MXD Residential Tower | 121 Broadway | Kendall Square

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......"conditionally".

Cambridge is finally putting on it's "big boy pants".


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Great reference, RW. There are only a few of us who remember the *nightmare* that was. My, for a few nights that crown show was really something (and it was before most of CX had anything on it, so it was a true solo performance)!

This is the same city and neighborhood that flipped out over the crown lighting on the Zinc Apartments.
 
View attachment 23398 ......"conditionally"


View attachment 23399

***Nice to hear they appreciate how well the tower is designed and no calls to chop it down.***

“Planning board member Hugh Russell described the proposal as “very distinguished.”
“This has reached a rarely, rarely achieved level of design,” added Barry Zevin, a member of the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority board. “It’s really, really good.”


***Construction starting this year! The party still isnt over!***

“The company forecasts starting work on the residential tower and one of the Binney Street labs by late this year and wrapping up in mid-2027. Construction on the second Binney Street lab would start in early 2024 and finish in mid-2028.
 
***Nice to hear they appreciate how well the tower is designed and no calls to chop it down.***

“Planning board member Hugh Russell described the proposal as “very distinguished.”
“This has reached a rarely, rarely achieved level of design,” added Barry Zevin, a member of the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority board. “It’s really, really good.”


***Construction starting this year! The party still isnt over!***

“The company forecasts starting work on the residential tower and one of the Binney Street labs by late this year and wrapping up in mid-2027. Construction on the second Binney Street lab would start in early 2024 and finish in mid-2028.
Wow, that is great news, And the tower does look fantastic.
 
Incidentally, this will be the first building in Cambridge/Somerville/Everett to pass Monarch Place in Springfield to become the tallest in MA outside of Boston. It won't be the tallest in New England outside of Boston - Hartford has several over 500'.
 
What I love about this project is that it reflects how recent (and, frankly, thoughtful) policy is supposed to work: a key piece of Cambridge's "MXD" philosophy is that if you're going to build any type of non-housing facility, you need to also build an appropriate amount of housing coincidentally and nearby so that what you're building doesn't add further strain to infrastructure, transit, traffic, and housing market. BXP wants to build commercial buildings, but was obliged to build this. And to come up with a meaningful number of housing offset units, they needed to go tall since there's barely any space in Kendall. Yet the processes in place resulted in an aesthetically pleasing and well integrated design. I hope this development proceeds as planned, thrives, and is taken seriously by others (in terms of precedent).
 
Nice to see, but I think they have to build the whole substation first.

Not quite...
BXP reports a 2023-2026 timeline for the 135 Broadway tower construction: https://courbanize.com/projects/mxdsubstationdevelopment/events

^Within above, "substation vault" is being built 2023 - 2025, and "substation fit out" is 2025 - 2029.

So I interpret this as groundworks/excavation/foundation will be done at approximately the same time for the substation and for the tower, with the tower vertical construction proceeding as the substation is being fitted out internally.

This makes sense because, per plans, there is zero overlap between the footprint of the tower and that of the transformer vault for the substation. They are adjacent rather than atop one another.
 
Based somewhat on the timeframe for the Government Center garage demo, this could take awhile. I wish they had an empty lot to work with. I’m very excited to see this building rise.
 
There also isn't a road (or subway?) running directly beneath it. Plus it's a much smaller and shorter garage than GC. So smaller, less obstacles, and no piece(s) of it that needs to be carefully saved and incorporated into the upcoming development.
 
Imo this has the potential to be one of the most attractive towers in the whole city. To me it looks like a shorter cross between 1 dalton and millennium place. It has the triangular shape of 1 dalton with the ribs across the facade like MT. Huge win.

It will be THE most attractive tower in the whole city.... of Cambridge!
 

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