Lofts at Lower Mills

Lower Mills will thrive as a Transit Oriented Development Site

  • Yes, future is bright

    Votes: 12 50.0%

  • Yes, but will be agonizingly slow development

    Votes: 6 25.0%

  • Maybe, will wait and see

    Votes: 4 16.7%

  • No

    Votes: 2 8.3%
  • Total voters
    24
Jamaica Plain is also a disparate neighborhood with some higher-crime areas like Jackson and Egleston squares. But they don't seem to hurt the 'brand'. Maybe most people instead associate JP with the Jamaicaway, Jamaica Pond, JP Licks ice cream, the Arboretum, and the picturesque Centre-South Street commercial district.
 
Ron Newman said:
Jamaica Plain is also a disparate neighborhood with some higher-crime areas like Jackson and Egleston squares. But they don't seem to hurt the 'brand'. Maybe most people instead associate JP with the Jamaicaway, Jamaica Pond, JP Licks ice cream, the Arboretum, and the picturesque Centre-South Street commercial district.
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I have to disagree.. I grew up in JP and lived there during my college years, close to center street across from the pond. It is a beautiful area. However when I told friends from my univerisity where I lived, they would ask "arent you scared?" "can you hear gun shots from your house?" I've always felt like JP has had a bad rep. even though it's just the area around the JP project housing that is really a problem, and that makes up such a small percent of JP.

I do think Dorchestor also has a bad rep.. horrible even. If you say you live in dorchestor, ppl will automatically assume you live in an awful area. I have to admit even I had a preconceived notion of Dorchestor. And although i've lived in Boston for most of my life, I know nothing of the Lower Mills area. Now I am looking into an apartment there, in a historic renovated building in Lower Mills. The price is great and i hope it isnt too good to be true. Is this really a safe, kid-friendly area?? :confused:
 
As my member name may indicate, I live in Milton and may be biased. Lower Mills, the area around the chocolate factory specifically, is quite safe. It borders Milton and doesn't have much at all in common with the rough parts of Dorcester. The chocolate factory condos are nice and tow smaller building have opened across the way that cantilver over the Neponset River. A new restaurant has opened in the 88 Wharf condo building about 300 yards away. Also a bar/restaurant called The Ledge recently opened on Dorcester Ave 300 yards the other way....always packed. There is a bike trail that runs along the Neponset to the fields/playground at Pope John Paul Park and easy access to Boston with the trolley line. Good cafes in Lower Mills as well; a new health club in the chocolate factory building. The Ice Creamsmith, variety of take-out options. Easy access to Bosotn via the trolley line, a pleasant ride. Since moving to Milton I've been very impressed with the development in this neighborhood and hopefully more to come. It also has a very cool feel inherent to it with the river adding so much character to the the place. Also the Central Ave district of Milton (about 1/4 mile away) is improving with some nice commercial development (cafe, bakery coming soon) as well as a condo development.
 
One thing I have no knowledge of is the public school options for anyone living in Lower Mills. If you have kids, this is obviously a large consideration.
 
Thank you, we are going to see the apartments at the Baker factory. Schools aren't an issue for us yet, our son is only 12 months old and stays home. We're planning to purchase a home in another year or so, and that's when we will be considering school systems. For now I'm just looking for a safe area.. a park nearby. Somewhere still with an urban feel, close to boston and reasonably priced.
 
If the mods think this is spam, then go ahead and delete the post, but there is a real estate agency in Dorchester that divided Dorchester into four regions - and then broke the data down based on these regions. It's amazing. Prices in the bad, western neighborhoods of Dorchester have lost all value, back down to 2000 levels. Prices in the good parts of Dorchester have actually increased slightly since 2007.

Dorchester is gigantic, you really can't generalize with questions like "is Dorchester safe?" or "Is Dorchester real estate doing well?" - the question itself is flawed.

This is the report:
http://www.justinboston.com/dorchester_real_estate_market_report/

What Dorchester needs is a rebranding. Each of the four sections should break up and rename themselves. This will help remove the stigma of "Dorchester" and better educate the people.

(Again, I just think this is a cool report and something very pertinent to this thread/discussion, if the moderators think it's too spammy or commercializing, go ahead and delete it, I have nothing to do with this company other than a few years back they sold me my house in Dorchester)
 
It doesn't sound like the improving neighborhoods are necessarily dragged down by their western counterparts...but conceptually severing these poorer neighborhoods from improving Dorchester might actually result in their loss of a beneficial association with a neighborhood seen on the rise.
 
I'm not a mod, but I'd like your post to stay. It's quite useful and informative.

Just because the name 'Dorchester' has a bad reputation now, is it doomed to be that way forever? I remember when 'Mission Hill' was considered the name of a dangerous place, rather than a neighborhood full of students and yuppies and Longwood Medical Area workers. 'South Boston' also has quite a different connotation now than when I first moved here.
 
My issue is more about the size of Dorchester than it's current bad name. Dorchester was once a city like Cambridge or Brookline that was annexed to Boston. So as Cambridge has vastly different sections, so too does the former city of Dorchester.

I live in a Victorian neighborhood of triple deckers. Lower Mills is brick-and-beam loft buildings. Ashmost is large, grandiose mansions on rolling lawns. Four Corners is apartment tenements.... every neighborhood is so unique and so different that it is tough to generalize and just call it all "Dorchester".

In my part of Dorchester, I'm actually closer to Beacon Hill than I am to other parts of Dorchester! It's that big.

I'm quite proud to say I live in Dorchester, but it's hard when such a wide swath of Boston goes by one loose, general name. A model that I like is how there is West Roxbury and Roxbury. For a land mass a huge as Dorchester, why not a "South, East, West, North" Dorchester?

We're getting a little off topic of Lower Mills - but in my mind, Lower Mills is a world away from my neighborhood in both distance and character... even though to the rest of the world it's all just "Dorchester"
 
don't forget me in beautiful "Dorchester Center" or is it Codman Sq or Melville Park or Shawmut section of Dot lol!
 
Should Dorchester development have it's own thread,Is it on here somewhere already? Today driveing down Dot Ave ,supermarket
014-8.jpg
unsure?
015-7.jpg
bad pix of this next one,
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again unsure what this is?
 
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