Copper Mill Development | Elm Street and Grove Street | Davis Square

The proposed tower would dwarf, for now, the surrounding neighborhood. But Davis Sq is a major transportation hub, the confluence of the Red Line, major bus routes, and the multi-use path extending all the way from Bedford to Boston. It is destined to become a high density hub with this tower first, and then more added in the future.
 
I'm glad they put the "feedback" slide where they only took the most positive comments as an appendix. Probably embarrassing to show that one :).

I assume 3 and 4 are the real options, because they're the only ones rendered with The Burren. Of those, 3 is better because the varied massing prevents a big slab wall of one color from facing any viewing angle.
 
Big improvement imo. Nice ground floor, massings look good, nice colors. 03 and 04 are probably my favorites, but def a good change. We need more of this, its harder to push back against nice things. Propose more things like this and more people would be on board. Especially the ground floor which is the most important part, big improvement.
 
If a tower this big had been built in the 60s or 70s, it would just be there, and nobody would think twice about it. It’s absurd how difficult everything is in Massachusetts.
It would have looked like this... People thought twice.

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It would have looked like this... People thought twice.

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I disagree. I grew up in Brookline and only as an adult did I start to notice the fact that the area around Coolidge is actually peppered with towers. Most of them aren't great, but they're fine and when you're used to them, you don't see em. Charlie gives better examples and Cambridge is certainly also full of medium height towers of various modernist appeal. The Middlesex example is by far the ugliest, like by a factor of a million, and it's also more visible because it's not hemmed in by others. And it's also not the end of the world, either, if there is the occasional ugly building around. It is a sign of the extreme privilege and entitlement in this country that every project, down to aesthetics, must be micromanaged to death. I'd take Boston with a few more extremely ugly towers if it meant we didnt have to get Boring by Elkus every single time.
 
4 seems the least offensive to the street experience, doesn't overwhelm the existing with a canyon feeling, and I life the opportunity for the balconies for upstairs businesses to engage with the street. 4 also seems best suited to mesh with any future builds on neighboring parcels.
 
I disagree. I grew up in Brookline and only as an adult did I start to notice the fact that the area around Coolidge is actually peppered with towers. Most of them aren't great, but they're fine and when you're used to them, you don't see em. Charlie gives better examples and Cambridge is certainly also full of medium height towers of various modernist appeal. The Middlesex example is by far the ugliest, like by a factor of a million, and it's also more visible because it's not hemmed in by others. And it's also not the end of the world, either, if there is the occasional ugly building around. It is a sign of the extreme privilege and entitlement in this country that every project, down to aesthetics, must be micromanaged to death. I'd take Boston with a few more extremely ugly towers if it meant we didnt have to get Boring by Elkus every single time.
Its actually kind of surprising when you stop and look around somewhere like beacon st, it would be soo much harder to build most of those buildings today.
 

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