Fenway Infill and Small Developments

Developer hopes for hit at Fenway

Retail residential complex proposed for area between Park Drive, Yawkey Way
By Casey Ross
Globe Staff / September 19, 2008

A developer is proposing his third retail and residential complex outside Fenway Park - a project that would be aided by a new street the city wants to build to spur fresh development in the neighborhood.

The plan disclosed by Steve Samuels and city officials yesterday is the next step in transforming the gritty triangle between Park Drive and Yawkey Way, where residents and neighborhood planners have long sought to create an "urban village" in the shadows of the ballpark.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino said plans for the new quarter-mile-long street, to run parallel to Yawkey Way, would ease traffic congestion and lay the groundwork for a shopping district where Fenway sausage vendors would intermingle with high-end boutiques.

"What we want to do is have a balance between residential, retail, and some office space," Menino said. "It will be a more walkable area, a more friendly area. Now all you see is auto repair shops and sub shops. That's not the future, that's the past."

Samuels said his proposed development on Boylston Street would include ground-floor shops, a supermarket, and residential units. He said he has not settled on an exact height for the building, but he pledged to keep it within the scale of the neighborhood.

The proposal comes amid a burst of development around Fenway, much of it by Samuels and his partners. Yesterday, he celebrated the grand opening of 1330 Boylston, a $140 million complex that includes 215 residential units, shops, and offices for Fenway Community Health Center. Samuels also developed Trilogy, a $200 million project of shops and apartments at the corner of Brookline Avenue and Boylston Street.

In addition to his plans, medical group Harvard Vanguard confirmed yesterday it is seeking to develop two parcels around its offices at 133 Brookline Ave. The development could include up to 700,000 square feet of residential and office space, although the precise scope of the proposal remains uncertain.

Gene Wallace, an executive vice president for Harvard Vanguard, said the company has hired the real estate firm McCall & Almy Inc. to gauge developer interest in the property. "We feel this is the right time to assess our options," Wallace said in a statement. "We are enthused about the direction of development in the Kenmore area."

Wallace also indicated Harvard Vanguard expects to remain in its Fenway offices. It is unclear whether it would seek to expand into any new buildings constructed on the property.

Also moving forward is a proposal by developer John Rosenthal to build a $500 million project along Beacon Street. The project, which is being reviewed by city planners, would include a 23-story residential tower over the Massachusetts Turnpike, and three other retail and office buildings. The Red Sox are a minority partner in Rosenthal's One Kenmore complex. The New York Times Co., owner of the Globe, holds a 17 percent stake in the Red Sox.

Rosenthal's development would also benefit from the street the city is seeking to build through the neighborhood. The road would connect Boylston Street to Brookline Avenue, and then run into Overland Street, which filters into the parking lots on which Rosenthal is seeking to build.

"It will be a great new connection to take pressure off Kenmore Square," he said. "It really begins to connect the dots in the area."

The road would be constructed in concert with Samuels's new development, which still must go through years of permitting and other reviews. The design of the road still needs final city approval.

City planners said yesterday they are also seeking to revitalize the streetscape along upper Boylston by widening the sidewalks and creating shorter pedestrian crossings. Those improvements, along with the new road, would be funded through a $55 million Fenway economic stimulus bill passed by lawmakers in 2007.

The goal of the improvements is to make the streets more walkable and welcoming to new retail development. Samuels said the changes would allow the city to rebuild largely unused roads like Van Ness Street, in an area he wants to transform into a narrow shopping corridor along the walls of Fenway Park.

"It could be a great little retail street, like Newbury," Samuels said. "The idea is to create a Main Street for the neighborhood that is more walkable."

Casey Ross can be reached at cross@globe.com.

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Developer hopes for hit at Fenway

Retail residential complex proposed for area between Park Drive, Yawkey Way
By Casey Ross
Globe Staff / September 19, 2008

...

"It could be a great little retail street, like Newbury," Samuels said. "The idea is to create a Main Street for the neighborhood that is more walkable."



