Chelsea Infill and Small Developments

FK4 said:
Just to clarify, Im not calling your hood slummy or shitty! I love Chelsea. But it's weird that it never became part of Boston. If it had a subway it wouldve been turned upside down 20 years ago.
Click to expand...

I was just clarifying because so many people in general have an overall negative view of Chelsea that really only applies to the Bellingham area. There's very much a tale of two Chelsea's.
 
datadyne007 said:
Bellingham Square is the opposite. It definitely needs some help and some nicer buildings.
Click to expand...

While I agree it needs help.. I don't necessarily agree with the 'nicer buildings' part.

Chelsea has some beautiful untouched buildings along Broadway and in Bellingham Square. You just have to look past the grime, trash, and gawdy signs that many have. (I also think Bellingham Sq is a historic district)

Many of these buildings were never 'modernized' so much of the brick and stone work is original (and the interiors probably to match).. they just need some TLC, which many of the current owners do not do.

I'm really waiting builders/developers/etc to wake up and realize they have valuable real estate right under their noses that just needs some revitalization/restoration. They'll be more apt to sell a 'restored' unit in a now revitalized building than a pre-fad cookie cutter building like One North. (this has already happened with Fourth and Broadway Lofts)

And that's just broadway.. Chelsea is full of almost untouched buildings and triple deckers just prime for restoration. Walk around some time (like I have with the SLG photo sets) and there's just some beautiful old buildings with lots of ornate detail woodwork but have fallen to disrepair. It's kind of sad if you ask me because you don't see stuff like that anymore and it just sits there and rots.

And once that happens, you'll rapidly see Bellingham Sq turn from what it is now to more trendy and hip (ah la Davis or Inman)
 
So I heard that there will be a "part 2" meeting for the French Club condos.
Some of the oppositions brought to the first meeting (notes from matt frank, city council- District 3):

- developers have not officially brought the proposal (to the neighbors)
- Parking concerns
- Shadow concerns
- Line of site concerns
- Traffic pattern concerns
- Communication, or lack there of, between developers and the community
 
Chelsea and Lynn are sort of in the same boat: underutilized waterfront property; proximity to Boston; historic "bones." The issue for both is transit and perception. Hopefully the SL extension helps Chelsea a bit. And fingers crossed, Lynn gets SOME sort of expanded service.
 
Currently, the City owns 324 Marginal St. – a large swath of land across from the Creek that is now leased to Enterprise Rent-A-Car. The City hopes to make a land swap with a developer who wishes to build a large parking garage on the waterfront site – just next to the bridge where there is now a brick wall. The City hopes to be able to allow the developer to build the garage on the Marginal Street site off the water, get title to the waterfront parcel and open it up to hotel development and waterfront park access.
Click to expand...

Sorely lacking in imagination.
 
No imagination and the city has allowed the water treatment plant to expand next to the new hotel there AND its in the planning stages of allowing eversource to run underground power lines from everett, through chelsea , to east boston
 
Chelsea Clock Condo Project:

ROBINSON CALLS
FOR SAVING
CHELSEA CLOCK,
QUESTIONS LOFT
PROJECT
City Council President
Leo Robinson has submitted
a letter with major concerns
over the proposed 692-unit
loft project proposed for Vale
Street and Everett Avenue
- partially on top of the old
Chelsea Clock building.
The proposed plan will
get an airing on July 14 at
the Zoning Board of Appeals
(ZBA) meeting, and is the second
iteration of the proposal.
The first came in April and
contained just fewer than 500
units in several buildings. The
current proposal is just shy
of 700 units in two high-rise
buildings.
One of Robinson’s major
concerns, and many in the
community as well, is the proposal
to completely demolish
the historic Chelsea Clock
building. The Clock company
moved out of the building in
May, and headed for a newly
redesigned headquarters on
Second Street. However, the
familiar facade remains - but
maybe not for too long.
“My concerns are many,
such as destroying a 100-yearold
building, Chelsea Clock,
which is part of Chelsea’s
rich history,” he wrote. “My
feeling is that we should be
be able to rehab and save a bit
of history…Maybe we could
look at that building differently.”
Robinson said his concerns
included parking, traffic
studies, lack of affordability,
flooding issues, lack of public
space, benefits to the City and
jobs for local residents.

