Novartis Campus | 181-211 Mass Ave, 22 Windsor Street | Kendall Square | Cambridge

^^ Even one or two 35 story towers would really make that side of the river pop out more from the Boston side. Much like a few tall ones in Downtown.
 
Sooner or later Cambridge will really face a reckoning over the "do we want housing costs to keep rising, or do we want to get denser." Right now they are happy to bitch about rising housing costs while holding up development. I bet that housing costs will eventually get too out of whack for that platform to maintain itself.
 
Brad Plaid said:
There should be very frequent 10-20 story residential buildings up and down all of Mass. Ave. on both sides. What's crazy is activists yelling for "housing justice" at the same time they are yelling "too tall, too dense". They make about as much sense as the Flat Earth Society.
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It's a fantastic song though....
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
Sooner or later Cambridge will really face a reckoning over the "do we want housing costs to keep rising, or do we want to get denser." Right now they are happy to bitch about rising housing costs while holding up development. I bet that housing costs will eventually get too out of whack for that platform to maintain itself.
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They could really make a dent in housing gaps if the Volpe property would ever become available and redeveloped properly.

If there is any one location that could really bring all the various Kendall's together into an actual functioning neighborhood, with residential density, this area could do it. I think they could easily add 9 decent sized buildings here, while adding streets/walkways, and not disturbing the existing trees for the most part.
 
not disturbing the existing trees for the most part.
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Now you're thinking like a Cantabrigian! That should be at the top of powerpoint!
 
Sorry, there is some good old (established anyways) growth around that site. That's more as a person who respects nature, and sees a reasonable balance in cities.

The trees around that site are what makes it bearable to me whenever I am walking through there to a site. They make the foot path seem nice, and hide this government garbage as best as possible.

I got nice and angry a month or so ago when I tried to walk across the site from third street heading east to west, and realized there was no way out. So I headed north across the lawn towards Binney and hopped the fence. Frikken place.
 
Not to pull the thread, but i am going to anyway. the parking lot next to one broadway i think got zoned to 300'. On the FAA map, its in the 1000' zone. The area is MIT, renters, and offices, it overlooks the river and wouldn't touch East Cambridge, Central or Cambridgeport. I think of that map everyday and say, they should build a massive cambridge tower. Complete with 1000 residence, offices (start up work share spaces to fit in). It would make a big dent in the housing market, have unmatched views of Boston while defining the cambridge skyline and it would have little negative impact. The people that would live there would largely be people working in Kendall or downtown and would drive daily, although i assume you could put a below grade garage, but still ratio at like .5 spots per residence.

Definitely never happen, but when i'm dictator it will.
 
choo said:
Definitely never happen, but when i'm dictator it will.
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Mein fuhrer, I can walk!


Seriously though, anything to give Cambridge an actual skyline and some personality from the river would be wonderful. I don't even understand the NIMBY argument, you can barely see the Hancock and Pru from most of Cambridge, you wouldn't be able to see much of a new tower in Kendall anyway.
 
choo said:
Not to pull the thread, but i am going to anyway. the parking lot next to one broadway i think got zoned to 300'. On the FAA map, its in the 1000' zone. The area is MIT, renters, and offices, it overlooks the river and wouldn't touch East Cambridge, Central or Cambridgeport. I think of that map everyday and say, they should build a massive cambridge tower. Complete with 1000 residence, offices (start up work share spaces to fit in). It would make a big dent in the housing market, have unmatched views of Boston while defining the cambridge skyline and it would have little negative impact. The people that would live there would largely be people working in Kendall or downtown and would drive daily, although i assume you could put a below grade garage, but still ratio at like .5 spots per residence.

Definitely never happen, but when i'm dictator it will.
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I don't think the economics of a 1000 footer in Cambridge work out well. Especially not for residential. Look at all the new supertall residential towers going up along 57th street in NY. Those things are pulling $100 million prices.

Now, Cambridge/Boston is not New York - so give a ridiculous discount - 90% off! $10 million homes? Come on, that is a non-stater.

