L Street Station Redevelopment (née Old Edison Plant)| 776 Summer Street | South Boston

meddlepal said:
The first thing to realize is nobody actually cares about the housing crisis. It's political lip service to capture the renter voting-bloc during elections.
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Or to put it even more cynically, home/condo-owners don't want anything that could lower the value of their investments!
 
JeffDowntown said:
This particular site was never going to get all that housing. The Massport easement says ZERO housing, so getting any is a win.
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Sure, but at the same time, the article states that office space in this development is going from 340,000 sqft in 2017 to over 524,000+ now. Taken with the cut in residential units, isn't that completely bass-ackwards given the new future post-COVID/remote telecommuting?????????

In reference to the old Gretzky quote - - these folks are following the wrong puck.
 
JumboBuc said:
Or to put it even more cynically, home/condo-owners don't want anything that could lower the value of their investments!
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Is that more cynical? I think the cynical thing here is that our leaders are all landed gentry rather than renters themselves, which is why they don't care that the city is wildly unaffordable.
 
Given the concerns about traffic in this area (sort of legitimate given how over-taxed the bus lines are) switching to office is foolish--that's going to create way more traffic impact, even if we permanently switch to a much heavier WFH balance. Having all residential along East First was a nice way to pull the neighborhood into this huge development. Now it feels much more like East First is the edge of the neighborhood and this is the beginning of the Seaport.

shmessy said:
Sure, but at the same time, the article states that office space in this development is going from 340,000 sqft in 2017 to over 524,000+ now. Taken with the cut in residential units, isn't that completely bass-ackwards given the new future post-COVID/remote telecommuting?????????

In reference to the old Gretzky quote - - these folks are following the wrong puck.
Click to expand...
 
estyle said:
Given the concerns about traffic in this area (sort of legitimate given how over-taxed the bus lines are) switching to office is foolish--that's going to create way more traffic impact, even if we permanently switch to a much heavier WFH balance. Having all residential along East First was a nice way to pull the neighborhood into this huge development. Now it feels much more like East First is the edge of the neighborhood and this is the beginning of the Seaport.
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Right, that's how you knew the whole thing was NIMBY bs. The way to reduce traffic demand is housing --- the new residents would walk or take the bus to work. Now we'll have a lot of office, far enough from transit that many will drive.
 
schwein said:
Also sounds like they gave up the rights for a resident sticker for those 636 units.
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Really?? What sense does that make, I assume there is street parking as part of the development?
 
NIMBYs, mostly old timers, are convinced that all newcomers want to drive, a lot. So trading away the ability to get street parking is typical in horse trading for development.

Is it pretty? no.

Might it be effective? maybe.

Of course, including parking in all the new buildings induces demand for vehicles (and new parking is substantially underutilized, studies show), so that's the real problem....
 
They really need to be thinking about a light rail extension here with this. It's a massive project and I don't see viable commuting patterns to downtown other than driving
 
The 7 bus stops a couple times right outside and is then just a short ride to downtown down Summer St. The project is funding improved bus service, which is good, as the 7 is already very busy. There's proposals for bus lanes on Summer St, too.

The bigger issue to my mind is putting offices here --- it's not easily commutable from elsewhere in the city or the suburbs and will invite new drivers in.
 
Massachoicetts said:
They really need to be thinking about a light rail extension here with this. It's a massive project and I don't see viable commuting patterns to downtown other than driving
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Massachoicetts -- you are still using pre-Pandemic models
Commuting is a totally different animal now as is "Downtown"

A lot of what we came to consider normal city activity is gone for now and to a large extent gone for good. No one will ever again need to fill an office tower with people sitting at desks -- a lot of those kinds of jobs will be work from home or from some sort of "work-place" located near to home
As a result -- there wont be any return to the crowds of people commuting to office jobs -- even January last year will seem another era

Now labs and manufacturing are a different category -- but they have often have different timetables and so the "rush hour" will just be qualitatively different
 
whighlander said:
Massachoicetts -- you are still using pre-Pandemic models
Commuting is a totally different animal now as is "Downtown"

A lot of what we came to consider normal city activity is gone for now and to a large extent gone for good. No one will ever again need to fill an office tower with people sitting at desks -- a lot of those kinds of jobs will be work from home or from some sort of "work-place" located near to home
As a result -- there wont be any return to the crowds of people commuting to office jobs -- even January last year will seem another era

Now labs and manufacturing are a different category -- but they have often have different timetables and so the "rush hour" will just be qualitatively different
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This conclusion about future office use, in particular the absolutism in it, is highly premature. With what limited insight we have now, cities are more likely than not to remain a nucleus of knowledge work with substantive in-person activity.
 
bigpicture7 said:
This conclusion about future office use, in particular the absolutism in it, is highly premature. With what limited insight we have now, cities are more likely than not to remain a nucleus of knowledge work activity.
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Yes -- that is a key city advantage -- but the old idea of hoards of people pouring out of the Amazons and Google's to share a pint or two -- not clear that model isn't obsolete
For instance -- a lot of Google jobs are staying for now virtual and many of them will likely remain virtual with just the occasional "big huddle" which doesn't work out well remotely
 
whighlander said:
Massachoicetts -- you are still using pre-Pandemic models
Commuting is a totally different animal now as is "Downtown"

A lot of what we came to consider normal city activity is gone for now and to a large extent gone for good. No one will ever again need to fill an office tower with people sitting at desks -- a lot of those kinds of jobs will be work from home or from some sort of "work-place" located near to home
As a result -- there wont be any return to the crowds of people commuting to office jobs -- even January last year will seem another era

Now labs and manufacturing are a different category -- but they have often have different timetables and so the "rush hour" will just be qualitatively different
Click to expand...

We will have to see what post pandemic brings but to say people won't head downtown for work, school, bar, etc is just plain wrong.
 
whighlander said:
...the old idea of hoards of people pouring out of the Amazons and Google's to share a pint or two -- not clear that model isn't obsolete
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...or, that very desire (need) to socialize and commiserate with one's colleagues could be one from among the core reasons continuing to pull people into the city office with some regularity. Most people didn't go to the bar 5 days a week pre-pandemic anyway, and many (perhaps more than were counted) worked from home with regularity pre-pandemic as well. No one knows the answer yet, but I'd say near-pre-pandemic levels of congestion are just as likely as not.
 
There seems to be a belief that residential is more of an impact on traffic despite tons of evidence that commercial/office uses generate more trips. The push to decrease residential on this site is just increasing the traffic problems. An the T continuing to cut isn't helping anything.

curcuas said:
The 7 bus stops a couple times right outside and is then just a short ride to downtown down Summer St. The project is funding improved bus service, which is good, as the 7 is already very busy. There's proposals for bus lanes on Summer St, too.

The bigger issue to my mind is putting offices here --- it's not easily commutable from elsewhere in the city or the suburbs and will invite new drivers in.
Click to expand...
 
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