ISQ3 | 22 Drydock Avenue | Seaport

Equilibria

Equilibria

Senior Member
Joined
May 6, 2007
Messages
6,450
Reaction score
6,420
S

shmessy

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2010
Messages
2,989
Reaction score
2,966
Equilibria said:
BPDA has selected Related Beal.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1514749534206844929

For reference:

www.bostonglobe.com

Another piece of Boston’s old industrial waterfront is poised to become . . . lab space - The Boston Globe

Here's a look at the proposals, which all involve putting up lab buildings that are seven or eight stories high.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
Click to expand...
I'm more than fine with old industrial areas converting to lab space. Bring it on!

I am NOT ok with labs going up in Kenmore Square or along the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Where the hell is the idea of urban context with the BPDA? How the hell did they greenlight Whoop and the lab across from the new State Street HQ? This municipal planning cluelessness is a fumble of historic dimension. Boston has plenty of locations to drop down labs.
 
Equilibria

Equilibria

Senior Member
Joined
May 6, 2007
Messages
6,450
Reaction score
6,420
shmessy said:
I'm more than fine with old industrial areas converting to lab space. Bring it on!

I am NOT ok with labs going up in Kenmore Square or along the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Where the hell is the idea of urban context with the BPDA? How the hell did they greenlight Whoop and the lab across from the new State Street HQ? This municipal planning cluelessness is a fumble of historic dimension. Boston has plenty of locations to drop down labs.
Click to expand...
If labs are the only office people will actually inhabit going forward, then their presence is necessary if Kenmore and Downtown aren't going to be bedroom communities.
 
S

shmessy

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2010
Messages
2,989
Reaction score
2,966
Equilibria said:
If labs are the only office people will actually inhabit going forward, then their presence is necessary if Kenmore and Downtown aren't going to be bedroom communities.
Click to expand...
You write as if Boston has no depth of options - - as if it was one of those Amazon HQ2 contestant cities a few years ago who made spectacles of themselves and would have given Bezos every citizen's first born.

No. It's not "Either Or". For Boston, it's "We can chew gum and walk at the same time".

Labs are not the ONLY thing in demand. Something called HOUSING?

Boston/Cambridge/Somerville should be building tall residential skyscrapers in core areas (unheard of??? it's already happening - - see the D.1.0 res tower going up in Union Square or the about-to-be "tallest building in Cambridge". Labs are fine for Alewife, parts of Allston/Brighton, parts of Watertown, Suffolk Downs, Seaport Marine Terminal, etc.

So when you present the picture of : "If labs are the only office people will actually inhabit going forward, then their presence is necessary if Kenmore and Downtown aren't going to be bedroom communities." The first 12 words are already arguable. Because

1) workers are ALREADY returning (50-65%) to offices
and
2) Boston doesn't NEED offices to survive - - those buildings -and many more - can be residential......there is a demographic tsunami of Baby Boomers living longer/more active retirements and they want to be downtown and they want more restaurants/theatres/music venues/museums etc. Boston will become a 24/7 city that is FAR MORE vibrant and dynamic than a 9-5 commuter center.

Understand what a lab is in the urban sense. They destroy urban dynamism. I LOVE labs, hope more are built in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville, etc. and feel they are important IN THE PROPER urban planning locations....... "NOT FOR THE FREEDOM TRAIL."

Panicking and throwing in with building an inner core Ghost Town of labs is frankly a pants pissing act a Peoria or Allentown would have to resort to.
 
Last edited:
B

bigpicture7

Senior Member
Joined
May 5, 2016
Messages
3,130
Reaction score
5,649
shmessy said:
You write as if Boston has no depth of options - - as if it was one of those Amazon HQ2 contestant cities a few years ago who made spectacles of themselves and would have given Bezos every citizen's first born.

No. It's not "Either Or". For Boston, it's "We can chew gum and walk at the same time".

Labs are not the ONLY thing in demand. Something called HOUSING?

Boston/Cambridge/Somerville should be building tall residential skyscrapers in core areas (unheard of??? it's already happening - - see the D.1.0 res tower going up in Union Square or the about-to-be "tallest building in Cambridge". Labs are fine for Alewife, parts of Allston/Brighton, parts of Watertown, Suffolk Downs, Seaport Marine Terminal, etc.

So when you present the picture of : "If labs are the only office people will actually inhabit going forward, then their presence is necessary if Kenmore and Downtown aren't going to be bedroom communities." The first 12 words are already arguable. Because

1) workers are ALREADY returning (50-65%) to offices
and
2) Boston doesn't NEED offices to survive - - those buildings -and many more - can be residential......there is a demographic tsunami of Baby Boomers living longer/more active retirements and they want to be downtown and they want more restaurants/theatres/music venues/museums etc. Boston will become a 24/7 city that is FAR MORE vibrant and dynamic than a 9-5 commuter center.

