Cooper Street Apartments | 20 Cooper St. | Downtown Waltham

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DBM

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This project has been referenced sporadically in the Waltham Developments thread, but, given its rather large size (264 units) and the potential it offers to further revitalize downtown Waltham, it seems justified to give it its own thread.

Here's the press release with the details, reposted:

http://www.daiwahouse.co.jp/English/release/pdf/release_20160303.pdf

Here's what it looked like today.

If I were the marketing director, which facade would I include in the marketing collateral? The north one, adjacent to the bucolic Charles River flowing placidly along?

picture.php


Or the south one, adjacent to the totally whackadoodle-looking Rhino Lounge?

picture.php


Gee I wonder....
 
Moderators, can we please place this development in the Waltham development thread. I understand if this project was in Boston/Cambridge/Brookline but even Brookline has a Brookline Development thread, same for East Boston, Quincy, Allston-Brighton, Roxbury, South Boston and so many more. Nothing against Waltham but I'd say the same thing if each separate building (and there are some major buildings there) in Assembly Square or Ink Block were given it's own thread. Just my thoughts on this.
 
atlantaden said:
Moderators, can we please place this development in the Waltham development thread. I understand if this project was in Boston/Cambridge/Brookline but even Brookline has a Brookline Development thread, same for East Boston, Quincy, Allston-Brighton, Roxbury, South Boston and so many more. Nothing against Waltham but I'd say the same thing if each separate building (and there are some major buildings there) in Assembly Square or Ink Block were given it's own thread. Just my thoughts on this.
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Oops, I didn't realize I'd violated an unwritten rule about splitting large projects out from their municipal catch-all threads! I'd just figured that, hey, this thing is 264 units, it ought to be split-out from the general Waltham thread due to its size. Seriously, my apologies if I'd violated the rule--if there is one? I'm kind of clueless, I'm sorry...
 
Obviously, you're not in the grey area, but dancing with the devil himself. There are so many insignificant projects with their own threads (171 Tremont has only 12 units, Coconut Grove, just 8 ....of course, that's COCONUT GROVE). In any case, putting 264 units in a neighborhood filing cabinet would be development thread malpractice.
 
DBM said:
Oops, I didn't realize I'd violated an unwritten rule about splitting large projects out from their municipal catch-all threads! I'd just figured that, hey, this thing is 264 units, it ought to be split-out from the general Waltham thread due to its size. Seriously, my apologies if I'd violated the rule--if there is one? I'm kind of clueless, I'm sorry...
Click to expand...

nah, he's wrong
 
Daiwahouse is a fantastic developer; if this lives up to their domestic (Japanese) standards, it will be a great addition to Waltham. I hope we see more of their work here in the future.
 
DBM said:
Oops, I didn't realize I'd violated an unwritten rule about splitting large projects out from their municipal catch-all threads! I'd just figured that, hey, this thing is 264 units, it ought to be split-out from the general Waltham thread due to its size. Seriously, my apologies if I'd violated the rule--if there is one? I'm kind of clueless, I'm sorry...
Click to expand...

No need to apologize since I didn't accuse of you of breaking any rule, unwritten or otherwise. I was just give giving my opinion as to keeping suburban town developments in the same thread, nothing more. Didn't mean to offend...and thanks for your info on the Cooper Street Apartments.
 
Waltham isin't that suburban. Downtown Waltham is about as suburban as JP (though there are more suburban parts of Waltham). It is still a streetcar suburb inside of 128.
 
tysmith95 said:
Waltham isin't that suburban. Downtown Waltham is about as suburban as JP (though there are more suburban parts of Waltham). It is still a streetcar suburb inside of 128.
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Just to amuse myself, I checked; Waltham City Hall is 9.2 miles, as the crow flies, from Boston City Hall; whereas Readville is 9.9 miles, as the crow flies.

Which inadvertently brings up a trivia question that speaks to Boston's marvelously crooked contours as well as its woefully cramped landmass--how many City Halls are closer to Boston City Hall than Readville, as the crow flies? At least 17!

[Quincy, Milton, Brookline, Newton, Watertown, Waltham, Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington, Medford, Belmont, Chelsea, Revere, Everett, Malden, Melrose, Saugus]

[leaving out Nahant because of its inaccessibility]

Anyway, like I said, sorry for having broken the convention about not splitting out very large suburban developments... but it seems to me that ones within Route 128 of, say, 100+ units, are worthy of stand-alone threads...
 
DBM said:
Just to amuse myself, I checked; Waltham City Hall is 9.2 miles, as the crow flies, from Boston City Hall; whereas Readville is 9.9 miles, as the crow flies.

[Quincy, Milton, Brookline, Newton, Watertown, Waltham, Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington, Medford, Belmont, Chelsea, Revere, Everett, Malden, Melrose, Saugus]

[leaving out Nahant because of its inaccessibility]
.
Click to expand...

What about Winthrop (about 5.5 miles)? (Inaccessible also?)
 
Correction; 18. Winthrop is certainly isolated, but not inaccessible to the degree Nahant is. That seems self-evidently obvious... good catch!
 
Well, this literally went up in smoke. 264 apartment units, $100s of millions of development costs, was supposed to open for residents in just a few months... damn. just surreal.

I heard explosions around 5 am from where I am a few blocks away and assumed it was a teenager lighting fireworks--but presumably it was vaults/transformers blowing up?


Reminder of project stats for this now charred ash heap:

https://www.lincolnapts.com/about/media/394-lpc-and-daiwa-house-finalize-project-overview-of-cooper-street-apartments

Globe coverage of the raging inferno, which generated an 8-alarm alert (8 alarms!). All-wood construction; can't imagine the heat this generated in the core. Some of these pictures look like something out of WWII combat photography--fire-bombing of Dresden or something.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/07/23/firefighters-battling-massive-blaze-waltham/JcWwm4UQWNrWiITcFb6hYP/story.html
 
Good news with these things is that the developer has insurance and will rebuild.
 
Additional note: Waltham (and perhaps the whole Charles River corridor east of Moody St.?) is perhaps very lucky this was contained so aggressively, the winds weren't too excessive or the wrong direction, and we've had plentiful rain.

After all this (hopefully to be resurrected) project immediately abuts all the dense foliage/timber of the Charles River bike path/greenway, on both sides... if a few of those sparks had ignited in the adjacent tree-tops, perhaps a blaze could've started racing downstream along the banks of the Charles.

Sounds lurid & fantastical... but look on Google Maps at the satellite photography of all the greenery along the bikepath corridor and note its adjacency to the project site.
 
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