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Uh huh....to do that they will have to stop building gigantic footprint buildings. Boutique shops don't = Newbury. Developers and planners keep forgetting that. Newbury was a great walkable street even before it went high end.
 
The biggest cliche's in pre-development real estate marketing/PR in Boston in 2008:

1) Shopping "like Newbury Street"
2) A park "like Post Office Square"
3) A great development for a Whole Foods

Of course the reality is always:
1) Shopping like a strip mall, but with benches
2) Empty, unused "open space" to the side to appease the activists/crazies
3) Dollar Tree and the Dress Barn Now Open!
 
The biggest cliche's in pre-development real estate marketing/PR in Boston in 2008:

1) Shopping "like Newbury Street"
2) A park "like Post Office Square"
3) A great development for a Whole Foods

Of course the reality is always:
1) Shopping like a strip mall, but with benches
2) Empty, unused "open space" to the side to appease the activists/crazies
3) Dollar Tree and the Dress Barn Now Open!

i legit loled!

I am waiting for the triangular lot in front of trilogy to get developed. Albeit he builds some massive buildings, IMO they have changed the area for better and made the fenway area one of the most exciting area's for future progress.
 
What's wrong with sub shops? :confused: Out of style I guess.

I'm assuming he means sub shops like Subway, D'Angelo and Quizzno's that plague storefronts with their redundancy. I'm sure if it were a trendy non-chain (or more localized upscale chain), it would not be lumped in with Subway.
 
What's wrong with D'angelo, Subway and Quizno's? I love all three.

Where I live there is Venice Pizza, King Do, Joe's Pizza and Subs, and some other mom-and-pop shop that sells subs for $5-7. I would love any of those chains in my neighborhood over the crap I have now.

They are all GROSS compared to the above-mentioned three chains.

What you mean, I think, is that an elitist $7-9/sub sandwich shop with a wooden-etched sign, trendy lighting and seating, and sandwiches that offer organic bean sprouts, goats cheese, and smoked tofu - that type of sub shop would be OK. But a chain?! That's capitalism! The horrors.
 
I was at the meeting the other day where the Boylston street redesign was presented again. Its the semi final design.

Widened sidewalks (from 7 to 15 feet) - This will be done by setting back all properties. The Triology and 1330 are already set back.

Street parking on both sides, with exceptions in front of the gas stations and possibly the Hojo.

Bike lanes (comm ave style, they were against the better, traffic sheilded ones)

Two lanes each way

The new street may or may not have a traffic signal on Boylston. new street will go from boylston, cross brookline ave, connect with an existing street, cross parcel 7, cross beacon and meet with an existing street.


Also talked about was the redesign of Audubon circle, essentially, bike lanes to be added, beacon to be reduced to two lanes (at the brookline border three suddenly become two) and the turn lanes to be removed and replaced with pedestrian plazas.
 
Please tell me that Boylston street is going to get dedicated left turn lanes. The backups from people waiting to make turns onto or off Kilmarnock, Jersey, and Yawkey are horrendous during events or rush hour.

The new proposed street was a paper street back on Olmstead's original sketch for the grid of the Fenway. Do you happen to know if the idea was lifted from those drawings for smaller parcels and if an appropriate name has been chosen? I seriously hope the name is drawn from Olmstead's drawings or at least congruent with the Scottish names of the existing streets in the area. Having a Papi Place, Williams Way, or Buckner Boulevard would be rather tacky.
 
Please tell me that Boylston street is going to get dedicated left turn lanes. The backups from people waiting to make turns onto or off Kilmarnock, Jersey, and Yawkey are horrendous during events or rush hour.

The new proposed street was a paper street back on Olmstead's original sketch for the grid of the Fenway. Do you happen to know if the idea was lifted from those drawings for smaller parcels and if an appropriate name has been chosen? I seriously hope the name is drawn from Olmstead's drawings or at least congruent with the Scottish names of the existing streets in the area. Having a Papi Place, Williams Way, or Buckner Boulevard would be rather tacky.
One left turn lane will be added, and it will lead into the new street. Its an interesting format actually, they plan to rebuild the street without the lane, but make it in such a way that if there is demand, they can repaint it in with no further construction.

