Harvard - Allston Campus

First, I want to apologize to Harry and note that his well-reasoned approach to the whole expansion process is light years away from the kind of fanatical protestations I've witnessed over the Columbia expansion. I stand by my comments about community groups wielding too much power over projects that impact larger constituencies, but I do think that the people of North Allston, especially Harry, have been more considerate and well-behaved in this respect than others.

seriously, all you fucking planning profs. need only send their students to Harvard Sq and stop filling their heads with modernist bull shit
Click to expand...

Ironically, the "modernist bull shit" of Holyoke Center, I think, is one of the greatest enhancements ever added to Harvard Square. I think the chessmaster, the patrons of Au Bon Pain, and the protesters who gathered on the little plaza there today for a good old fashioned pro-Palestinian rally would agree. Now that there's an eatery in the arcade (with "outdoor" terrace seating, even) it would only take a cafe replacing the Cambridge Bank to make it one of the liveliest complexes in the city.

Keep in mind that the planning professors can't just tell their students to build new Harvard Squares. That space took centuries to reach its current appearance; as you observed, a city can't be built all at once.

Interestingly enough, though, the Columbia campus was pretty much all built within a 30 year span. The new one is proposed to be as well; if it maintains the same quality, this is not necessarily terrible.
 
Last edited:
Before Au Bon Pain, however, people hated both the building and the plaza. It's amazing what a simple change of commercial tenants could accomplish.
 
Exactly, which is why I think the Cambridge Trust Bank should be replaced. But note that the building is still critical; without the setback and plaza, that Au Bon Pain would lose its trademark patio and become just another upscale takeout sandwich shop.
 
Don't get me wrong, the Holyoke Center is fantastic (this along with the building the Crate n' Barrel is in). But it works because it is a breath of fresh air into the square. I meant more about huge master plans. They are very pretty to look at but in the end you end up having to save money by making all the buildings look similar. Harvard Sq is an amazing place precisely because it wasn't master planned.
 
The following rendering of the housing ast Brighton Mills is from the North Allston Strategic Framework, completed in 2004.

SNAG-01753.jpg


Harry (as I'm sure you know) the strategic framework calls for 2400-2800 units of new housing to be built in North Allston over the next 20 years. Even if Harvard were to build half those units on its land including the land it owns between Soldiers Field Road and Western Ave to the west of N. Harvard Street, well, for everywhere else, 1200-1400 units of new housing + low rise = an oxymoron.

Excerpts from the North Allston Strategic Framework:
Working toward achieving over 20 years a goal of 2,400 to 2,800 new housing units in North Allston. Community housing to be built by Harvard and private developers may reach between 400 and 800 new units. New housing would be affordable to a wide range of incomes and family types. New housing would also be in addition to the enhancement, or possible redevelopment, of Charlesview, a large affordable development located in North Allston.
..............
EARLY-ACTION PRIORITIES:
Harvard?s anticipated presence in North Allston adds to the neighborhood?s critical need for more housing serving the widest possible range of people. Immediate attention should be paid to the development of both community and university housing, with the goal of 200-400 units of community-oriented housing within the early development phases.
.......

ISSUES

? Need for more affordable rental and owner-occupied housing to serve the larger community.
? Low vacancy rates and record high sale prices: Average condominium prices up by 50% over the last five years; single-family prices up by over 80% in the last five years.
? Need for significant new housing to meet the needs of the existing community and the substantially increased demand that will be generated by Harvard's expanded presence will generate in North Allston.
? Traditional neighborhoods fully built out; existing housing stock should not be subdivided into additional units.
? New housing that complements diversity and richness of established residential neighborhoods.

OPPORTUNITIES
? Preserve existing housing and traditional neighborhoods.
? Create, with Harvard and other developers, 2,400 to 2,800 new units in Barry?s Corner, Brighton Mills, the Riverside Triangle, west of Market Street, and the new mixed-use neighborhood.
? Provide a wide range of housing opportunities serving long-time residents, new neighbors and Harvard affiliates.
? Match the scale of the new residential blocks and development to that of the housing found along abutting neighborhood streets, with transitions to taller buildings at Western Avenue and east of North Harvard Street
......

The new housing units will include a mixture of types for both ownership and rental, with a goal of 20% affordable to households at 80% of the Boston median income or below and a substantial proportion affordable to middleincome households (up to 120% of median income).
......

The Framework addresses height and massing of new buildings to ensure in general the preservation of the traditional character of residential neighborhoods while allowing the kind of significant new development that will bring substantial benefits to North Allston. Thus, west of North Harvard Street the Framework envisions heights of up to 35' on the southern side of Western Avenue and a mix of heights on the north side, with further community review of buildings with heights over 35' and an expectation that these taller buildings would offer substantial public benefits such as additional affordable housing and public space.
Click to expand...

As I read the strategic framework, the 2400-2800 target does not include replacing the 200+ units in Charlesview.

Certainly there is a lot of ambiguity in the framework, along with a generous dollop of non-specificity, but what on earth were they smoking when they pulled the housing number out of the air with apparently little or no consideration for how these units would be squeezed into the space available.

I'll also note that the 2004 rendering of housing at Brighton Mills shows buildings substantially higher than 35 feet, more like 55 to 60 feet to my eye.

