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

[curcuas]

It would not be hard to put in more small retail spaces. Steve Samuels does this in Fenway. Fix that, don't throw away growth near transit and close to the core.

 

[FK4]

If this were Fenway or Assembly, sure, but that's wildly out of scale with Davis. I'm all for housing on top of transit, but this will absolutely dominate everything there.

That looks like a superblock, and it's replacing a varied single-story set of storefronts. I mean... That picture isn't Davis Square as we know it. It's something else.

This works in Union Square because they're building on empty industrial and auto-centric lots. FWIW, I'm not certain how many stories 30 Prospect has, but with that as precedent in Somerville worries about a highrise tower aren't crazy to have, however unlikely.

I really think the area that did development the best anywhere around here is the area around Coolidge Corner—randomly, in residential neighborhoods, there are huge towers. They would never get built today and they are totally out of character with the neighborhoods, but they work. They don’t dominate and they’re speckled here and there. Most importantly, they aren’t where the commercial districts are. That saves the whole vibe.

I have no idea how they got built and who greased whose palms in the 60s and 70s, but I think it’s actually more sensible to have a random large building plunked amidst small homes, than this overly planned strategy of making hulking buildings where the street level retail should be. People don’t like hulking buildings for their shopping. It makes eateries less charming, shops less interesting and somehow they nearly always fail to get the right sweet spot for small businesses. I wish we could try this nowadays.

 

[as02143]

I really think the area that did development the best anywhere around here is the area around Coolidge Corner—randomly, in residential neighborhoods, there are huge towers. They would never get built today and they are totally out of character with the neighborhoods, but they work. They don’t dominate and they’re speckled here and there. Most importantly, they aren’t where the commercial districts are. That saves the whole vibe.

I have no idea how they got built and who greased whose palms in the 60s and 70s, but I think it’s actually more sensible to have a random large building plunked amidst small homes, than this overly planned strategy of making hulking buildings where the street level retail should be. People don’t like hulking buildings for their shopping. It makes eateries less charming, shops less interesting and somehow they nearly always fail to get the right sweet spot for small businesses. I wish we could try this nowadays.

I think Market Central in Central Square does this fairly well - and even nearer to Davis - you see this with the hotels along Mass Ave in Porter. They get 3-4 stories of street fronting facade and the higher stories are pushed back from the curb. Most people barely perceive the heights once the main body of the tower is back 10-15 feet from the sidewalk.

If we're worried about the commercial-nationalization of Davis Square, that seems to be happening regardless of height of new development -- the opposite side of the street has a Chase, Bank of America, Hmart, Starbucks, Chipotle, Oath, H&R Block, CVS, and Buffalo Exchange all national companies with some foothold in Davis Square.

 

[RandomWalk]

Don’t forget that a large chunk of that side of Elm has Seventh Spoke pending.

 

[393b40]

“I promise, at our next meeting, we will not be coming back with a 33-story building,” Flynn responded.

32 stories technically isn't 33... I'll be interested in seeing how they cram 500 units into this lot without it ending up in the 20-30 story range. At the same time, I don't really have a problem with something like this going up in Davis and I live here. Do they own the parcels on Highland too or is just The Burren - Dragon Pizza block and parking lot behind it?

I'm the opposite of a Nimby here. I'd be perfectly happy if this were built in Central Square (though not so much in Inman) - no different than Market Central. PLEASE put this in my backyard, rather than putting it in Davis. Put it at Riverside where I grew up. There are so many places in Boston where this works, but just the process of proposing this has lost Davis several irreplaceable local businesses that made that street vibrant.

Everyone in this thread bemoaning the size of this thing and trying to find "alternative sites" is playing SimCity Mayor which is just another form of NIMBYism in disguise, though a slightly more palatable form for this audience.

The right thing to do would be for our cities in the area to adopt coherent by-right zoning with tasteful requirements for street activation and not make this a huge game of trying to cram developments into certain parcels.. but here we are, because nobody is fixing that problem.

Boston area is really going to need to come to terms with these developments going supersize. The cost of everything is going to drive a certain scale of development going forward as that's the only way developers are going to be able to make any kind of profit. The other option is.. nothing.

 

[393b40]

Don’t forget that a large chunk of that side of Elm has Seventh Spoke pending.

That proposal seems to be dead? Hasn't been heard from since 2022. I suspect the economics have changed enough for it to not be feasible.

 

[Equilibria]

32 stories technically isn't 33... I'll be interested in seeing how they cram 500 units into this lot without it ending up in the 20-30 story range. At the same time, I don't really have a problem with something like this going up in Davis and I live here. Do they own the parcels on Highland too or is just The Burren - Dragon Pizza block and parking lot behind it?


