Circle Cinema Redevelopment | Cleveland Circle | Brighton

Shepard

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Interestingly, we have no actual development thread here - a bunch of BRA/community meeting threads and Design a Better Boston Thread are all we have so far.

So now that this seems to be moving from BRA approval last night...

A new interesting tidbit - from Uhub:

National Development will kick in $600,000 to redesign the Cleveland Circle intersection, which will include a system to synchronize trolley movement with the lights to speed up dispatching of trolleys.

http://www.universalhub.com/2015/cleveland-circle-redo-will-feature-trolleysignal
 
Self-bump, sorry. A few questions for those who have been following this:

1) Is it just me or is the above rendering very different from everything we've seen before?

1b) Are there any other renderings to go with the above? (The google is no help)

2) This was approved as senior/retirement housing and hotel, but does anyone have any info on the retail component?
 
painful Boston irony...'Circle' redevelopment is a massive cheap rectangle
 
Wow - thanks for that link. I urge everyone to follow it. This is shocking. I'm not even sure what's meant by an "inverted corner" facing Cleveland Circle but it's profoundly awful that, apparently, the building will be turned away from Cleveland Circle as opposed to the prior "approved" design.

I'm about to say "I'd rather see this stopped now rather than see it built" but guess I should try to understand more about the plans... except that the new plans are nowhere to be found.
 
Hasn't every proposal for this space either been seriously awful, taken down by community opposition, or both?
 
Not at all making excuses here, but, remember that this project entails:

formal planning sign-off from two municipalities (Boston, Brookline);

community process with abutting neighbors in three municipalities (Boston, Brookline, Newton);

a long-disputed easement on a driveway that connects the abutting Waterworks residential complex to Beacon St.;

and a perfect intermodal transportation clusterbleep with the Green Line's B, C, and D lines essentially converging right at the development site, with all the associated trainyard infrastructure that includes, compounded by the intense--chaotic?--auto traffic from the Beacon St./Chestnut Hill Ave./Comm. Ave/Sutherland Ave., with a heavy dash of bicycle and MBTA bus traffic just to make it interesting.

Point being, the likelihood of grinding delays with this project was exceptional form the get-go, given baseline conditions.
 
Was the senior-living requirement also a result of the community process? Seems ridiculous given the rapid transit(ish) access to Cleveland Circle would be so severely underutilized by an all- or mostly-senior complex.
 
Was the senior-living requirement also a result of the community process? Seems ridiculous given the rapid transit(ish) access to Cleveland Circle would be so severely underutilized by an all- or mostly-senior complex.

A combination of neighbors not wanting students to live there, residents not wanting additional pressure on schools, and National Development being much more successful selling their elderly housing than their apartment buildings.
 
Some other render in the article and confusingly looks nothing like the more recent others.
 
Some other render in the article and confusingly looks nothing like the more recent others.

According to one of the IAG members, they got the design changed again since the (most recent) BRA approval. From this one render, I think it looks better, as it now faces Cleveland Circle, but so little information seems to get out about the actual design of this building that I feel like the general public is in the dark.
 
Creepy seeing this all lit up the other night, considering it will likely come down any day.

duEGTM2.jpg


Not actually a terrible building ... Somehow evokes Lincoln Center a bit, no?
 
Creepy seeing this all lit up the other night, considering it will likely come down any day.

duEGTM2.jpg


Not actually a terrible building ... Somehow evokes Lincoln Center a bit, no?

You know what would be awesome there and really enliven Cleveland Circle... a movie theater. ;)
 
This site has been fenced off. Looks like a construction trailer is on site. Demo looks like it might have begun - stripping out the windows.
 
Only 8 years after the movie theater closed! I know it's a tough parcel because it sits in both Boston and Brookline but 8 years just to get it demoed is nuts especially when you take into account what is ultimately being developed here is not a terribly large development (150 room hotel and 90 units of housing).
 
Only 8 years after the movie theater closed! I know it's a tough parcel because it sits in both Boston and Brookline but 8 years just to get it demoed is nuts especially when you take into account what is ultimately being developed here is not a terribly large development (150 room hotel and 90 units of housing).

As with so many developments in Boston, Cambridge, Newton, Brookline......"Perfect is the enemy of the Good".
 

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