Cambridge Infill and Small Developments

shmessy said:
I like Mass Ave taxpayers the way they are. Why do they need to be redeveloped?
Click to expand...

Harvard, the Local Monster

Despite the nearly rabid hostility on this forum towards "taxpayers" (the single-story business the line major thoroughfares), these are as integral to Boston as the stone 3- and 4-deckers and everything else that makes Boston great. Sure - some are less attractive than others, and some can be redeveloped, but just because they have the audacity to not sustain the level of density deemed acceptable by current standards doesn't mean they should all get ripped down.

What should be more concerning is that the likelihood of destruction often depends not so much on the importance of the existing businesses to the community but on the aesthetic quality of the buildings - if they're more attractive, early 20th C buildings with architectural flourishes, less likely; if newer and plainer, not as much of a "historic" or "preservation" argument to save them (and let's face it - preservation movements are run by fair-skinned elites and have much more political pull than the average little guy in some taxpayer in Medford, eg. Sorry to be inflammatory, but it's true).

Even when a redevelopment includes replacements for street-level retail, the rents inevitably are higher and the businesses usually wind up being more upscale. It appears that here, Harvard doesn't even bother to attempt to replace these businesses, instead offering up one single retail space when the building once had FOUR. Ugh. Fuck Harvard. Fuck the universities that come in and tear down stores and replace them with walls.
 
shmessy said:
I like Mass Ave taxpayers the way they are. Why do they need to be redeveloped?
Click to expand...

FK4 said:

Harvard, the Local Monster

Despite the nearly rabid hostility on this forum towards "taxpayers" (the single-story business the line major thoroughfares), these are as integral to Boston as the stone 3- and 4-deckers and everything else that makes Boston great. Sure - some are less attractive than others, and some can be redeveloped, but just because they have the audacity to not sustain the level of density deemed acceptable by current standards doesn't mean they should all get ripped down.

What should be more concerning is that the likelihood of destruction often depends not so much on the importance of the existing businesses to the community but on the aesthetic quality of the buildings - if they're more attractive, early 20th C buildings with architectural flourishes, less likely; if newer and plainer, not as much of a "historic" or "preservation" argument to save them (and let's face it - preservation movements are run by fair-skinned elites and have much more political pull than the average little guy in some taxpayer in Medford, eg. Sorry to be inflammatory, but it's true).

Even when a redevelopment includes replacements for street-level retail, the rents inevitably are higher and the businesses usually wind up being more upscale. It appears that here, Harvard doesn't even bother to attempt to replace these businesses, instead offering up one single retail space when the building once had FOUR. Ugh. Fuck Harvard. Fuck the universities that come in and tear down stores and replace them with walls.
Click to expand...

You guys, the "taxpayer" in question here has been vacant since 2009. There was once a dry cleaner here and it leaked toxic perchloroethylene into the building and into the soil. Harvard has owned the building for almost thirty years, and has spent much of that time trying to deal with this inherited problem. The last business to occupy the space, a pizza shop, left in 2009 so that Harvard could work on further remediation of the contamination. Another business, the barber shop, moved into the space next door that will be preserved in the planned redevelopment. The current building is architecturally worthless and unfit for habitation or commercial use due to lingering contamination. It has sat empty for the last decade with nothing but Harvard posters hanging in the windows. Harvard tearing this thing down, fully cleaning up the site, and rebuilding in its place is the best thing that can happen for the site and the area. No businesses are being displaced that didn't leave in the previous decade (due in large part to the site contamination).

Going on a "fuck Harvard" rant because of this project is beyond idiotic.
 
JumboBuc said:
You guys, the "taxpayer" in question here has been vacant since 2009. There was once a dry cleaner here and it leaked toxic perchloroethylene into the building and into the soil. Harvard has owned the building for almost thirty years, and has spent much of that time trying to deal with this inherited problem. The last business to occupy the space, a pizza shop, left in 2009 so that Harvard could work on further remediation of the contamination. Another business, the barber shop, moved into the space next door that will be preserved in the planned redevelopment. The current building is architecturally worthless and unfit for habitation or commercial use due to lingering contamination. It has sat empty for the last decade with nothing but Harvard posters hanging in the windows. Harvard tearing this thing down, fully cleaning up the site, and rebuilding in its place is the best thing that can happen for the site and the area. No businesses are being displaced that didn't leave in the previous decade (due in large part to the site contamination).

Going on a "fuck Harvard" rant because of this project is beyond idiotic.
Click to expand...

I was just making a joke regarding "Mass ave taxpayers" (i.e. individuals) being "redeveloped". Sorry for the confusion. I happen to be in full agreement with you.
 
The old gas station on Broadway (the triangular lot bound by Clark, Market, and Broadway) was finally torn down earlier this year.

The website says this will be 5 "Executive Townhomes Available Furnished or Unfurnished for Short or Long Term Lease."

I wish it would be denser - this is the Kendall borderlands, right where density (and height) should be stepping up. But at least the project is using almost the entire (odd-shaped) lot, even if each unit looks massive.

y2gCQv6l.jpg


2oywkS5l.jpg
 
"I wish it would be denser - this is the Kendall borderlands, right where density (and height) should be stepping up. But at least the project is using almost the entire (odd-shaped) lot, even if each unit looks massive."