Page 7:
http://www.chelsearecord.com/wp-content/uploads/ChelseaRecord.pdf
 
Revisions of the Chelsea Clock Project will be presented to the City's Planning Board on August 25th.
The project of 692 condo units is slated to be built on 2 high rises across from the Chelsea High School.
 
Mill Hill @ Chelsea (formerly the Forbes Plant @ Chelsea):

"A detailed plan of several hundreds pages – and prepared by some of the most renowned architects, lawyers and engineers in Boston – has been submitted by a Chinese company to the City for the Forbes site and calls for 534 residential apartments in towers stretching as high as 27 stories, a 224 rooms in two hotels, a 333 seat luxury restaurant and nearly 100,000 sq. ft. of office space – all utilizing one single access point over the railroad tracks at Crescent Ave..

The gargantuan, high-rise development on Chelsea Creek comes just one week after the active Mill Hill neighborhood organized and vocally turned back a much smaller 60-unit development at the French Club.

YIHE is calling for a Planned Development designation and would need loads and loads of zoning changes. The maximum height allowed in the district now is 35 feet by right, and YIHE proposes to go up to nearly 300 feet."

CHEL_20150806_A1.jpg


http://www.chelsearecord.com/2015/08/07/mill-hill-meet-your-new-27-story-neighbor/
 
Shepard said:
Is there a chance this isn't DOA?
Click to expand...

From the article:

“It’s absolutely a ludicrous proposal,” said District Councillor Matt Frank. “I spoke with the Planning Department and the City Manager and they say it doesn’t seem to be completely serious. We still need to treat it as if it is serious. It’s on of those things you have to keep an eye on. Absolutely not. No way. Never ever. I can’t use the word ludicrous enough when it comes to this.”

City Manager Tom Ambrosino said the project is probably not all that serious, and so its probably not worth neighbors getting super-charged over. However, he said that given the development climate, neighbors should be ready for something to be located at Forbes.
Click to expand...

So....no. It's dead before arrival.
 
Also from the article:

"A detailed plan of several hundreds pages – and prepared by some of the most renowned architects, lawyers and engineers in Boston – has been submitted by a Chinese company to the City . . ."

"Frank said that is one of the things that troubles him most about the alleged lack of seriousness. The players involved are rather serious, top-flight development consultants in Boston who have worked on the most notable developments in Greater Boston.

“The people involved are not people who just get involved to slap their name on a resume,” he said. “These are people you may big money to get . . ."

Its Chelsea - they should welcome new development to the city.
 
There is nothing serious about this proposal. If it was a little shorter, then maybe a good site for it would be the Gulf gas tanks on Eastern Ave. I have repeatedly spoken about my vision of a high density corridor on Eastern.

It's so DOA, it's not even funny. The site is accessed by ONE TINY BRIDGE over the train tracks in a residential neighborhood. Crescent Ave is not designed to handle such traffic volume.
 
Its Chelsea - they should welcome new development to the city.
Click to expand...

They, generally have been very welcoming of new development. There's been a lot of new housing going up, plus the new FBI headquarters and the Silver Line Extension. This though? It's a head scratcher. Why bother spending so much time and energy putting a proposal together that so obviously won't be approved?
 
As a long time resident of Chelsea Waterfront, I have seen gradual but continuous progress and changes in our small city. I would welcome development to the waterfront areas of Chelsea like one sees on the East Boston waterfront but I do not see any significant changes given the storage tank facilities and those mountainous salt piles that dominate the waterfronts on the Mystic River and Chelsea Creek. Those are not to be removed at anytime soon, I am sure. Direct access via good, efficient public transit to Downtown Boston has always impeded substantial development along our waterfronts and in certain parts of Chelsea. However, with the Silver Line Extension into and through our city will help with further quality development such as we see along the Northeast Expressway: Boston North, FBI building, new hotels, etc. Direct ferry service might be tried again from Admiral's Hill or from the end of Winnemesset Street (also potential development area with spectacular views of city). Again, NIMBY folks in the waterfront neighborhood would certainly reject any substantial building along that area. I'm not talking high rise but low rise residential similar to what has happened along the East Boston waterfront. This proposal for Mill Creek, although exciting to review and see, will never get approval and is most certainly DOA.
 
If they'd bothered to include a bridge to Revere Street (and repair that bridge) or 1A, and either of those could be done for a small percentage of project cost, this might be doable. Forget anything more than a ped bridge into the residential neighborhood.
 
If they built a commuter rail station [a la Brighton Landing] then it would probably get approved.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top