Dorchester Bay City (nee Bayside Expo Ctr.) | Columbia Point

plans for Synergy site

picture:
http://www.dotnews.com/

http://www.dotnews.com/Next great neighborhood.html
Future visions of Columbia Point crystallized further last Thursday when Synergy, the owner of a large swath of property that includes the Shaw's on Morrissey Boulevard, unveiled its vision for creating a new "main street" on the site.

Much like developer Corcoran Jennison Cos. is promoting their Bayside on the Point development on the other side of Morrissey, Synergy is touting their own project as "Dorchester's next great neighborhood."

If the final proposal looks anything like this early version of Synergy's plan, the development will include at least four new side streets, 700 units of housing, and hundreds of thousands of square feet worth of office and retail space. The scale of the project is smaller, though comparable to Bayside, but with a smaller footprint.

"This is really a different kind of retail for the surrounding neighborhood," said architect Tim Love from Utile Design, which is creating the street plan for the project. "Old Colony Road comes there along the back side of the T station to connect to the [shopping area]. It could be a real main street. A place where you would come to do your local shopping."

Though surrounded by buildings ranging from four to 20 floors in height, retail could include local caf?s and restaurants, an ice cream shop, a hardware store or a dry cleaners as well as the Shaw's Supermarket and Harbor Point Liquors that already exist on the site but would be moved. At least 14 retail outlets are anticipated by the plan, and it is likely to hold many more.

The Synergy vision is somewhat dependent on one facet of the developing Columbia Point Master Plan that is being pieced together by consultants with input from a community task force: the elimination of the frontage roads that run on both sides of Morrissey Boulevard.

The elimination of those roads serves a dual purpose, according to the consultants: separating local traffic from through traffic, thus reducing traffic congestion, and reclaiming the land to create a state-owned park on a strip along the boulevard as well as a full plaza closer to Kosciusko Circle.

Synergy's proposal is enhanced by the proposed park, an area the company's hired architects say could be attractive to large restaurant tenants.

Overall, Synergy is proposing 180,000 square feet of retail (including Shaw's), 500,000 square feet of office space, and 700 housing units with a grand total of 1,725 parking spaces - mostly housed in two large parking garages that face the Southeast Expressway.

Because Synergy is likely to apply for Transit Oriented Development tax credits from the state, the project will rent at least 25 percent of its apartments as affordable.

"One of our priorities will be housing that will meet a number of income levels," said Greaney at last Thursday's task force meeting. "It's a site that the neighborhood can really use, and it's active."

Despite the height of the project, which is envisioned to reach 20 stories on the current site of the MBTA station&emdash;a site which is loaded with engineering and financial challenges&emdash;and between four and 18 stories elsewhere on the site, many task force members gave Greaney positive feedback.

"I support this whole heartedly," said Matt Gordy, a task force member from Savin Hill. "I think the scale of the street that you're showing is just right. This feels like more for Dorchester compared to the Corcoran Jennison proposal that feels like it could be anywhere in Massachusetts."

Others had some reservations, particularly with memories of a proposal for a Ramada Hotel that was quashed by neighborhood groups years ago on the basis of excessive height.

"It seriously concerns me for precedent down Morrissey Boulevard," said Frank Baker, also of Savin Hill. If the offices and press of The Boston Globe were sold, he reasoned, developers may one day push for height on a redevelopment there.

Tad Read, project manager from the Boston Redevelopment Authority, reminded the group that they could set heights as part of the guidelines in the master plan.

"The heights that we had for the Globe property aren't as high as the others so far," he said.

Greaney and his team did anticipate height concerns by continuing the street patterns of Crescent Avenue and Harbor View Street from the opposite side of the expressway. Those walking down Crescent will not see a tall building blocking their view at the end of the street, he said.

Greaney also said Synergy would have a financially-motivated interest in beautifying the entrance to the JFK/UMass station from Sydney Street.

"I think we'd have an obligation to do it," he said, "irrespective of whether we get the T parcel or not."

An earlier request for proposals for the air rights parcel above the JFK/UMass Station was cancelled in order to wait for the Columbia Point Master Plan Task Force to complete their plan.