OK, OK, those epic penthouses are 3000-4000 sq foot full floor units. Let's cut them up into 300 sq foot microunits! That is another 10x reduction in price, so ... only $1 million for a micro unit.

The economics just don't add up for that kind of epic scale building. However I think 300 or even 500 footers are eminently doable. They will be wickedly expensive, but they will fill up for sure.
 
choo said:
Not to pull the thread, but i am going to anyway. the parking lot next to one broadway i think got zoned to 300'. On the FAA map, its in the 1000' zone. The area is MIT, renters, and offices, it overlooks the river and wouldn't touch East Cambridge, Central or Cambridgeport. I think of that map everyday and say, they should build a massive cambridge tower. Complete with 1000 residence, offices (start up work share spaces to fit in). It would make a big dent in the housing market, have unmatched views of Boston while defining the cambridge skyline and it would have little negative impact. The people that would live there would largely be people working in Kendall or downtown and would drive daily, although i assume you could put a below grade garage, but still ratio at like .5 spots per residence.
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Ah yes, it's been so long since I've gotten to flex my formidable MS Paint skills.... this one goes out to you, Cantabrigian NIMBYs.

13899437413_0f5dfece19_h.jpg


At that angle not only is it pointed up Broadway at Harvard (let's say MIT has a stake in it) but it's also staring right at downtown. It's perfect!
 
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davem said:
Mein fuhrer, I can walk!


Seriously though, anything to give Cambridge an actual skyline and some personality from the river would be wonderful. I don't even understand the NIMBY argument, you can barely see the Hancock and Pru from most of Cambridge, you wouldn't be able to see much of a new tower in Kendall anyway.
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I can only guess but it feels to me the strategy is to simply oppose everything, theorizing that if you start letting one thing get built then it opens the flood gates and all of a sudden you will start getting steamrolled by development. This is my theory as to why there is so much opposition to the Thorndike courthouse, because it otherwise doesn't make sense. In the case of a tall building in Kendall it doesn't matter that it wouldn't effect any neighborhoods. Just letting it get built is a sign that it's "open season" on the rest of Cambridge, it seems.

I do think a 1,000 footer would look ridiculous in Kendall but a couple 500 footers would fit in well and give the skyline and identity. Right now I think the maximum heights in the area are just below 300 and though I think one near that is being proposed (near Google), going higher than that number will probably galvanize the opposition (ie, we can't let them get the message that max zoning heights are flexible!).

Again though this is all conjecture/theory on my part. I really have no idea the true motivations behind extreme opposition are.
 
pixelsand8 said:
I can only guess but it feels to me the strategy is to simply oppose everything, theorizing that if you start letting one thing get built then it opens the flood gates and all of a sudden you will start getting steamrolled by development. This is my theory as to why there is so much opposition to the Thorndike courthouse, because it otherwise doesn't make sense. In the case of a tall building in Kendall it doesn't matter that it wouldn't effect any neighborhoods. Just letting it get built is a sign that it's "open season" on the rest of Cambridge, it seems.
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Nailed it.
 
Cantabrigian NIMBYs are losing their minds over four story landscapers at Alewife, you guys don't stand a chance :) . In all seriousness, I think an easier solution to housing in Cambridge would be to start building up north mass ave, making it reliably five stories. It's already happening to some extent (see Porter Square thread), but there is still far too much space that's still being taken up by gas stations and one story commercial.
 
FitchburgLine said:
Cantabrigian NIMBYs are losing their minds over four story landscapers at Alewife, you guys don't stand a chance :) . In all seriousness, I think an easier solution to housing in Cambridge would be to start building up north mass ave, making it reliably five stories. It's already happening to some extent (see Porter Square thread), but there is still far too much space that's still being taken up by gas stations and one story commercial.
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This should be the goal along all the main roads in the metroBoston area.
 