This project was the result of numerous neighborhood meetings and planning board beat downs. It's a difficult site but concerns over height and density were repeatedly points of contention. The city was very specific in what the wanted this to look like...ahem (board members)
 
Will said:
This project was the result of numerous neighborhood meetings and planning board beat downs.
Click to expand...
And the result, no surprise, is atrocious, proving yet again a camel is a horse designed by committee. Apparently there is no bottom to the general public's love of treacly schlockitecture.
 
^ cambridge is in the midst of a massive identity crisis

On the one hand it is bursting at the seams with innovation and corporate investment, at the other, it's a city clinging to a prior era. One thing's for sure: there isn't enough housing to support the tech scene in kendall. Do they want the kendall scene there or not?
 
Last edited:
Will said:
This project was the result of numerous neighborhood meetings and planning board beat downs. It's a difficult site but concerns over height and density were repeatedly points of contention. The city was very specific in what the wanted this to look like...ahem (board members)
Click to expand...

Unfortunately this makes sense. Is there any documentation of previous proposals/iterations for this lot?

bigpicture7 said:
^ cambridge is in the midst of a massive identity crisis

On the one hand it is bursting at the seams with innovation and corporate investment, at the other, it's a city clinging to a prior error. One thing's for sure: there isn't enough housing to support the tech scene in kendall. Do they want the kendall scene there or not?
Click to expand...

This development probably won't help at all - if it becomes furnished executive rentals as advertised, it's essentially just an expansive hotel for visiting Biogen/GSK board members.
 
bigpicture7 said:
^ cambridge is in the midst of a massive identity crisis

On the one hand it is bursting at the seams with innovation and corporate investment, at the other, it's a city clinging to a prior error. One thing's for sure: there isn't enough housing to support the tech scene in kendall. Do they want the kendall scene there or not?
Click to expand...

BigPicture -- I presume that you meant era

But anyway -- Cambridge is Cambridge -- a fair bit of it is Harvard and MIT [+ a few other colleges], then there's Kendall. However, still a lot of it is blue-collar folks living in 3 deckers like Southey, Dorchester or Easty, poorer people living in public housing and then there are few bits that are like West Roxbury.

I'm entirely not sure why it developed the way it did -- but one of the most surprisingly missing elements is that the U faculty have not been mostly Cambridge-based for at least a generation. They often live in places such as Newton, Brookline or Lexington and drive to work. As a result, Cambridge has a far from exceptional public school system and the rest that follows from that.

The best way for Cambridge to really develop successfully is to plant large and self -contained residential enclaves in places such as Alewife dnd Northpoint and then have those enclaves and Kendall expand outward.

This will take time to accomplish. First you have to have enough reasonably priced housing for the young professionals who don't care about schools until they have kids. At that point they have typically moved to one of the suburbs with good schools. So once you have vibrant young professional communities you have to start to establish neighborhoods where young professional families would want to live -- because they will care about the quality of the schools. This will take at least a decade because today most of the young professionals are commuting from outside of Cambridge.
 
whighlander said:
This will take at least a decade because today most of the young professionals are commuting from outside of Cambridge.
Click to expand...

I think that this is mostly because of cost, many parts of Cambridge are very vibrant and attractive to young professionals.
 
The biggest problem Cambridge has, though, is in the type of housing being built. Most of it is upscale luxury apartments and condos. These are apartment complexes that can be built tall, have a ton of vacancies, and still make a profit by only renting out a few units. I want more tall buildings, but more need to be built with offerings for everybody, executives, tech workers, students, and the working class. I am not sure how you incentivize that (tax breaks?).
 
Equilibria said:
Some money shot renders for Mass+Main. My understanding from following the debate a bit is that this will end up getting built.

http://www.cambridgema.gov/~/media/...lPermits/sp321/sp321_application1_3.pdf?la=en
Click to expand...

I'll describe it as... restrained. Most likely due to the large percentage of affordable units. It'll all depend on how the brick panels come out. Unfortunately, big fat seams seem likely. I hope it comes out well because I'm going to be seeing an awful lot of this building.

The surface parking in back is a disappointment. Cambridge seems hell-bent on keeping Bishop Allen as one big parking lot.

That first shot though, the aerial looking down Main Street - that whole corridor is begging for redevelopment. And the projects (which are currently being renovated) should have been torn down and densified like they are doing in Charlestown.
 
fattony said:
That first shot though, the aerial looking down Main Street - that whole corridor is begging for redevelopment. And the projects (which are currently being renovated) should have been torn down and densified like they are doing in Charlestown.
Click to expand...

Exactly. This, to my mind, is the biggest failure in Kendall. Cambridge is even renovating these projects with their own money currently. They're concentrated poverty and a major source of crime.

They could've had them renovated for free _and_ constructed lots of new housing _in Kendall_ all while making a safer, mixed income community. What an immense failure.
 
fattony said:
That first shot though, the aerial looking down Main Street - that whole corridor is begging for redevelopment. And the projects (which are currently being renovated) should have been torn down and densified like they are doing in Charlestown.
Click to expand...

I have a lot of (completely unfounded) hope that the triangle parcel on Main across from Tech Square will end up as a big residential building. It could be something like their East Campus developments: some grad student, some workforce, and some market rate housing.

In the 2013 Town Gown report (pdf), they say
Its location and scale make it an attractive site for academic uses. The site provides an opportunity to improve street frontage in an area with retail and restaurant space at Tech Square and new retail planned for the future north building on the 610 Main Street site.
Click to expand...

Has anyone heard anything more recent?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top