The task force is scheduled to present an early version of the master plan to the wider community on Saturday, Nov. 22, at a location to be announced.
Click to expand...
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

Please god, not a stupid condo development. Here is not the place for it.
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

^
Why is this not a desirable place for this type of development? Its ideal for TOD with the red line and commuter rail. It's suburban style Star Market with a parking lot now. I remember when they built that Star Market 10 or so years ago. I thought it was a lost opportunity for the developers, the neighborhood and the city to construct a suburban style supermarket on vacant land directly adjacent to a subway station.
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

Who wouldn't pay good money to live under the approach flight path of Logan Airport?
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

commuter guy said:
^
Why is this not a desirable place for this type of development? Its ideal for TOD with the red line and commuter rail. It's suburban style Star Market with a parking lot now. I remember when they built that Star Market 10 or so years ago. I thought it was a lost opportunity for the developers, the neighborhood and the city to construct a suburban style supermarket on vacant land directly adjacent to a subway station.
Click to expand...

This is a good place for apartments (or even condos) above supermarkets. Everyone calls for this wonderful mixed use development/pseudo Back Bay in the SBW. I say, make the SBW the young peoples haven, and make here, in Dorchester, an urban place to raise a family. Younger people who have jobs in the city/just want to be close, yet not be in the city raising young children. I say, make apartments and condos above regular retail. Not some froofy Hingham lifestyle center. This should not be for yuppy college students, it should help bring Dorchester back to being a more family-oriented place. Seriously, give it a Shaw's. Give it a Dunks. Give it some regular amentities, some new take on a triple decker near the water, it would be the perfect family environment, close to the city. I don't even know what I'm saying but I feel that's the direction Dorchester would be going with this, and from the picture I see a wannabe Fort Point-type neighborhood.
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

It says the Shaw's will be moved within the deveopment, not closed. I'm really not sure what you are objecting to. None of the commercial things mentioned in the article are "froofy Hingham".
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

I'm not sure what the guy in the article meant when he said the new design was "closer to Dorchester" than the latter, which looked like "the rest of Massachusetts", but I think it means they probably addressed your concerns, kennedy.
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

kennedy said:
Alright, when I said huge oppurtunity I should have backed it up with some thought.

-Traffic Problems: No way they need all this space for residential. Use some of it to divert traffic (widen the street, pedestrian tunnels under the road to get to T stop, means uninterrupted flow of traffic). With a redevelopment, the state might put money into improving the rotary, the state polic may get involved, and and renovated T stop.

-Yuppie point: There is no fucking way you could possibly want to make this all-residential from a architectural point of view. Landscape that beach, get a dock going. Harbor Ferry stop? Make an entertainment stop, a more cosmopolitan, yet kind of 'yuppie' place (similar to the North Shore yacht clubs, only slightly urban and modern). Cinema, event center, shopping, hotel, central plaza for outdoor concerts in the summer, and have firepits and a few trees and gazebos with heating and enclosures for winter. Then, once all that is done, you can think about residential.

That pretty much covers what you were complaining about, Bobby Digital and some others.
Click to expand...

This is what I was concerned about, what I posted about a year and a half ago before I had any idea what fit in certain places. While some of what I said I still like (the water taxi) but now that I look at this site, it seems much more suited to be a middle-class family development. I sort of got nervous when I saw the rendering, because it seemed more like what I had originally suggested, rather than my newer, more educated vision.
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

here's an update:
Columbia Point plan draws big crowd
January 29, 2009
By Pete Stidman
News Editor

Despite the down economy which has sapped potential financing for two massive development proposals on Columbia Point, neighborhood folks came out to view the progress on the Boston Redevelopment Authority's Master Plan for the point on Saturday.

Their conversations were the best window yet on what might be agreed on in the plan and what has yet to be hammered out.

Although all were civil, the most animated conversations surfaced around the character of the neighborhood that will be created when Corcoran Jennison builds 900 residential apartments along with hundreds of thousands of square feet of office, hotel and retail space in the Bayside on the Point development, and Synergy adds as many as 700 apartments as part of their plan for "Dorchester's next great neighborhood" which also includes workplaces and shopping outlets.

