would be if the replacement was a mid rise building of micro-unit type studios; this location would be ideal for such. They'd probably be overpriced but we could use the housing stock. Instead we'd probably end up with shitty two story townhouses that "kept the scale and character of the neighborhood" (in nimbyspeak, cause in reality it'd be doing neither).

In other words, this project needs to get done. Hopefully the opposition groups won't get far but this is Cambridge so...
 
pixelsand8 said:
I agree with you although staring at this thing while driving down McGrath overpass is one of my more treasured experiences in urban dystopia - I feel a kinship from one cement albatross to another. I imagine I'd feel differently if I had to look at this thing every day, not just in passing.

The only way I'd prefer demolition would be if the replacement was a mid rise building of micro-unit type studios; this location would be ideal for such. They'd probably be overpriced but we could use the housing stock. Instead we'd probably end up with shitty two story townhouses that "kept the scale and character of the neighborhood" (in nimbyspeak, cause in reality it'd be doing neither).

In other words, this project needs to get done. Hopefully the opposition groups won't get far but this is Cambridge so...
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Reskining it and making it into a mixed use facility seems like a win-win to me. While a quirky little neighborhood, there is absolutely nothing charming about Cambridge St nor 1st St. At least offices will bring more people out. Let's face it, prisoners never went out and most people visiting the Courthouse are not in a good mood to begin with to support the surrounding small businesses. And the housing units there are a plus plus. This is pure height adversion to a building that already exists.
 
If the building were not so aggressively ugly, there would be more sentiment for keeping it and reusing it. The architecture is the problem here, not the height.
 
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