MXD Residential Tower | 121 Broadway | Kendall Square

BeeLine said:
BBJ article about sub station. Sorry paywall.
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No need to undersell it, BeeLine. LOL

It's about a partnership between Eversource and Boston Properties to redevelop the parking garage here. Electricity demand at Kendall is high (predictable), so Eversource wants to bury a supplemental substation 107 feet underground, and Boston Properties would cover it with a park in the center of existing garage footprint, a 250' tall commercial building facing Binney, and a 400' residential tower facing Broadway. New parking garage would be constructed 85' underground.

FWIW, I encourage forum members to subscribe to Boston Business Journal and Boston Globe if they don't already. The content is excellent.
 
What was also new, to me, was that they would be demolishing 250 Binney St and replace it with an 85 foot deep underground garage and a second 250' (?) commercial building.
 
BeeLine said:
What was also new, to me, was that they would be demolishing 250 Binney St and replace it with an 85 foot deep underground garage and a second 250' (?) commercial building.
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250 Binney is a non-descript, low slung, 2-story brick building with a very large footprint. Replacing that with a 20+ story building while demolishing the garage across the street and burying it underneath this building, while adding on a park in its stead will be a helluva nice trade!

Putting the park inside the two new taller buildings on the other side of 250 Binney (bookending the new park) makes for a very efficient and denser upgrade!

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If that 400 footer will be facing Broadway, then that will make for an incredible street wall. The fact is it means 35+ floors of residential for the increasingly dense human beehive in Kendall. I can't wait for this!
 
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courbanize.com

Kendall Square: MXD Substation Development Plan

A vibrant mixed-use development supporting long-term investment in critical electrical infrastructure.
courbanize.com courbanize.com

From this excellent piece, it seems that not only are they demolishing and burying the garage, but they are rotating it 90 degrees to traverse the small alley street between 250 and 272 Binney (in the slides, BOTH sides of the street have 85 foot depth underground parking).
 
Updates posted today in advance of 5/18 planning board meeting:

Document is more focused on the subterranean power substation (which needs to come first anyhow) but also provides an update on the proposed tower. Max is still listed as 400'.

mx1.png


Full docs are here:
https://www.cambridgema.gov/specialpermits/pb315
 
393b40 said:
I thought that was a (weird) Boston thing. Not sure what the Cambridge rules are. I like Variant #2 massing the most.
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Keep in mind that 250' height limit covering most of Kendall typically results in towers around 280'-295', including the Marriott, first MXD, Ames residential, giant lab across from Ames residential, Boeing MIT building, and that MIT building currently being clad with the beige cladding and double height windows. If the strict limit was inclusive of the mech tops, all these buildings would have been 30-50' shorter than their actual heights.
 
393b40 said:
I thought that was a (weird) Boston thing. Not sure what the Cambridge rules are. I like Variant #2 massing the most.
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Agree. 3 is very reminiscent of 30 Prospect in Union Square, and massing should make sense. Two of these are just random.
 
393b40 said:
I thought that was a (weird) Boston thing. Not sure what the Cambridge rules are. I like Variant #2 massing the most.
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Confirmed that the 400' does not include mechanical. A new application amendment just posted to the planning board site. This is going to planning board review on 9/28.
Graphics are all still just at the massing level of detail, per the posting (Graphics Part 1).

mxd1.png


mxd2.png
 
mechanical looks like its about 3 stories tall, so somewhere in the 430-450 ft ballpark total height?
 
Here's a bit of refreshing news: a developer in Cambridge that added density and quantity of housing units as part of the design process:

The developer Boston Properties plans to build 465 apartments at its 135 Broadway tower in Kendall Square, up from 425, in a change coming to the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority for review on Wednesday.
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