Understand what a lab is in the urban sense. They destroy urban dynamism. I LOVE labs, hope more are built in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville, etc. and feel they are important IN THE PROPER urban planning locations....... "NOT FOR THE FREEDOM TRAIL."

Panicking and throwing in with building an inner core Ghost Town of labs is frankly a pants pissing act a Peoria or Allentown would have to resort to.
Click to expand...
Shmessy, I hear you, but I see things slightly differently. Yes: to the right building on the right parcel. Yes: to much more housing woven in to the existing urban fabric.

But here's my additional perspective. The thing that's better than simply more housing in the city is: more housing integral to live/work/play community development. Labs are staffed by people. Where are those people going to live?--how cool would it be if they lived nearby? Right now, the lab-centric areas of the metro have a reputation of being "dead after 5pm and on weekends." I would like to see labs, housing, recreation/entertainment co-existing. What's vexing about that is that lab buildings have been atrocious - I agree 100% on that observation. But the interesting question to me is: do they have to be? Why can't Boston be the petri dish for experiments on whether lab facilities really can be integrated into the urban fabric? We do have a couple of examples of lab facilities well integrated, IMO. One is specifically Ames St. in Kendall, where the massive Broad Institute expansion is aesthetically decent and with a really nice ground level. That short 1-block stretch of street has a large residential building directly across from it, a florist shop, a bank, three coffee shops, and three restaurants. It's decent urbanism. One can argue that portions of the Longwood Medical area (which is actually filled with research labs, including metro Boston's tallest lab) has pockets of decent urbanism.

The way I'd reframe the problem is that we're seeing a glut of lazy lab designs with little attempt at lab-urbanism. We need to demand that change if labs are going to be part of city core of Boston. But I am open to (and intrigued about) the possibility. It could truly become a model, if done right. But the risk tied to failure is especially great as well.
 
Last edited:
S

shmessy

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2010
Messages
2,989
Reaction score
2,966
bigpicture7 said:
Shmessy, I hear you, but I see things slightly differently. Yes: to the right building on the right parcel. Yes: to much more housing woven in to the existing urban fabric.

But here's my additional perspective. The thing that's better than simply more housing in the city is: more housing integral to live/work/play community development. Labs are staffed by people. Where are those people going to live?--how cool would it be if they lived nearby? Right now, the lab-centric areas of the metro have a reputation of being "dead after 5pm and on weekends." I would like to see labs, housing, recreation/entertainment co-existing. What's vexing about that is that lab buildings have been atrocious - I agree 100% on that observation. But the interesting question to me is: do they have to be? Why can't Boston be the petri dish for experiments on whether lab facilities really can be integrated into the urban fabric? We do have a couple of examples of lab facilities well integrated, IMO. One is specifically Ames St. in Kendall, where the massive Broad Institute expansion is aesthetically decent and with a really nice ground level. That short 1-block stretch of street has a large residential building directly across from it, a florist shop, a bank, three coffee shops, and three restaurants. It's decent urbanism. One can argue that portions of the Longwood Medical area (which is actually filled with research labs, including metro Boston's tallest lab) has pockets of decent urbanism.

The way I'd reframe the problem is that we're seeing a glut of lazy lab designs with little attempt at lab-urbanism. We need to demand that change if labs are going to be part of city core of Boston. But I am open to (and intrigued about) the possibility. It could truly become a model, if done right. But the risk tied to failure is especially great as well.
Click to expand...
I think that's a wonderful vision, BP7, but the reality is difficult for that.

Labs tend to aggregate near other labs for a reason. Biotech/pharma want their scientists (for good reason) to bump into each other and comingle. Labs very rarely tend to be "one offs" for very long. This is why when a lab pioneers in Kenmore or somewhere along the Freedom Trail, it is an ominous portending for the future.

I certainly hope the model changes more in the direction of which you speak. If integrated into a residential/dynamic area, I would hope that the ratio of lab to dynamic urban 24/7 development is heavier on the latter. So far, all too often, it is heavier towards the former - - and that kills the dynamism of an area.
 
S

stellarfun

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2006
Messages
5,499
Reaction score
1,132
Vertex leases 22 Drydock Ave.