Opinions seemed to differ along neighborhood lines. Abutters to Bayside on the Point in the Harbor Point development strongly advocated for a higher than minimum affordable housing percentage in the new development and units that could support families with three and four bedrooms.

"I think that what the task force needs to do is decide what this neighborhood is going to look like," said Dan Driscoll, director of Harbor Health Services which runs the Geiger/Gibson Health Center on the point. "If we are okay with the area turning in to the South End, or the equivalent of what's happening in the North End right now we cans stay with the [city mandated] 15 percent [affordable housing]. Do we want it to be like Allston-Brighton, or like the rest of South Boston and Dorchester?"

Folks from just outside the point, like those from Savin Hill nearby, were considerably less vocal on affordable housing but pushed for condo ownership possibilities.

"We'd like to stay here," said Crescent Street resident Andrew Laudate, "and not get driven out? by people who have tons of money and just live there on the weekends or by people who are subsidized."

A new idea to build senior housing was added to the mix in a discussion that included City Councillor Maureen Feeney, who also managed to find a point of agreement for all.

"We don't want people to come to Columbia Point and say well, 'What part of town is this?'" said Feeney. "We don't want to lose that identity of 'This is Dorchester.'"

For some, the sheer amount of 6, 10, 14 and even 25 story buildings evoked comparisons to the West End, or Crystal City in Washington D.C. - comparisons that made consultant H.H. Smallridge cringe.

"We don't want to see a wall on Morrissey, we want a variety of building heights," he said.

The 25-story tower, proposed as a possibility next to the MBTA's JFK/UMass Station - a site that will be put out to bid after the planning process is over - did draw some comments, particularly from Feeney, who felt it was too tall.

Shadow studies from the consultants have shown, however, that the tower would rarely, if ever, darken the streets on the other side of the highway.

Residents also stumped the consultants when they asked whether any study had been done to determine how the new buildings would affect wind patterns and how they would reflect sound from the highway, two problems that residents nearby already deal with daily. Smallridge said his firm would study the issues.

These and many more comments from neighbors will be compiled by the BRA and reviewed by the task force in a meeting next month and used to guide the task force in creating guidelines that will influence future development via the BRA. Each individual project will still need to be approved by BRA's Article 80 process however, which includes a requirement for community support.
Click to expand...
http://www.dotnews.com/columbia pt.html
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

Residents also stumped the consultants when they asked whether any study had been done to determine how the new buildings would affect wind patterns and how they would reflect sound from the highway, two problems that residents nearby already deal with daily. Smallridge said his firm would study the issues.
Click to expand...

Sound I get (I live near a highway) but isn't it already windy out on da Point? I'd be more concerned build a tower in the flight path of Logan.
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

vanshnookenraggen said:
Sound I get (I live near a highway) but isn't it already windy out on da Point? I'd be more concerned build a tower in the flight path of Logan.
Click to expand...

As in the tower being too tall to be in the flight path?

If you can go 16 or so storeys on the SBW, then you can go 25 here can't you?

If it's noise in the tower. I can see that. I know they are low and loud over at city point.
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

Residents also stumped the consultants when they asked whether any study had been done to determine how the new buildings would affect the migration pattern of swallows. The consultants, however, turned the the question back on the residents by asking if they were referring to African or European swallows. The residents replied they 'didn't know' and were immediately swept into a bottomless chasm.
Click to expand...
.
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

LOL. Though, in all honesty, the plight of either species of Swallow seems of far more concern to me than the reflection of sound waves off the highway.
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

Neighborhood's projected future
Housing, shops in city's plans

539w.jpg


By Emily Sweeney
Globe Staff / February 1, 2009

Picture this: Two rows of high-rise buildings stand alongside Morrissey Boulevard. They house hundreds of new homes and offices that overlook a new, tree-lined avenue filled with street-level shops and restaurants. Nearby, a 25-story building towers over the JFK/UMass MBTA station. Across Morrissey Boulevard, a housing complex has replaced the Bayside Expo Center, providing its tenants with breathtaking views of Dorchester Bay.