As far as density goes, 2400-2800 new units is about 7,000 new residents. If you were to maintain the current 30 residents per acre ratio, that requires that 233 acres be found. But if you basically have only 60 acres available for housing, then the density becomes about 120 persons per acre.
 
Also note that the housing creation numbers that the BRA, Mayor's Office, or whoever, came up with are probably low ball.
 
People have brought this up before but after seeing that rendering I want to reiterate, TOO MUCH GREEN SPACE. What is the purpose of all that valuable land that isn't being used (Im not talking about the parks but all the extra, literal green space). This is what I meant by modernist planning bullshit. The idea that you can just waste valuable land (in a city at that!) by planting a lawn. Don't get me wrong, I know that this is a more suburban community and I realize the desire to keep that element, but these just look like glorified housing projects from the 1950s, the ones all over the South End. You have the riverbank right there. All you need is a direct connection (which I see here) and to spend the money that would have gone to mowing all that grass that nobody would be using to improve the park.

[/rant]

Just an FYI this isn't against the plan for housing but rather the urban design of it, backing up my previous statement about outdated planning.
 
Jane Jacobs is rolling in her grave at the sight of this. The sidewalk space seems to be well done and will promote activity, but the lawns are useless. Is there really any reason to waste space by setting the skating center so far back? Look at the size of the sidewalk next to it, what will that lawn accomplish? These buildings mostly ignore the street and face their own little plots of (useless) green space. When has anything like this ever been successful in a large city?
 
Isn't that skating rink already there? I think it belongs to the private Boston Skating Club, not Harvard.
 
I'm confused - where is Brighton Mills? Is this near the Charlesview development?
 
Lrfox said:
Jane Jacobs is rolling in her grave at the sight of this. The sidewalk space seems to be well done and will promote activity, but the lawns are useless. Is there really any reason to waste space by setting the skating center so far back? Look at the size of the sidewalk next to it, what will that lawn accomplish? These buildings mostly ignore the street and face their own little plots of (useless) green space. When has anything like this ever been successful in a large city?
Click to expand...

The skating center is already set back. Its the hanger looking building in the center of this Google map view.

SNAG-01754.jpg
maps
 
But the Harvard drawing shows the skating club's parking lot changed to green lawn. Not sure how they can do this if they don't even own it.
 
czsz said:
I'm confused - where is Brighton Mills? Is this near the Charlesview development?
Click to expand...

Brighton Mills is west of Barry's Corner, on the southern side of the street. It has a large supermarket and a bunch of quasi strip mall retail with a very large parking lot in the center. The Boston Skating Center hanger-type building supra is across the street.
 
Ron Newman said:
But the Harvard drawing shows the skating club's parking lot changed to green lawn. Not sure how they can do this if they don't even own it.
Click to expand...
Ron, Harvard owns all the land occupied by Brighton Mills, owns the land south of Holdon St (the two pictures I posted a couple of days ago of warehouse type buildings which are on Holdon St directly opposite the southern end of Brighton Mills) and owns the land further south of those parcels -- i.e., Harvard owns a large contiguous swath of land from Western Ave (Brighton Mills) south all the way to the Mass Pike. It is Harvard's only real large landholding west of N. Harvard St and south of Western Ave.

Harvard has bought up most -- but not yet all -- of the privately-owned land on the north side of Western Ave and up to Soldiers Field Rd. and west of N. Harvard St. I think the largest remaining privately owned parcel still not acquired by Harvard in this particular area is the WBZ studios on Soldiers Field Road.
 
I'll bite my tongue on this one. I thought it was part of the proposal. But couldn't they still do something better than just laying grass over the parking lot? Anything's better than vacant lots, but there has to be more they can do to that spot.
 
Compare the renderings of Brighton Mills to the Harvard Charlesview development - I think this is the same plot. The denser Harvard proposal is the one being built.

SNAG-01753.jpg


SNAG-01722.jpg
 
This is a map that Harry M. had on his blog a while back. Harvard-owned land is in red. I don't know whether Harry made the map, but it is the most current map that I've seen.

The swath from Western Ave to the Mass Pike is easily discerned. (The top parcel is Brighton Mills.)

The large rectangular white parcel NW of Barry's Corner is a recreation area (ball fields etc) owned by the city. The somewhat irregular shaped property to the west of that is WBZ.

The map reflects Harvard's acquisition of the current Charlesview property, but does not reflect the transfer of Harvard-0owned land in Brighton Mills and across the street to the owners/operators of Charlesview for the new complex.

I should add that the map does not show all the land Harvard owns in Allston. If the southeast corner of the map were extended, it would show Harvard owned property abutting BU owned property.


HarvardPropertyOwnership.png
 
so if I'm understanding the map correctly, Harvard does not own the Skating Club property.
 
Ron Newman said:
so if I'm understanding the map correctly, Harvard does not own the Skating Club property.
Click to expand...

It does not own the Skating Club property (the white parcels across the street from Brighton Mills) or the property to the right of the Club.
 
Last edited:
Google street view looking east on Western Ave Skating Club on the left, McDonalds (at Brighton Mills) on the right. The McDonalds stays for now.

SNAG-01734.jpg



The Skating Club and the building to the right of it are on land owned by the Skating Club. The building to the right is a Days motel.

SNAG-01737.jpg
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top