Legacy Place | Dedham

Went to Legacy Place on Friday. Drove in the main entrance off Rt 1. Drove the wrong way out of a service entrance 15 minutes later. I hadn't even made it to one of the parking lots. Total gridlock, zero circulation. Not sure if all the spots were full or if the traffic flow was just terribly designed but it was a disaster.
 
czsz said:
There's a giant ass free parking lot for Dedham Center next to Route 1. The town is competing against the novelty factor of this new mall. In the long term Dedham Center's survival is more guaranteed, though - Legacy Place is both aesthetically bankrupt and cold as fuck in winter. Once people realize they could shop in a real town center (where the cafe tables would face actual streets and not parking lots, if the restaurants in Dedham Center, which are actually doing quite well, had the foresight to install them) or a climate-controlled mall, Legacy Place will quickly lose its luster.
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This post, while making some nice points, completely ignores the reason why most people choose to shop at Legacy Place over town centers like Dedham. It's the stores people. Is there a Whole Foods in Dedham Center? Is there an LL Bean? Is there a bowling alley? Is there a Legal Seafood? Sure people might one day realize again that they "can shop in a real town center" but will they if they can't shop at the stores that they want to? I doubt it.
 
AmericanFolkLegend said:
Went to Legacy Place on Friday. Drove in the main entrance off Rt 1. Drove the wrong way out of a service entrance 15 minutes later. I hadn't even made it to one of the parking lots. Total gridlock, zero circulation. Not sure if all the spots were full or if the traffic flow was just terribly designed but it was a disaster.
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But wasn't it worth it to walk along its freezing loggia just like a real town but with more upper middle class chains that people who hate chains love!?

By which I mean to respond to BosDevelop: Whole Foods today is what Starbucks was in the late 90s: the chattering classes favor it now, but it'll all be too "common", and the novelty will have worn off, in time.

The town centers seem far more capable of nurturing independent retailers and restaurants and turning into long term destinations as their surroundings gentrify. Needham Center up the road has flourished by welcoming restaurants that were priced out of Wellesley, and they got a boost as the town's median income grew. A lot of restaurants have opened in Dedham Center for the same reason - and that town has the advantage of an indy cinema in walking distance from them (Needham stupidly demolished its). Aquitaine won't seem special forever, and can't handle as much nightlife by itself as the collective potential of Dedham Center.

To bring this together and expand: the town centers' greatest asset is their diversity. There's only so much at Legacy Place. Dedhamites can walk to Dedham Center; no one can walk to Legacy Place - it has no residential component. There's a courthouse and county offices in Dedham Center that aren't going anywhere. There's always something new and interesting in Dedham Center, but not many independents can enter into leases at more expensive Legacy Place, which is primarily a collection of stores that most people have seen before. And what Legacy Place has that Dedham Center lacks - Whole Foods, for example - Dedham Center was never trying to compete with other suburban retail centers with over anyway.

Just remember, the Dedham Mall (also the future of retailing, in its day) died while Dedham Center survived.
 
czsz said:
There's a giant ass free parking lot for Dedham Center next to Route 1. The town is competing against the novelty factor of this new mall. In the long term Dedham Center's survival is more guaranteed, though - Legacy Place is both aesthetically bankrupt and cold as fuck in winter. Once people realize they could shop in a real town center (where the cafe tables would face actual streets and not parking lots, if the restaurants in Dedham Center, which are actually doing quite well, had the foresight to install them) or a climate-controlled mall, Legacy Place will quickly lose its luster.
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That parking lot is slated for redevelopment.

PDF on the planning.

http://www.dedhamsquarecircle.com/index.cfm?pk=download&id=10738&pid=10330
 
All the lots in that report are labeled "parking and/or redevelopment" so I assume they'll be keeping the amount of parking constant or even expanding it as/if they proceed with this.
 
Ok everyone, get your cameras out! We have a new development to follow. I want pictures of every stage of this exciting new project!

Boston.com - July 14, 2010
Legacy Place gets OK for 12-acre employee parking lot

By Michele Morgan Bolton, Town Correspondent

The Dedham Zoning Board of Appeals has granted a request by the developers of Legacy Place for the special permits needed to designate a large employee parking lot at 500 Commercial Circle.

The 12.08-acre parcel is located in a research, development, and office district, as well as in a flood plan overlay district, and has already been paved, lighted, and fenced, according to a report by the zoning board.

Access to the lot is via Legacy Place Boulevard, formerly known as Enterprise Drive.

In one of those typical planning and zoning technicalities, the applicant had received a special permit previously designating the area as a principal use, or a lot to be used by customers. The Dedham Planning Board granted a ?Certificate of Action on Application for Off-Street Parking Plan Approval,? and the lot was constructed in accordance with such approval, according to the decision.

But developers said they needed another special permit because the original application requested use of the parking lot for ?new? vehicles only, meaning those of shoppers patronizing the lifestyle center on an occasional or one-time basis.

The cars of employees are not new, officials pointed out, as they are already arriving at the center every day.

No one appeared at a May public hearing to speak either for or against the application, and this week zoning officials said applicants have satisfied the requirements under the Dedham Zoning By-Law and proven that the proposed use will not outweigh its beneficial impacts on the town and neighborhood.

A spokesman for WS Development, which has partnered with National Amusements on the 675,000-square-foot, open-air mall, said the move to create more parking has been partly predicated by necessity.

"We expect the lot to be dedicated to employee use, especially during peak periods, to maximize available parking on-site for customers,'' David Fleming said. "This is a result of the continued success of the shopping center, and our goal to make the visit to Legacy Place as convenient as possible."

Michele Morgan Bolton can be reached at mmbolton1@verizon.net.
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It sounds like the lot is already there; this is just a technicality of zoning to allow employees to park there as opposed to shoppers.

So, looks like you'll have to get into your time machine to watch this beauty go up.
 
^^What? You expect me to actually read the shit I post here? Ha.
 
We can still have our cameras ready for the ribbon cutting.
 
Adjacent to Legacy place.

Eagle-DIOR-Rendering.jpg

“EagleBridge Capital Arranges $17.86 Million Mortgage Financing for the Dior Dedham”
https://bostonrealestatetimes.com/eaglebridge-capital-arranges-17-86-million-mortgage-financing-for-the-dior-dedham/
 
Legacy Place is a commercial success (or so it would seem) but such a missed opportunity. Why are the three or four hotels in the immediate area set so far away? Why is there is there no integration with the housing developments (Avalon and Jefferson) and no clear path to the Commuter Rail?
 
Well for starters, they are all separate developments that were proposed and completed at different times by different developers. There is a hotel site within Legacy that has never been built because the numbers don't work and probably never will.

There is also a walking path that goes from Avalon to the back of the cinema/yard house area and then continues on through the Jefferson parking lot and to the train station. The hotels are all much older than Legacy Place (think the 1990s or earlier in the case of the Holiday Inn) and they aren't on the same side of the street. I think this is a scenario where the project as a whole was a huge success. They could have integrated more housing ontop of the retail but at the end of the day, Legacy place is a light years ahead of the old cinema and massive parking lots that were there before.
 
Thanks for the context - makes sense - but like everything else along the route 1 corridor, just a little bit of prior planning could have made a big difference in how this whole area came together.
 
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