Malden + Melrose Infill and Small Developments

Re: Malden/Melrose

What. the. fudgesicles.

Ready to go into a rage here. I wish I could go to this SO bad, we need some people like us to be there tonight, it's going to be NIMBY-central.
 
Christenson Proposes Selling Malden City Hall

City Hall and downtown was a big topic in Malden's somewhat-recent mayoral election, and the new mayor, Gary Christenson, wants to do away with city hall. Will he go the way of Menino, or will he actually ditch his fortress?

Gary proposes to redevelop City Hall site into residential office and retail space similar to Station Landing and Oak Grove Village
Gary will reinvest proceeds from the sale of City Hall site to offset costs of essential municipal projects such as a new Police Station, East Side Fire Station and Public Works building
Gary will relocate City Hall departments to vacant office space in the downtown area
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http://www.christensonformayor.com/issues.html


I went to Malden City Hall today actually.... holy mother of God... What a craphole on the inside, just like the outside. The plaza as most of us know is just like Boston City Hall Plaza, a desolate brick void. Except it has grassy areas... and grass growing out of the bricks alot too... The city hall itself is a bit like Boston City Hall, as well, except instead of everything being cold, damp, and concrete... it's cold, damp, and brick. They desperately need to ditch this place and reconnect Pleasant St. I can't stress it enough. It's infuriating.
 
Re: Christenson Proposes Selling City Hall

As a former 20-year resident of Malden, I agree 100% with your observations and frustration on this place of crap. This building is the largest contributor to the current state of Malden Square(dollar stores & empty banks). This building is a fortress of shoppers going to the square. For anyone coming to the city from the T there's no way of even knowing anything was there http://robertdavidsullivan.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54ffb0bef88340133f52d74f4970b-popup. Even worst if your driving through or should I say driving around, you have to go through at least 3 stoplights just to enter the square.

Anytime it was necessary for me to go the building I would pray for a sunny day to allow for adequate light. When I would go to the T from high school which is a stone throw away I would be forced to pass through and I couldn't keep track of the number of times I've tripped going down the oddly spaced brick steps inside the building.

You would think the square of a city with 60,000 residents and next to a high school of nearly 2,000 students would be lively, but the only time there's people in the square is when people came out of their psych appointments and go to CVS to fill their meds.
 
Re: Malden/Melrose

Stone Place seems to be really flying ahead! Must definitely be on schedule.


I'm not sure how much I can offer up on the topic, but there's some big plans for Pleasant Street in downtown Malden. I'll do a run down of some public knowledge: Included are some street upgrades, including grinding down the road and polishing it off (it is concrete/cement, not asphalt), new street lighting (older style, pedestrian friendly gas-lamp looking type), replacing troublesome bricks in the sidewalk. This will happen in three phases, and is expected to start in April. If we have a warm winter, they'll complete the third segment of the street by the end of the year, possible. If not, completion is expected in spring/summer 2013. There's a bit more to it, too. It's kind of exciting, keep an eye out, I hope it all comes together perfectly.
 
Re: Malden/Melrose

As much as I'm glad to see the city do something with downtown, I'm afraid that unless Christenson can pull off his promise of selling and redeveloping City Hall this will amount to polishing a turd.

Pleasant St needs more than cosmetic fixes at this point.
 
Re: Malden/Melrose

As long as they keep Honey Fitz, they can do no wrong.
 
Re: Malden/Melrose

GW2500 said:
As long as they keep Honey Fitz, they can do no wrong.
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Hmm...

"Honey Fitz will be closing its doors for the final time on Saturday, January 28, 2012 after more than 10 years."

:rolleyes:

I *think* it's becoming some sort of small jazz club or comedy club type thing. Not positive. I'll get back to ya'.



statler said:
As much as I'm glad to see the city do something with downtown, I'm afraid that unless Christenson can pull off his promise of selling and redeveloping City Hall this will amount to polishing a turd.

Pleasant St needs more than cosmetic fixes at this point.
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The progress is actually outstanding at this point. Can't wait to give you guys something more concrete on it.
 
Re: Malden/Melrose

Has anyone been inside the newly restored Malden High auditorium?

I saw it for the first time tonight.

I was expecting 70's era run down wood panel affair but this was a very pleasant surprise.

True to it's Deco origin, and surprisingly grand for a high school.

Not really worth a trip to Malden for, but if you find yourself up this way and the school is open it's worth a peek.
 