Trying to tie back to Novartis, the challenge with Cambridge is that it is such a biotech hub and having hi-rise lab buildings are not economically reasonable. Anything more than 10-12 stories will be a tough sell, unless it was 10-12 stories of labs, mechanicals, then another 10-20+ stories of classrooms, dorms/residences, etc. That said, I always look at Kendall Square and the area on the other side of the Green Line Tracks as an area perfect for hi-rises as there is very little established residential and the hi-rises could be contained in that area to keep the NIMBY's satisfied.
 
Why there are no talls in East Cambridge. You're building on ocean bottom.

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Czervik.Construction said:
Trying to tie back to Novartis, the challenge with Cambridge is that it is such a biotech hub and having hi-rise lab buildings are not economically reasonable. Anything more than 10-12 stories will be a tough sell, unless it was 10-12 stories of labs, mechanicals, then another 10-20+ stories of classrooms, dorms/residences, etc. That said, I always look at Kendall Square and the area on the other side of the Green Line Tracks as an area perfect for hi-rises as there is very little established residential and the hi-rises could be contained in that area to keep the NIMBY's satisfied.
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The 18 storey Center for Life Science Building over at 3 Blackfan might argue that first point with you. 250 - 300 feet of lab/office space is fairly tall, and would allow for more residential and office high rises in the area. Instead all the lab buildings go 5-7 around here. You could conceivably combine 3 buildings into one. Downside is, it will have to get somewhat wider as well, and the need to make the exterior architecturally more interesting/attractive becomes even more important. Again, I point to the CLS, as it manages to be attractive for a lab building as well. The Vertex buildings are also recent, fairly tall, examples.

Kendall could & should have more and real hi-rises. Should, because this area is smoking hot, and using up develop-able land mighty quickly. Much of it is developer buildings, and don't need to be single tenant for any reason, and as such shouldn't be limited by height. However, as hot as the area is for bio, no one wants to build on spec. The buildings going up, happen when the main tenant signs on.

So, office and residential will need to drive the heights here. Cheaper to build, and needed in the area based on rents. The res. portion is obviously needed to accomplish the "goal" of becoming a real neighborhood, and work outside of the 9-5 hours.

The Back Bay, has managed to grow tall on it's landfill, I'd think East Cambridge could manage as well.
 
The principal bedrock units that belong to the Boston Basin include the Cambridge Argillite, Roxbury Conglomerate, Mattapan Volcanic Complex, and the Dedham Granite. The Cambridge Argillite is classified as a shale or mudstone. This fine-grained sedimentary unit was most likely deposited in
deep oceanic waters millions of years ago when the Boston area was below sea level. This unit currently lies well below Allston, Back Bay, Central Boston, Charlestown, East Boston, South Boston, and the South End.

....
Structurally, several features distinguish the Boston Basin. These include plunges, folds, anticlines, synclines, and faults. These structural features are found throughout the many rock units in the Boston Basin. Geologists use these features to date rock units relative to each other.

Plunges are physically represented by a significant dip in the bedrock. In the Boston Basin, the bedrock generally plunges east/ northeast. This means that if a plunging rock unit were exposed at the surface in a southwest area of Boston, that same rock unit would be hundreds of feet deep in a northeast area of Boston.

Structural features such as folds in the bedrock are evident in the Boston Basin. These folds occurred over 600 million years ago as the rocks were subjected to tectonic stress, causing the once flat-lying rocks to bend and fold. This stress also resulted in the formation of anticlines and synclines. These features are simply bedrock that has been folded up or down, respectively. Anticlines underlie Central Boston, Mattapan, and the Lower
Mills. Synclines are found under the Charles River basin, Roslindale, and Hyde Park.
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http://www.cityofboston.gov/parks/pdfs/os7a_text.pdf

While the above describes the bedrock geology of Boston proper, it should apply to east Cambridge. And what you have is plunging bedrock combined with a syncline, a further downward fold in the plunge.

Of the seven grades of rock strength, I think Cambridge Argillite is the third weakest, meaning it can be peeled with a pocket knife with difficulty, and a shallow indentation is made by firm blow with point of a geological hammer.

On bedrock and the building of Manhattan.
http://www.fordham.edu/images/acade...nomics/dp2010_09_barr_tassier_trendafilov.pdf
 
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