Everyone in this thread bemoaning the size of this thing and trying to find "alternative sites" is playing SimCity Mayor which is just another form of NIMBYism in disguise, though a slightly more palatable form for this audience.

The right thing to do would be for our cities in the area to adopt coherent by-right zoning with tasteful requirements for street activation and not make this a huge game of trying to cram developments into certain parcels.. but here we are, because nobody is fixing that problem.

Boston area is really going to need to come to terms with these developments going supersize. The cost of everything is going to drive a certain scale of development going forward as that's the only way developers are going to be able to make any kind of profit. The other option is.. nothing.

I appreciate that you live there, and I don't disagree with your general point, but it's not "playing SimCity Mayor" to argue that different neighborhoods can accommodate different building forms. That's called "Urban Planning", and one of the principles of that discipline is building and maintaining character and sense of place in neighborhoods. What IS playing SimCity Mayor (and I say this as a very experienced one, as I suspect are most here) is deciding on a whim to bulldoze a bunch of commercial lots to drop in a big building you downloaded from Simtropolis because the green bar on your RCI meter is really high and you're lazy. That has no consequences in-game, since you can decide you don't like it later and the old buildings will just respawn if you undo it. Obviously, not so in real life.

I actually could care less about height here. If they put 33 slim stories behind the existing storefronts with a similar diversity of businesses that activate the street in the same way as the ones their predecessor developer kicked out, I'd be open to that. It's the street level that's my issue, intensified by the hulking mass of this building relative to anything nearby.

 

[393b40]

That's called "Urban Planning", and one of the principles of that discipline is building and maintaining character and sense of place in neighborhoods.

Picking and choosing developments like this is not urban-planning. Urban planning is something done at the macro scale of a place whether it be a square, neighborhood, or an entire city. It would be something well known and understood by property owners and developers.

What we've got here is ad-hoc approval process masquerading as urban planning sometimes. I don't blame the developers for trying something like this nor do I really have a problem if Somerville decides to go with it because if Somerville wanted a different outcome they would have come up with a better planning and development process years ago that would protect the character of Davis and other squares.

I'd still put the odds of this getting built at under 50%. I think this is a developer trying to use the optics of housing to push a huge project here but my guess is if they want to build they'll need to look at halving this proposal. I look forward to seeing the first renders tho as I just don't know how they plan to cram all this housing on this lot to begin with.

 

[RandomWalk]

That proposal seems to be dead? Hasn't been heard from since 2022. I suspect the economics have changed enough for it to not be feasible.

Not dead. It’s mostly dormant, waiting for a tenant.

 

[Stlin]

I admittedly live off Mass Ave, but my closest square is Davis. Personally, my opinion is that in developing an urban form, something needs to buck the existing trend for it to become ok, in the same way that The USQ development and tower in Union has. I want Davis to be a vibrant urban neighborhood, and not just a "subway suburb." I'm optimistic that it won't be overwhelming, as the concept renders fairly obviously show a retail podium then a pretty severe stepback. That said, while I of course will reserve judgement until actual plans are available, they've at least retained CBT, which has a pretty decent track record of design in the Boston area.

Also, keep in mind the founder of Copper Mill is the same person as the then CEO of Scape, Andrew Flynn. They've not coming at this from scratch, having already gone through the entire process already. As such, per the Cambridge Day, he was reported to have said:

much of the work Scape did toward designing ground-floor retail was liked by residents and developers and can be adapted for the upcoming project," and that "small size of the retail store spaces will likely steer franchises like CVS away. Galligani noted that the square also has zoning in place against “formula” businesses...

As such, I'm pulling in the prior Scape designed ground floor retail space plan, which admittedly is also on the front page of this thread. Most of the previously proposed retail slots were relatively tiny - 15.5' x 31.5'. that's less than 500sqft. That's the size of a generous studio apartment, and roughly equivalent to the current size of the Kung Fu Tea. Even if they need to expand some to occupy more of the ground floor, say 1000sqft per bay, that's still a fairly small retail slot. If they extend the retail to the Grove frontage as well, all the better.

(Also, I just did some envelope math to sanity check the hysteria. The site is 33886sft. Assuming a floor plate of 25k to accommodate a healthy setback, a leasable floor plate ratio of 90% and a generous average unit size of 750 sqft and 500 units... I get 17 residential floors for a total of 18. Even assuming the tower rises from the mechanical penthouse footprint of the scape design (~15k sqft) and allowing for the first 4 floors to be 30k sqft, I get ~25 stories. The math doesn't quite track. For reference, 121 Broadway, the MXD residential tower, has a 13k sqft floor plate and will actually reach 37stories to accommodate 468 residential units. This is more likely to be similar in scale to Park 151, which also accommodates 468 units in 20 stories and is also from CBT.)

