Natick Mall Expansion

bosdevelopment

bosdevelopment

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Has anyone driven by route 9 and the natick mall expansion? The cranes are enormous. The lot looks like a mid town Manhattan construction site. Literally. I'll try to get out there later this week so I can snap some photos to throw on here.
 
I know they are building two ten story condominium towers as part of the mall expansion. On an unrelated note, ever hear of the proposed Cloverleaf Apartments across Speen Street? It's suppose to be another ten stories.
 
A mall grows in Natick
Expansion mirrors community's evolution

By Emily Shartin and Lisa Kocian, Globe Staff | July 13, 2006

Before workers could begin building the new Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom department stores that will be the cornerstones of the retail expansion at the Natick Mall, they had to dig a gigantic hole.

They had to truck out a half-million cubic yards of dirt. And they had to drill special rods -- described by the construction manager as ``steel tendons" -- into the soil to hold the pit's walls in place.

The hole was crucial. With only a limited amount of property to work with, some of the mall's parking will have to be put underground. The new mall will extend vertically, rather than sprawl horizontally like other suburban shopping centers, many of which are surrounded by seas of parking lots.

It's a necessity when you're trying to pack about 1 million square feet of new space onto less than 15 acres of land.

``This is almost like you're dealing with downtown New York or Boston," said Jim Grant, vice president of development for General Growth Properties, which owns the mall.

``This is an urban construction project in the suburbs," added James Young, the company's director of construction management.

The men were speaking inside a spacious air-conditioned trailer that sits near the building recently vacated by Macy's and opens onto the construction site. A makeshift sign on the wall counted down the number of days until the mall's grand opening on Sept. 7, 2007. Outside, a series of cranes towered overhead. Each crane can put as many as 40 pieces of steel -- three truckloads -- in place a day, Young said.

The expanded mall is taking over the site of the former Wonder Bread factory. The steel skeleton of a corridor of about 100 new stores that will link the existing mall with the two new anchor stores is in the works. The project will also include a hotel and more than 200 condominiums in buildings as high as 14 stories that are expected to open in spring 2008.

About 250 workers are busy on the site, and Young expects as many as 500 once work on the interior begins. While piles of dirt and construction detritus still litter the site, the structure is starting to take shape. A series of enormous oval-shaped frames have already been installed to carry the skylights over the mall's main walkways.

In 1994, the Natick Mall underwent major renovations that increased its size from 725,000 square feet to its current 1.1 million square feet. The latest round of construction will increase it to 2.1 million square feet.

It will also transform the space into a haven for luxury shoppers. Developers are hoping to attract tenants similar to those in its Ala Moana Center in Honolulu -- which include Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Chanel -- to sit alongside the state's first Nordstrom.

Shoppers will be welcomed into another retail icon, Neiman Marcus, through a dramatic golden facade, meant to resemble the folds of a skirt, on Speen Street.

The arrival of the new ritzier mall says a lot about the way the area has changed over the past few decades. When the original one-story mall opened in 1966, the town was a working-class community. Now, the shopping mecca will sit in the middle of the second-most-affluent suburban market in the country, based on household incomes within a 10- mile radius, according to the mall's promotional materials.

The mall expansion represents one of the biggest changes that Selectman John Connolly has seen in his hometown. Connolly, 43, said he misses the fading blue-collar vibe he grew up with.

``With all the change it seems like we're losing a lot of the flavor that once was Natick," he said. ``To be honest, it is very sad. It bugs the hell out of me."

He said he doesn't have any particular beef with the mall but rather with the fast pace of change that the huge shopping center represents.

He noted that Natick is surrounded by some of the wealthiest communities in the state. According to data from the mall owners, the bordering communities of Weston and Dover have average household incomes of $245,000 and $211,000, respectively.

Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom may seem a far cry from the department stores in the existing mall: Sears, Lord & Taylor, Macy's, and an expected JC Penney. Developers say they are concerned about creating the appearance of two separate malls, and say they will try to meld the two by incorporating the same types of railings, floors, and landscaping on both sides. A teardrop-shaped court with a large fountain will join the old mall with the new.

``We wanted it to look as seamless as it could," Grant said.

The mall's new elegant, upscale attitude will be reflected in its new logo, a large script ``N." The ``mark," as Cathie Bryant , a General Growth vice president, calls it, was designed by a California firm and is meant to play off the mall's alliterative elements: Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Nouvelle (the name for the residential project), and, of course, Natick.

The shopping center also will no longer officially be called a ``mall," just ``Natick," owners said, in part because of the addition of the condos. ``It's almost like its own community," Bryant said.

Despite the recent trend toward ``lifestyle centers" -- open-air malls built to resemble small villages -- the International Council of Shopping Centers reports that traditional, enclosed malls are alive and well. Although the Natick Mall expansion has been in the works for several years, council spokeswoman Patrice Duker said, the recent merger of Federated Department Stores and May Department Stores Co. , which led to the closing of most of the Filene's stores, has given malls a chance to reinvent themselves.

``They really have an opportunity to look at what that space can be used for," said Duker.
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I have known about this forum for a while though I just never posted. I find it as an informative resource on Boston area development. Also about this project, I heard the condo mid rises are supposed to be around 120 feet tall.
 
