Hood Business Park | 480-570 Rutherford Avenue | Charlestown

Unfortunately, MassDOT's plan is to keep the underpass (shown in the above photo). The excuse by MassDOT is that the Casino traffic justifies having it. Removing the underpass would make more space available for a greenway, path and bike trail along the corridor, while sill having 2 lanes in each direction for traffic, The present plan still has 4 traffic lanes southbound. This highway needs to be reduced in size, and I don't see much of a commitment for that from MassDOT or the City of Boston.

Do you have a link to the plan?
 
Do you have a link to the plan?
Here is the link for the current City of Boston plan for Rutherford Ave (click where it says Download Rutherford Map), which includes preserving the highway underpass under Sullivan Square. For me, that's a big disappointment.
In the City of Boston's 2013 plan for Sullivan Square, the underpass was gone:

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I’ve hated on this area in the past and would
like to officially recant. The Hood Park complex is really promising. I snapped a photo of the finished development they posted on site; although the quality of the photo is bad, there are some interesting buildings planned. If they turned the sizable (abandoned) median of Rutherford Avenue into a Greenway like Rose Kennedy it would be one of the most spectacular spots in the city with one Congress and the Verizon building as a backdrop. Presently, Rutherford Avenue completely severs ties to Charlestown and just looks terrible with its dilapidated roads and ramps to nowhere. But it’s potential is amazing.
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one of the great aspects is the open space going up onto the roof of the building. this was all open space and the City wanted to have a street wall on Rutherford. this solution solves for having the biggest open space and a street wall.

BTD and MassDOT have long been undergoing a redesign of Rutherford. the latest delay is from changing the design to include BRT lanes, but yes there will be less pavement and shorter tunnels. the streets at Hood are placed to tie into the future intersections of the redesign.
what shown above is an architects version of that redesign, but its not entirely accurate and unfortunately not selling the narrower width of the roadway well enough. the last public version had a linear park running down the east side of Rutherford. I am not sure how that is impacted with the addition of the BRT lanes.
 
I’ve hated on this area in the past and would
like to officially recant. The Hood Park complex is really promising. I snapped a photo of the finished development they posted on site; although the quality of the photo is bad, there are some interesting buildings planned. If they turned the sizable (abandoned) median of Rutherford Avenue into a Greenway like Rose Kennedy it would be one of the most spectacular spots in the city with one Congress and the Verizon building as a backdrop. Presently, Rutherford Avenue completely severs ties to Charlestown and just looks terrible with its dilapidated roads and ramps to nowhere. But it’s potential is amazing. View attachment 32947
Rutherford Ave in the render is a high speed expressway. I really hate that they're keeping the underpass. Yeah, I know, traffic flow in Sullivan Square "requires" it, but it's the same auto-centric rationale that they're using to keep the Bowker overpass in the Back Bay. The Sullivan Sq underpass takes up a lot of Rutherford Ave corridor width that should be used for a ped/bike corridor, plus it speeds up traffic, perpetuating Rutherford Ave as raceway severing the community.
 
Boston Mixed-Use Development Tops Off

By Radu Corfus
June 28, 2023

When complete, the building will comprise office, laboratory and retail space.

100 Hood Park Drive

“Catamount Management Corp., in partnership with Lee Kennedy Co. and Trademark Partners, has topped off the expansion of 100 Hood Park Drive, an office and life science property in Boston’s Charlestown neighborhood. The 186,000-square-foot development rises atop an existing seven-story building, with completion expected in 2024.

The developers started construction on the tower addition last year. Project financing includes an $100 million loan from PNC Bank, according to CommercialEdge data.
The existing structure came online in 2020 and comprises 61,139 square feet of lab space on the second floor and 40,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, along with a 900-space garage with 50 EV charging stations. The expansion, designed to achieve LEED Gold certification, will add five stories with floorplates averaging 37,000 square feet, designed to accommodate a 60/40 lab and office split. In total, the 13-story building will encompass 287,000 square feet of commercial space.

Part of the Hood Park campus
When complete, 100 Hood Park Drive will be an anchor for Hood Park, the 20-acre mixed-use campus taking shape as the redevelopment of the old H.P. Hood and Sons dairy hub. At full build-out, the campus will incorporate 1.8 million square feet of lab and office space and 100,000 square feet of retail, as well as 335 residential units. The property already has multiple life science tenants including Bluebird Bio, Mori, Solid Biosciences, Indigo and Advent Technologies.
Located just east of Interstate 93, Hood Park is some 3 miles from downtown Boston and 2 miles from Kendall Square. The property is also less than 2 miles from Assembly Square, where Greystar recently topped off a life science project which is part of a $1.2 billion joint venture.

Nationally, Boston has been leading the office development market, with 15.2 million square feet of office space in its supply pipeline as of May, accounting for 6.3 percent of existing inventory, according to a recent CommercialEdge report. Most of the construction activity is fueled by the life sciences sector.”

https://www.commercialsearch.com/news/boston-mixed-use-development-tops-off/
 
Hood Park
 

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I had a tube pinch flat on my bike in front of the casino a few days ago, so walked the bike to the Landry's on Hood Park Drive. Man is that area inaccessible by bike! Once I had the new tube in, my choices for getting back to Sullivan Square/Cambridge St. were either riding on the Rutheford Hwy sidewalk, which is something I really can't stand doing, or crossing over a muddy, discontinued railway ROW, including over a couple of raised rails. How hard would it be to get a road crew on to that stretch of mud in order to provide a more reasonable type of access?
 

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