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

Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

A 10x return in under a decade? On a site that is disconnected from the rest of the city by 93? Are they just banking on a big TOD project?
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

Globe: UMass Boston will lease Bayside Expo site to developer for $235m

Tim Logan said:
In a $235 million deal that could reshape UMass Boston’s campus and the Columbia Point section of Dorchester, University of Massachusetts officials on Thursday voted to turn the site of the old Bayside Expo Center over to Accordia Partners, a Boston firm headed by two veteran developers.

The board of UMass, and its Building Authority, said they have reached a deal on a long-term lease for the 20-acre site, which Accordia plans to turn into a large-scale office and housing development alongside the UMass-Boston campus. University officials promised to pump the proceeds from the lease agreement into new buildings and infrastructure for the cash-strapped campus.

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Nice investment UMass Boston!!!!!!

May 2010 - $18.7 million purchase

February 219 - $235 million sale

Now there is a positive story!!!!!
 
shmessy said:
Nice investment UMass Boston!!!!!!

May 2010 - $18.7 million purchase

February 219 - $235 million sale

Now there is a positive story!!!!!
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And if somehow sea level rise doesn't flood the area in 99 years, then UMass Boston gets it back after the 99 year lease. Which is a perfectly acceptable time horizon for a University that will hopefully be around that long. Quite a good deal for Umass Boston.
 
Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

tysmith95 said:
What's the FAA limit here!! BUILD TALL (just going with the prevalent archboston narrative).

Although I hope they can build something better then Harbor Point. Harbor Point just seems so suburban. Plus i'm not a big fan of gated communities, where was the CLF when that was built?
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This is what was kicked around for the olympics. Id expect something similar to this density wise but shorter. Im not sure why they would want a little downtown area. The tracks and Morrissey cut it off from the rest of the neighborhood, the rotary is a mess, and its kind of separated from JFK. Its a peninsula so not much through foot traffic and its separated from Southie by carson and only connected by 1 road. I think housing would be the best bet, Im not sure how much sense it makes for a lot of retail. I think transit oriented housing with city/ocean views is the best sell.
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Re: Bayside Expo Center Redevelopment

stick n move said:
This is what was kicked around for the olympics. Id expect something similar to this density wise but shorter. Im not sure why they would want a little downtown area. The tracks and Morrissey cut it off from the rest of the neighborhood, the rotary is a mess, and its kind of separated from JFK. Its a peninsula so not much through foot traffic and its separated from Southie by carson and only connected by 1 road. I think housing would be the best bet, Im not sure how much sense it makes for a lot of retail. I think transit oriented housing with city/ocean views is the best sell.
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Transit oriented housing make a lot of sense.

It could also use some neighborhood retail to service that island of housing plus Harbor Point next door. (Area does feel very isolated when I bike through there.)
 
Yea I agree some necessary things would be great for the area. A couple restaurants, bars, corner store type stores for your general living items...etc for the foot traffic and current residents living in the area along with these new residents, but I dont think it can sustain a mini seaport which it sounds like they are hoping for. Maybe, but I personally dont see it.
 
With this development anchoring the southern end and the Seaport district on the north plus all of the South Boston peninsula, I keep thinking a local Streetcar system like Portland, Seattle, or Washington DC would work well here. Head out from South Station down along Summer Street all the way to L Street, slice through the heart of South Boston, and then turn on William J. Blvd around the bay right to the Bay Side Development and JFK Red Line station.

Instead of our beloved MBTA, maybe the city of Boston should step up and think about a transit solution? Modern Streetcars have been implemented in many American cities with great success.
 
tangent said:
And if somehow sea level rise doesn't flood the area in 99 years, then UMass Boston gets it back after the 99 year lease. Which is a perfectly acceptable time horizon for a University that will hopefully be around that long. Quite a good deal for Umass Boston.
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Well it doesn't look good according to the climate ready maps...
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But that just means we need to require any development here to invest in 'resilience' measures that protect it and its neighbors. Lets not do another seaport...
 
DAVE said:
Well it doesn't look good according to the climate ready maps...
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But that just means we need to require any development here to invest in 'resilience' measures that protect it and its neighbors. Lets not do another seaport...
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Yes, they should definitely raise the area at least 3 to 6 feet to try and get ahead of sea level rise and mitigate storm flooding. Easier to do it now than to try and do it after there are a dozen mid rise buildings.
 
stick n move said:
Yea I agree some necessary things would be great for the area. A couple restaurants, bars, corner store type stores for your general living items...etc for the foot traffic and current residents living in the area along with these new residents, but I dont think it can sustain a mini seaport which it sounds like they are hoping for. Maybe, but I personally dont see it.
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It can see it. Seaside shopping, restaurants and bars... very appealing if done right. Right on transit and I93 close by. Like an Assembly Row on the South side of the city. Housing of course too.
 
Yes, I think Assembly Row is the right model more than Seaport on the bay.That said, it's a bit more remote from the T station, so we probably do need to look at some sort of good circulator bus (or street car) connecting the area to the Red Line.
 
HenryAlan said:
That said, it's a bit more remote from the T station, so we probably do need to look at some sort of good circulator bus (or street car) connecting the area to the Red Line.
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Wouldn't that be a natural extension of the JFK Library, UMass circulators that already run in the general area?
 
^^^Yes!

I just mean that it should be upgraded with priority lanes/signalling/frequency/etc. Make it very easy, comfortable, and quick to get to that area, more so than it already is, and it can work as a destination as well as TOD.
 
Are there examples of real, successful TOD that link to subways via shuttle bus? Genuinely curious. It seems a rather tenuous prospect to me.
 
Shepard said:
Are there examples of real, successful TOD that link to subways via shuttle bus? Genuinely curious. It seems a rather tenuous prospect to me.
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Interesting question. The model I'm thinking of is actually the seaport. I see the Silver Line as a shuttle to the subway.
 
tangent said:
Yes, they should definitely raise the area at least 3 to 6 feet to try and get ahead of sea level rise and mitigate storm flooding. Easier to do it now than to try and do it after there are a dozen mid rise buildings.
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I think the new normal, particularly for waterfront mid-rise stuff, is to go up 11 feet and save yourself the trouble of digging down for a garage.

That's basically what Wynn did with the Casino: pour a slab on the level of the existing ground they had (13' above sea level) and call it the bottom of the parking garage, and then went up 11', and built their earth berm (flood dike) around it, so that the "ground floor" of the Casino is at 24' above sea level.

Then utilities went on the 3rd floor.

https://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2017/08/30/wynn-casino-climate-protection
 
B&T on Twitter:

Boston's next mega-project is starting to take shape: Developers want to build 5.9 million square feet of housing, labs, offices and retail at the Bayside Expo site in Dorchester.
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Per BBJ:


At nearly 6 million square, Accordia’s Dorchester plans represent about half the size of Boston’s Seaport submarket, and is equivalent to all of the office and lab product added to that neighborhood since 2006, said Aaron Jodka, managing director of research and client services at Colliers International in Boston. It would be about 9% of the 66.5 million-square-foot office market of Boston's central business district, said Liz Berthelette, research director at Newmark Knight Frank in Boston.
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