....Employees will gather on Tuesday to celebrate the opening of a four-story, 267,000-square-foot facility at 6 Tide St. in the Ray Flynn industrial park, about a mile from the corporate headquarters on Fan Pier. But that’s just the start: Vertex is also announcing plans to occupy almost all of a seven-floor, 344,000-square-foot building to be built across the street, at 22 Drydock Ave. The entire complex will be named the Jeffrey Leiden Center for Cell and Genetic Therapies, with two buildings known internally simply as “Leiden 1″ and “Leiden 2.” The campus is being developed by Related Beal and Kavanagh Advisory Group.

Nearly 400 people work in the first building. Another 500 will work in the second, once it is fully occupied. Leiden said about 700 of these jobs would be new to Boston. Vertex currently employs about 2,600 people at Fan Pier, as well as 90 at an existing plant in the industrial park, and 75 in Cambridge.
Click to expand...
www.bostonglobe.com

Vertex doubles down on Seaport lab space - The Boston Globe

Now that Vertex is getting closer to commercializing its cutting-edge cell and gene therapies, it will have an ambitious manufacturing and research campus to its ambitious vision.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
 
A

Arborway

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2008
Messages
1,119
Reaction score
39
I feel like that design got very far along before someone remembered they needed to put a huge Alucobond frame around the windows to give it that stale colossal order touch.
 
fattony

fattony

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2013
Messages
2,079
Reaction score
436
With so little retail and the way it is oriented, these plazas are going to be empty or utilized exclusively by people working in the building. I hope there is some pushback to demand something better than “underutilized outdoor corporate lunchroom”. This is pretty disappointing.
 
M

millerm277

Active Member
Joined
Jun 25, 2013
Messages
405
Reaction score
352
fattony said:
With so little retail and the way it is oriented, these plazas are going to be empty or utilized exclusively by people working in the building. I hope there is some pushback to demand something better than “underutilized outdoor corporate lunchroom”. This is pretty disappointing.
Click to expand...
I mean, I don't think what you want is legal to build here.

This is still in the Marine Industrial Park. Usage is AFAIK required to be industrial/adjacent.

It's specifically called out in the planning documents for the entire area that any retail expansions should only be to serve the unmet needs of employees on-site or for manufacturing operations that want to also sell direct.

They specifically appear to not want to create an environment that will invite people to just come hang out in the general area or to in general be the kind of activated urban streetscape seen elsewhere - and I don't think they're allowed to make it one from a state regulatory/land use perspective, either.

"Allowance for additional retail in this area should be measured by ensuring that it serves the employees on-site rather than creating a destination retail environment." - p.47 RFLMP Master Plan - https://www.bostonplans.org/getattachment/1ce2cf5d-303a-4e68-a8aa-09d727b1c11a
 
dhawkins

dhawkins

Active Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
539
Reaction score
1,656
millerm277 said:
I mean, I don't think what you want is legal to build here.

This is still in the Marine Industrial Park. Usage is AFAIK required to be industrial/adjacent.

It's specifically called out in the planning documents for the entire area that any retail expansions should only be to serve the unmet needs of employees on-site or for manufacturing operations that want to also sell direct.

They specifically appear to not want to create an environment that will invite people to just come hang out in the general area or to in general be the kind of activated urban streetscape seen elsewhere - and I don't think they're allowed to make it one from a state regulatory/land use perspective, either.

"Allowance for additional retail in this area should be measured by ensuring that it serves the employees on-site rather than creating a destination retail environment." - p.47 RFLMP Master Plan - https://www.bostonplans.org/getattachment/1ce2cf5d-303a-4e68-a8aa-09d727b1c11a
Click to expand...
This district has always been an industrial/ distribution warehouse waterfront, now a bit of an industrial "business" park with the marine field only caveat. I agree that this area should not be retail. You don't want K-mart shoppers navigating this area with so much truck traffic. Even the showrooms in the design center have signs that indicate "Trade people only". The rendering of the corporate types on the roof top deck is a bit over the top. There is literally only 2 months out of the year that this would be a good spot for a party between the wind, rain, fog. Never mind low tide smell and airplanes overhead.
 
D

Desire Path

New member
Joined
Feb 13, 2023
Messages
7
Reaction score
9
The Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park Master Plan is a unique plan that is ultimately under political control by the Mass Department of Environmental Protection and the area is specifically zoned industrial. In fact, the businesses which reside within this zone must conform to "marine industrial in nature". I think we can all see that this isn't really happening, but it's a reasonable standard to promote.

With that being said, I am in favor of a significant (and more prominent/permanent) update to the Leader Bank Pavilion for this area. It's a decent but underutilized venue.
 
Equilibria

Equilibria

Senior Member
Joined
May 6, 2007
Messages
6,450
Reaction score
6,420
You must log in or register to reply here.

Top