GrandMarc Residence Hall (YMCA) @ Northeastern U | 291 St. Botolph Street | Fenway

Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

TomOfBoston said:
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/stories/2010/10/residence_hall.html

"I applaud Northeastern University for this creative solution that will fulfill its commitment to the city and the neighborhood to increase the amount of university-approved housing for undergraduate students. These new dormitories will have the same high standard of student accountability that is maintained in other Northeastern dorms," said Mayor Menino. "The project is a great example of how Boston institutions can work together to solve problems and create jobs in our city."

"All of this is possible because of Mayor Menino?s tireless work to champion the interests of the city and its universities," said Joseph E. Aoun, president of Northeastern.
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Menino's approval makes it a done deal.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Lurker said:
Less absentee slumlords can charge inflated rents to the only people whom will pay them, in other words students, and the result will be fewer absentee landlords, less drunk students in residential neighborhoods, and more residential rental units at a reasonable market rate with decent maintenance. Students DRAMATICALLY inflate the cost of rent and the decrease the quality of housing stock since they are willing to pay more for dumps that no one else would rent.
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Sorry, not really. All it will do is draw students who live further away closer to campus as prices dip slightly in the slum markets in the immediate area.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Greedy absentees never lower their rents. They milk a property for all it's worth and then either abandon over several years of not paying taxes, sell AS IS leaving some new owner to pretty much gut rehab, or arrange for a disaster to collect the insurance and walk away.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

KentXie said:
This won't stop me from renting though. It's much cheaper for me to rent an apartment than to pay for dormitory. Sorry guys.
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Except that Northeastern will now requires all freshmen (and sophomores?) to live in the dorms.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Ron Newman said:
Except that Northeastern will now requires all freshmen (and sophomores?) to live in the dorms.
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I'm none of the two.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Lurker said:
Greedy absentees never lower their rents. They milk a property for all it's worth and then either abandon over several years of not paying taxes, sell AS IS leaving some new owner to pretty much gut rehab, or arrange for a disaster to collect the insurance and walk away.
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Broad strokes?
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

bbfen said:
Sorry, not really. All it will do is draw students who live further away closer to campus as prices dip slightly in the slum markets in the immediate area.
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Which removes them from the neighborhood they were previously living in as well as reducing the stress on city transit.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Justin7 said:
Which removes them from the neighborhood they were previously living in as well as reducing the stress on city transit.
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Which is one reason why immediate neighbors oppese any construction and then hold universities hostage for stupid concessions when the battle is lost against construction.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Lurker said:
Less absentee slumlords can charge inflated rents to the only people whom will pay them, in other words students, and the result will be fewer absentee landlords, less drunk students in residential neighborhoods, and more residential rental units at a reasonable market rate with decent maintenance.
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That was a problem at the Modern (255 Northampton St). Investors bought three one bedroom units and converted them into three bedroom units (at the developer/trustee's ok, before the condo trust was formed -so much for fuiduciary responsibility) and the two remaining two bedroom units and converted them to four bedroom units for rental to students. The condo docs have since been amended to prohibit rental to undergrads, but out-of-control students were a real problem there for a few years.
 
Re: Fenway Area Redevelopment

http://www.bankerandtradesman.com/news142088.html?Type=search

Northeastern University and a private development team have resurrected plans for the GrandMarc, a privately-owned dormitory in Boston's Fenway neighborhood.

The new proposal has lowered the height of the building, reduced the number of beds and mandates that only Northeastern students live in the dorm, according to John Tobin, the school's vice president of City and Community Affairs.

Plans outlined in a presentation before the Boston Civic Design Commission last night showed a new 17-story tower rising 198 feet above the Huntington Avenue YMCA with 720 student beds in about 200,500 square feet. The former proposal was for a 265-foot tower with 796 beds. The development team is comprised of Lincoln Property Co. and Phoenix Property Co.

The original plan called for security operated by the developer to oversee the building, students and others that would have lived there. However, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino sent the developer packing in light of neighborhood opposition to the structure's height and privatization, saying that without university involvement, an excess of students would be even less supervised in a neighborhood dense with colleges.
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Nanny city...
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Interesting that when the plan was originally proposed, Northeastern was one of the NIMBY's who opposed it.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Maybe because Northeastern wanted the site for themselves and didn't want to share it with students from other colleges?
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Of course they did. Necessity makes strange bedfellows.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

A big reason I would imagine NEU would be against it is because there's only so many high-rises the neighborhood can take and if GrandMarc happened, they couldn't build in the future.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

there's only so many high-rises the neighborhood can take
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So neighborhoods with high-rises can only take so many, and we all know neighborhoods without them don't want them anywhere close.

That sounds like a recipe for building nothing.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Can't wait to see a rendering of this. Has the potential to be one of the stubbiest buildings in Boston. I'm picturing the original rendering but instead of a tall portion and a shorter portion, one big block concrete craptower.
 
meeting 1/26/11

meeting tonight:
Northeastern University Task Force Meeting
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm


Division-Department: Economic Development - BRA
Description: Meeting of Northeastern Task Force to discuss the Fifth IMP Amendment. The agenda includes discussion on: Preliminary design of building,process/schedule/impact of demolition of existing building, preview of significant issues and next steps
Location: Kerr hall, 96 The Fenway
Neighborhood: Fenway/Kenmore
Contact: Gerald Autler at (617)918-4438
Email: Gerald.Autler.BRA@cityofboston.gov
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http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/calendar/scheduledet.asp?EventID=2699
 
Re: Northeastern eyes dorms

mass88 said:
Move Miami to Minnesota and it's Detroit. Take Casinos out of Las Vegas and it's Detroit. What you are saying is take most of the main job producers in the city out, of course the city would be crap.
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You should read all of the posts before making snarky comments. This is exactly my point, as I clarified earlier. Boston does not want to recognize that these tax exempt institutions are the engine that is driving the city's economy. The city and the NIMBY's see them as nuisances and freeloaders that have to be contained and their expansion stopped.
 
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