Re: Malden/Melrose

From the actual Malden City Hall Website:

Pleasant Street to be Reconnected and Opened Up at City Hall
April 1, 2012



Mayor Christenson has made it a priority to address the relocation of Malden City Hall. "Times are tough economically so I really wasn't sure how we were going to pull it off but this is precisely the kind of Outside the Box thinking that I was after."

What Mayor Christenson is referring to is the decision for the City to partner with Buildevate Inc., a cutting edge architectural firm specializing in the relocation of buildings. Buildivate was the winner of a highly competitive bid process put out by the City to firms for the purpose of solving the big issue of our time; how do we relocate City Hall at the lowest cost to the taxpayers? The answer was easy for Buildevate. Having performed thousands of large-scale building relocations globally, Buildivate is far and away the industry leader and was the perfect choice for Malden.

Though Buildivate had performed many successful building relocations, very rarely has it been called to design the ever so tricky “Lift and Pass-through” restructuring method where a building is actually raised in place allowing for vehicles to pass underneath the structure.

The winning bid included plans to raise the existing structure 20 feet on to titanium support beams allowing for the free flow of traffic underneath the building and effectively reconnecting Pleasant Street. The new tunnel-like structure will accommodate four lanes of traffic. The total project cost will be $2,000,000, but the City of Malden will only be responsible for 87% of the total project cost with the State and Federal Government covering the remaining costs.

Mayor Christenson is currently exploring ideas to minimize the project costs. One idea that has been proposed is to have a small toll for passing underneath the building.
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This actually seemed almost plausible until the last line.

Not bad Christenson, not bad.
 
Re: Malden/Melrose

Judging from the Facebook reaction, I'm guessing this will be the last April Fools joke from his office
 
Re: Malden/Melrose

Malden Patch - April 24, 2012
Event Spotlight: Malden River Presentation To City Council Tonight
On Tuesday, April 24th, at 7:00 p.m., Tri-CAP, the Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA), the Boston Architectural College, as well as local “green” landscape designer, Clay Larsen, will lead a public presentation about the Malden River to the Malden City Council.

The presentation will build on the Malden River Design Forum event that the three organizations hosted in December at the Malden Public Library. This presentation will highlight existing environmental challenges on the river and opportunities for further developing the river into a community amenity. The public is encouraged to attend this presentation.

Event info and text provided by the organizers.
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Re: Malden/Melrose

At Stone Place, construction came to a halt. Chemicals and 'heavy metals' were found in a previously unknown crawl space under the old brick factory. Construction will proceed on the new construction, but the factory renovation will be slowed down a bit.
 
Re: Malden/Melrose

City of Malden (Official)
Stay tuned tonight at 7:00PM on MATV where Ron Cochran from Mayor Christenson's office will host The Malden Zone. This evening's guests include David Gamble from the Harvard Graduate School of Design to talk about urban planning for the City Hall site; Michael Messina, Malden resident and urban planning enthusiast to talk about crowd-sourcing urban planning; Peter Dunn of Stone Brown Design to talk about Malden's proximity to Boston via the MBTA; and Paul Abdella of Omnilite to talk about new LED street lights being installed in Malden.
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.
 
Re: Malden/Melrose

No, I think they will be discussing something completely different.
 
Re: Malden/Melrose

Being a resident of Malden, I was hoping they'd tear down the ugly city hall. Lifting it 20 feet will only make its ugliness more prominent. Though one solution would be to do what they did for centuries: paint the brick to resemble some other kind of stone, or maybe even include crennellations, quoins and fancy pediments over the windows.....

The other issue that has not been explored is the previous truncating of Pleasant Street on the other side of the Hall. Framed by the T station, Dunkin Donuts and the train trestle, it slithers forth past a badly treated French Second Empire home/business, a hairdressing school, a few forlorn shops only to be split in front of the Universalist church and end suddenly at the new Beebe School as a one-way going the wrong way.

Will the project really revitalize the street's businesses....given the depressed state of downtown and the number of dollar stores, I really wonder.
 
Re: Malden/Melrose

They are going to tear down city hall. Trust me, ask someone who was working in the mayor's office from Feb to the beginning of Sept, it's probably the #1 priority. But they can't dwell on it every day, it only advances so fast. There's also a pretty nifty courthouse in the works, it'll definitely change things for Middlesex County.
 
Re: Malden/Melrose

All I know, for saving Malden Sq. It takes way too much resources to try and knit south side of RT 60 with the north side. There's a better chance of meeting the goal with focusing on the north side. If it succeeds, then talks of reworking RT 60 can be done. Unless we can find a way to enlist the Fed or a private corporation with the cash for a Quincy-style super redo.
 
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