The reason it wont be added at first is because they said the traffic studies suggested it would only add to the traffic around games.

The street is called "new street" in the plans, nothing was said about a possible name. The reasons given for the street were:

Shorter blocks = better pedestrian environment
Ability to move loading and driveways from boylston to a side street
Better traffic flow during games.

They havent posted the renderings online yet, ill update when they do.


And this is a proposed bike/pedestrian path, connecting Fenway station to yawkey. Theres currently an ugly sidewalk there.
IMG_6204.jpg
 
Although humility would no doubt keep him from accepting the honor, I can't think of a better name than "Menino Boulevard".
 
Got any more images from that meeting?

Also, from the description it seems that this is the route of the new street:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U...977,-71.100512&spn=0.006042,0.013947&t=h&z=17

Am I correct?

Thats the rough layout, yes, of course the exact meandering still hasnt been decided, but they promised to align it with the existing roads (so at overland street you'd have a traditional 4 way intersection). They have approval from the biggest property owner along the route, but theyre still going to talk to a couple of small people. They wanted neighborhood approval before they went there.

As for pictures, I didnt take any of the giant poster, because I thought the powerpoint would be online by now. I could link you to the older stuff (from May), but things have really changed since then so theres no point.

Here are some pictures I just took of the handout to hold you over until they put the full thing online.

Changes: The triangle at the left will have an expanded pedestrian area. Right turns from boylston to brookline still allowed, but given less visability as very few people do this.

No parking in front of gas station, sidewalk expanded outwards.

City to take control of DCR streetlights for better synchronization.

I proposed a crosswalk from the shwas to triology (alot of people cross illegally here) and theyll consider it.
IMG_6242.jpg


New street shown, hasnt been decided if signal will be installed
IMG_6243.jpg


Parking in front of Hojo may or may not be there, depending on how property aquisition talks go
IMG_6244.jpg


Bike lanes confirmed
IMG_6245.jpg
 
I recognize that streets aren't planned for my personal use, but I'm having a hard time imagining who would use this new street. The biggest benefit it appears would allow for ingresss/egress to occur off this new street into future developments without having curb-cuts on the main commerical throughfares.

I suppose this is reason enough for the new street, but can anyone explain how this could be used to disperse traffic?
 
There are a lot of benefits to this new street.

1) Break up the super-blocks

2) improve traffic flow the 81+ days days at Fenway when Yawkey Way is closed

3) The Red Sox may very well be looking to keep Yawkey Way closed off to cars as a full-time pedestrian mall. "The Red Sox Experience" or something like that - with shopping, nightclubs and a Red Sox Museum (think Patriot Place). My guess is this new street allows Fenway to have many more expansion options, onto and around Yawkey Way
 
And it would be the only direct link between boylston, brookline and Beacon streets
 
Pelhamhall....breaking up the superblocks (and allowing ingress and egress to occur off the main streets as I mentioned) is desirable.

I guess my main thought was what Jass mentioned. It links the streets, but at what real benefit? Just thinking of the hundreds of times traversing this area, I've never needed to go from one to the other because the of the natural inclination to travel northeast-southwest through there.

Personally, I'm a big fan of Rivervision 2020. Here is a proposed map of the area.
Rivervision_05_lg.jpg


Here is a link to the whole concept.
http://www.nsaarch.com/plan-Rivervision.htm#
 
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If there is already sufficient space for left hand turn lanes, I don't understand why they aren't going to be added in the first place to coincide with the new lighting and traffic control systems. If they are re-timing all the lights to reduce back-ups from through traffic it seems silly not to eliminate back-ups from cars turning across two lanes of heavy traffic. They might lose a few street parking spaces and slightly shorten the depth of the round-outs at corners to do so, but it would really help traffic at peak times in addition to reducing broadsides.

/hates driving to Harvard Vanguard during Redsox games
 
I think the original plan was from the late 1980s....none the less, the ideas presented then still apply now. Its not like Boston has made any infrastructure improvements to Back Bay/Fenway in the last 2 decades.....
 

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