 

[Equilibria]

Picking and choosing developments like this is not urban-planning. Urban planning is something done at the macro scale of a place whether it be a square, neighborhood, or an entire city. It would be something well known and understood by property owners and developers.

What we've got here is ad-hoc approval process masquerading as urban planning sometimes. I don't blame the developers for trying something like this nor do I really have a problem if Somerville decides to go with it because if Somerville wanted a different outcome they would have come up with a better planning and development process years ago that would protect the character of Davis and other squares.

I'd still put the odds of this getting built at under 50%. I think this is a developer trying to use the optics of housing to push a huge project here but my guess is if they want to build they'll need to look at halving this proposal. I look forward to seeing the first renders tho as I just don't know how they plan to cram all this housing on this lot to begin with.

I realize you may be referring mostly to the permitting process, in which case fair criticism, but those of us on here saying this doesn't fit in Davis aren't picking and choosing. We're saying that on a macro scale Davis should not be accommodating massing like this. From any development.

I admittedly live off Mass Ave, but my closest square is Davis. Personally, my opinion is that in developing an urban form, something needs to buck the existing trend for it to become ok, in the same way that The USQ development and tower in Union has. I want Davis to be a vibrant urban neighborhood, and not just a "subway suburb." I'm optimistic that it won't be overwhelming, as the concept renders fairly obviously show a retail podium then a pretty severe stepback. That said, while I of course will reserve judgement until actual plans are available, they've at least retained CBT, which has a pretty decent track record of design in the Boston area.

Also, keep in mind the founder of Copper Mill is the same person as the then CEO of Scape, Andrew Flynn. They've not coming at this from scratch, having already gone through the entire process already. As such, per the Cambridge Day, he was reported to have said:

As such, I'm pulling in the prior Scape designed ground floor retail space plan, which admittedly is also on the front page of this thread. Most of the previously proposed retail slots were relatively tiny - 15.5' x 31.5'. that's less than 500sqft. That's the size of a generous studio apartment, and roughly equivalent to the current size of the Kung Fu Tea. Even if they need to expand some to occupy more of the ground floor, say 1000sqft per bay, that's still a fairly small retail slot. If they extend the retail to the Grove frontage as well, all the better.
View attachment 58434
(Also, I just did some envelope math to sanity check the hysteria. The site is 33886sft. Assuming a floor plate of 25k to accommodate a healthy setback, a leasable floor plate ratio of 90% and a generous average unit size of 750 sqft and 500 units... I get 17 residential floors for a total of 18. Even assuming the tower rises from the mechanical penthouse footprint of the scape design (~15k sqft) and allowing for the first 4 floors to be 30k sqft, I get ~25 stories. The math doesn't quite track. For reference, 121 Broadway, the MXD residential tower, has a 13k sqft floor plate and will actually reach 37stories to accommodate 468 residential units. This is more likely to be similar in scale to Park 151, which also accommodates 468 units in 20 stories and is also from CBT.)

All fair enough, but the massing model on the prior page doesn't suggest a flat retail streetfront like that. It has an irregular, undulating ground floor with spaces connected by the architecture, like something out of the Seaport.

And I want Davis to be a vibrant urban neighborhood too, like it was in 2019 before the Pandemic and this development ripped out a whole bunch of it. I don't experience Davis as at all suburban.

 

[stefal]

I don't want to get too far into the details here, because we will get them soon enough, but it appears there's at least a 7-story section of the building, as there is sky peaking through at the top corner of the rendering. That implies a taller narrow section, potentially the part that approaches Elm Street a little closer.

I'm still developing thoughts on the loss of retail on this stretch, but welcome the additional units. Davis is a golden opportunity for much more housing - by my count, there is ~80K square feet of ground area dedicated to surface parking that could create a nice diversity of developments/densities, and in previous tallies, a conservative estimate of ~100K sf of underutilized ground area, particularly along Highland Ave. It's supported by about as much transit and connectivity that you can get in the area. This development/location would be one of my last choices, as I will mourn the loss of Sligo (and eventually McKinnon's if they don't survive the move) for many more years, but we're subject to a market driven by developers and banks, and a conservative community planning and approval process that guides development reactively, not proactively. Operating within that realm allows developers to make the least risky/most profitable decision.