That is what Columbia Point could look like in the future. City planners envision that this oft-forgotten section of Dorchester could, one day, become a bustling hub of activity.

For the first time ever, the Boston Redevelopment Authority is drafting a master plan for Columbia Point, which encompasses more than 400 acres and is home to Harbor Point apartment complex, St. Christopher's Church, the JFK Library and Museum, two Boston public schools, the University of Massachusetts campus, Boston College High School, and the Boston Globe.

The ambitious plan to transform this urban peninsula was the focus of a well-attended community meeting at BC High Jan. 24. Over 100 people showed up to review and discuss the draft master plan, which remains a work in progress.

Several residents of Harbor Point and parishioners of St. Christopher's expressed concerns about keeping the neighborhood affordable and family-friendly (by offering more three-bedroom apartments, not studios) and about the traffic and parking problems any new development could bring.

Joan Hill, a Cambridge resident and longtime parishioner of St. Christopher's, cautioned the consultants and planners at the meeting to keep the current residents in mind, or else "you're going to end up with another West End," she said referring to the urban renewal program of the 1950s and '60s, which dislocated thousands of working-class people from their affordable downtown Boston apartments to make way for high-rise buildings.

"This is not a plot of land, a footprint," said Hill. "Columbia Point is a neighborhood, a community."

The draft master plan will look at what could be built on Columbia Point over the next 20 years. Corcoran Jennison Cos. has already submitted plans to the city to redevelop its 33-acre portion of the property, which is currently home to the Bayside Expo Center. The new neighborhood would include a new network of streets, and up to 1,233 residences, 221,490 square feet of office space, and 292,870 square feet of retail.

"One of the issues with Columbia Point is how isolated it is from the rest of Boston," said Tad Read, senior planner with the Boston Redevelopment Authority. "By creating a series of new streets, that will help knit the neighborhood back together. That would be transformative."

Boston-based Synergy Investment & Development has floated plans to build several buildings along Morrissey Boulevard. As of last week, Synergy had not submitted any formal plans to the BRA. The preliminary drawings show buildings between eight and 18 stories tall, and two parking garages. They would occupy the parcel where Shaw's supermarket and parking lot stands today. The two rows of buildings would create a new street that would be lined by shops and restaurants. According to Synergy's draft plans, these new buildings could house up to 700 residences, 500,000 square feet of office space, 180,000 square feet of retail, and 1,725 parking spaces.

The MBTA has been looking to sell the air rights above JFK/UMass station on the Red Line. City planners estimate that the property could be used for a 25-story building that could house some retail space, residential units, or offices. No developer has acquired the air rights yet.

The Columbia Point Task Force is scheduled to meet again Feb. 12.

The task force will devote at least three meetings in March and April to review the plan, according to BRA officials, and the draft master plan is scheduled to be presented at a community meeting in May.

Link
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

"One of the issues with Columbia Point is how isolated it is from the rest of Boston," said Tad Read, senior planner with the Boston Redevelopment Authority. "By creating a series of new streets, that will help knit the neighborhood back together. That would be transformative."
Click to expand...

OMG somebody gets it!!!

As for the overall plan, the picture we see is just an idea and in no way representative of the final product, but I see potential.
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

In 30 years B.C. High would become the wealthiest prep school in New England. Look at the way all that open acreage stands out!
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

Joan Hill, a Cambridge resident and longtime parishioner of St. Christopher's, cautioned the consultants and planners at the meeting to keep the current residents in mind, or else "you're going to end up with another West End," she said referring to the urban renewal program of the 1950s and '60s, which dislocated thousands of working-class people from their affordable downtown Boston apartments to make way for high-rise buildings.
Click to expand...

WHAT NEIGHBORHOOD IS BEING DEMOLISHED FOR THIS!?

The preliminary drawings show buildings between eight and 18 stories tall, and two parking garages. They would occupy the parcel where Shaw's supermarket and parking lot stands today.
Click to expand...

GAHHH
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

Do you have a problem with the supermarket going away, or the buildings between 8 and 18 stories?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top