Gigantic mall project takes shape
By Claudia Torrens/ Daily News Staff
Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - Updated: 08:17 AM EST

NATICK -- James Young gets to the Natick Mall expansion site at 8 every morning and drives around, looking for the things 300 construction workers were supposed to do the day before.
The director of construction management for mall owner General Growth Properties walks between piles of dirt and rumbling machinery like he was at home.
"Ah, that?s the first piece of precast!" he said yesterday triumphally.
The concrete he was referring to was hanging from a crane and was the first to be attached to the foundation of the future Parking Deck F, a six-level structure lot for at least 1,800 cars.
It was also one of the thousands of pieces to form what will be the new Natick Mall: an additional 1 million square feet of stores, restaurants, condominiums and a hotel.
One year after the groundbreaking ceremony, the mall expansion is well under way, with six cranes hauling thousands of pieces of steel on the 14-acre parcel.
Among piles of tubes, trucks and the noise of blowtorches, the new mall is starting to take shape. A rolling steel roof that will be pierced by three skylights and connect the new and existing malls is already visible from Speen Street.
The striking shape of the Neiman Marcus building is also becoming a reality, with a wavy structure encircling the north, east and south sides of the building. The Nordstrom building, tucked between Neiman Marcus and the old mall, is slowly taking shape.
The two upscale national retailers are the anchor stores of the expansion.
"It?s like a downtown Boston kind of construction," said Young.
In contrast to a sprawling suburban shopping plaza, Young said, the new Natick Mall is being built vertically because of limited space.
Young spoke to a reporter from the construction trailer that serves as his office and conference room. Pinned to the walls are dozens of architectural drawings detailing the structure taking shape outside.
But prominently posted on one wall was a simple, white sheet of paper announcing starkly how many days are left before the opening: 409.
Construction started Aug. 3, 2005, and is due to wrap up September 2007.
Everything about the expansion is massive.
First, workers excavated 550,000 cubic yards of dirt.
Then, they kept digging deeper and poured concrete foundations.
Today, the amount of material coming in is gigantic: 1.8 million square feet of concrete slab, 10,700 tons of structural steel, 2,190 tons of reinforcing steel.
Jim Grant, vice president of development for General Growth, said shoppers will visit the mall from bottom to top.
"There will be a two-level parking underneath and people will work their way up to the stores," said Grant. "That?s how we had to build. We had to go down to then build up."
The $500 million project is the biggest expansion General Growth has done from an existing property, he said.
In addition to the 100 new stores, work also has started on condominium towers that will hold 215 units. The condos, though, will open later, in spring 2008.
The mall will also have a new logo, a large "N," symbolizing the words Natick, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus.
Some Natick residents have said they miss the old, small, suburban town Natick used to be before a project like the mall came in. But for Planning Board member Ken Soderholm a project like this is inevitable.
"Population keeps going up, and it is going to continue. Development will have to be concentrated in certain areas. Towns will keep getting this urban feel," said Soderholm. "I actually think this project sets the bar for future redevelopment."
(Claudia Torrens can be reached at 508-626-3976 or ctorrens@cnc.com.)

Link.
 
Natick Mall info

Mall website on redevelopment (no renderings :-( )...

http://www.natickmall.com/html/EventDetail.asp?ecd=46162

Also in the current Boston Magazine there is a page on this showing an interior rendering done by the eccentric Martha Swarthz showing hanging green leaf-like interiors that attempt to create a natural looking street atmosphere....

Too bad this kind of development couldnt be done in Boston....like the Core Block in front of the BCEC for example...
 
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wow. our very own piece of florida, right in Natick!
 
Re: ...

Merper said:
wow. our very own piece of florida, right in Natick!
Click to expand...

Florida? How so? I don't see any pink flamingos or retirement homes here.
 
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this looks to me to be no different (and no more urban) than much of florida, sans the pink flamingos.

take the Aventura Mall (a large, but pretty common mall) area in Aventura, FL, north of Miami. Big Mall, lots of parking, hotels, restaurants, etc. etc...

when you describe it, it sounds great. when you actually go, well, its a mall, and just about everybody's been to one.

the final product in natick will likely look alot like this:


http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=25.957308~-80.144053&style=h&lvl=17

Is that really something to be raving about?
 
To be Florida-style, doesn't it need to have Art Deco elements? I don't see any here.
 
...

... i don't beleive the Aventura Mall has any art deco elements, yet it is the prototypical florida mall. Art Deco outside of miami beach is really not all that common in Florida.
 
Sears: sells really cheap stuff and yard tools, totally unnecesssary in an upscale facility, plus kind of an eyesore

JCPenney: Same as Sears sans lawn equipment

Macy's: they are so perceived new york chic but actually sell total garbage, timberland, dockers, nautica, club room, pierre cardin, yeah, that's real great stuff, plus they offed Filene's and Jordan Marsh
 
and people in and around Natick don't need yard tools and the other stuff you list?
 
Frankly I think enough of them pay others for those services and those who do not can go to South Shore which is far less promising in terms of any quality development. The point is, this is an upscale place, Burberry, Neiman-Marcus etc, those shoppers are paying for a premium product and Sears and Macy's are not a premium product, if I had to be subjected to large families, gangs of kids and for the lack of a better word, the average middle american consumer at Copley, I wouldn't go. I realize this sounds tremendously elitist and I really don't care, but there are some things that just do not belong together.
 
Where we differ is that I don't see "upscale" as anything positive or desirable. It just means things are more expensive and pretentious than they need to be.
 
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