 

[stefal]

Link for community group meeting notes:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/...aem_2SWdojnwF7TP0EyCWg6B0A&tab=t.rxf6o3x7m89f

 

[Equilibria]

Link for community group meeting notes:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/...aem_2SWdojnwF7TP0EyCWg6B0A&tab=t.rxf6o3x7m89f

And to the presentation within those notes:

Davis Square Residential Public Meeting Deck 11.20.2024.pdf

drive.google.com

They do make a case for the streetwall being cut up - that it will provide a deeper pedestrian space and opportunities for outdoor seating. It's a reasonable argument. There seems to be a lot of support in general, which is fine if that's what the neighborhood wants. I still feel like replacing half of that side of Elm with a single building and aesthetic will degrade the experience.

 

[Hydrobus]

Looking at the renders I dont really understand why they have to demolish that whole history. The big residential tower is going to mostly be on a parking lot in back anyway (and a section of what looks like the back room of the Burren? I guess its OK if they demo that. ) And theres a street there they can load materials from to that parking lot. If its gonna be a mid-rise lab, well that just looks horrible and they should'nt do it especially where theres a massive oversupply of lab right now and many other lab projects and new development areas in the pipeline.

 

[ritchiew]

Link for community group meeting notes:

And to the presentation within those notes:

Davis Square Residential Public Meeting Deck 11.20.2024.pdf

drive.google.com

They do make a case for the streetwall being cut up - that it will provide a deeper pedestrian space and opportunities for outdoor seating. It's a reasonable argument. There seems to be a lot of support in general, which is fine if that's what the neighborhood wants. I still feel like replacing half of that side of Elm with a single building and aesthetic will degrade the experience.

View attachment 58506

This a little bit reminds me of Market Central in Central Square, which turned out really nice. It's an 18(?) story tower on top of small-ish food and retail spaces. The businesses that moved in are almost all local chains, founded nearby, with just a few other locations (a coffee shop from Salem, an Asian restaurant from Chinatown, etc). There's the cutback for more pedestrian and outdoor dining space. It's turned into a busy, lively spot since all the ground floor spaces got filled in, especially in any remotely nice weather. The results have been really good.

For sure Market Central is different because it replaced a bleak, squat office building with no ground floor activation whatsoever. Losing the existing ground floor in Davis will be sad. But getting something like this new proposed building can still turn out well, and especially with the 500 housing units on top, this seems like a win.

 

[Aprehensive_Words]

Looking at the renders I dont really understand why they have to demolish that whole history. The big residential tower is going to mostly be on a parking lot in back anyway (and a section of what looks like the back room of the Burren? I guess its OK if they demo that. ) And theres a street there they can load materials from to that parking lot. If its gonna be a mid-rise lab, well that just looks horrible and they should'nt do it especially where theres a massive oversupply of lab right now and many other lab projects and new development areas in the pipeline.

It's hard to say w/o seeing the actual designs, but often a big issue is having enough elbow-room to dig foundations, stage construction materials, etc. It's certainly not impossible to build w/o that, but it can send construction costs up -- sometimes by quite a lot depending on site conditions.

 

[theSil]

As depicted on page 7 of the deck, the existing site has 10 storefronts on Elm. This seems to propose 8 storefronts on Elm + a building lobby + 1 more storefront around the corner on Grove. (It's a little confusing, but I think the A-J numbering is just counting the facades, not the the number of retail units.)

Hopefully this was discussed in the community meeting, but it's crucial that this development preserves as many retail spaces along Elm as possible. If it gets cut down further, it'll be a major loss for the main pedestrian thoroughfare of Davis.

Also RIP The Burren I guess

 

[393b40]

As depicted on page 7 of the deck, the existing site has 10 storefronts on Elm. This seems to propose 8 storefronts on Elm + a building lobby + 1 more storefront around the corner on Grove. (It's a little confusing, but I think the A-J numbering is just counting the facades, not the the number of retail units.)

Hopefully this was discussed in the community meeting, but it's crucial that this development preserves as many retail spaces along Elm as possible. If it gets cut down further, it'll be a major loss for the main pedestrian thoroughfare of Davis.

Also RIP The Burren I guess

I mean there's only like 4 active store fronts right now... so...

I don't think it matters whether it's 8 or 10 just that they be filled and not abandoned looking like currently.

 

[theSil]

I mean there's only like 4 active store fronts right now... so...

I don't think it matters whether it's 8 or 10 just that they be filled and not abandoned looking like currently.

That's likely because Copper Mill does not want to sign new retail leases on a building that they hope to redevelop imminently. Relatively temporary situation. Whereas the number of retail spaces they decide to incorporate will be more or less locked in for decades to come.