One Canal (formerly Greenway Center) | Bullfinch Triangle | West End

Re: Greenway Center (Bulfinch Triangle)

war rationing?
 
Re: Greenway Center (Bulfinch Triangle)

Supermarket requirement officially removed: http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/downtown/2013/04/zoning_board_removes_supermark.html

So is this the most recent design?
05666b_OneCanal_greenway_view.jpg


Or this?
072712_One_Canal_Rendering.jpg
 
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Re: Greenway Center (Bulfinch Triangle)

Fine with the massing, but it all depends on the quality of those materials. If they are good, it will blend in nicely to the Bulfinch Triangle. Otherwise, it will be a shitty gateway.
 
Re: Greenway Center (Bulfinch Triangle)

Removing the required supermarket is disappointing, considering that the North End has been asking for one for decades now.
 
Re: Greenway Center (Bulfinch Triangle)

It may still get a supermarket. Just because the requirement's gone doesn't mean that one won't move in. The demand for one is there.
 
Re: Greenway Center (Bulfinch Triangle)

@Justin7: It looks like it's the same building just front and back.

choo said:
Fine with the massing, but it all depends on the quality of those materials. If they are good, it will blend in nicely to the Bulfinch Triangle. Otherwise, it will be a shitty gateway.
Click to expand...

It looks like it would work well with limestone and brick... that would fit in nicely.
 
Re: Greenway Center (Bulfinch Triangle)

The removal of a supermarket is great because they announced they wanted one for the towers in front of the garden. The fact that this requirement is gone means this building can go ahead, and it also means that the one in north station may move faster because there likely won't be competition down the block. So, could move both projects along.
 
Re: Greenway Center (Bulfinch Triangle)

Can't help but feel like the developers agreed to a supermarket just long enough to get approval, then cried poor when building time came. And I can't help but feel like the same thing's going to happen when the North Station parking lot towers go up to.
 
Re: Greenway Center (Bulfinch Triangle)

^no, I am confident in a supermarket in north station. (no inside knowledge here, just a feeling). There will be no place to get groceries beside whole foods in beacon hill or charlestown. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of new residences at this building, the merano, victor, archstone, and eventual NS towers themselves and the nashua street towers. All in all, this area will have >1000 new residences that weren't there even 2 years ago. Plus the north end still needs one. You then also have commuters as well as people downtown in then new towers there that can take the orange line directly to the supermarket.

If one doesn't go in the North Station towers, I will be shocked.
 
Re: One Canal (formerly Greenway Center, Bullfinch Triangle)

I agree that the need is there Choo. Trouble is, if a landlord can make more money renting to banks, pharmacies, etc. then they will.
 
Re: One Canal (formerly Greenway Center, Bullfinch Triangle)

To add a little fuel to the fire please note that Target pulled out of the North Station/TD Garden Towers negotiations with Delaware North.
 
Re: One Canal (formerly Greenway Center, Bullfinch Triangle)

If it turns out like the renderings I'll be happy. It's no great work of architecture but its urbanism is pretty good. It's got decent density, the street-level is active, it's not precast, nor is it a landscraper like the Victor or the Avenir. It also preserves the fairly vibrant commercial building along Canal St. And extra points for the cornice, half-assed as it may be.
 
Re: One Canal (formerly Greenway Center, Bullfinch Triangle)

aaaaaa said:
With the stellar growth Whole Foods is experiencing (pdf), I would not be surprised to see them open a store in the area - perhaps a smaller shop, like their Prospect St. store in Cambridge.
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I think if the option is available, all supermarkets prefer larger stores to smaller ones. Within limits, larger stores take about the same staffing, but have the potential to put more stuff in the cart of each shopper.

The only exceptions to the bigger is better rule is Trader Joes (which purposely limits the number of items they stock to save on inventory costs and to force you to buy the "store brand") and places where there is no big format available. (eg. where Trade Joes takes over an old A&P-size (1960s-sized) supermarket)

Bulfinch Triangle should have enough retail space. If there is a supermarket at all, it will most likely be a big one for the above reasons.

All other things being equal, Trader Joes can "work" as a slightly smaller store than its competitors can, but they'd all prefer to have a store on the "modern" and "big" end of their sizes that work.
 
Re: One Canal (formerly Greenway Center, Bullfinch Triangle)

Another Whole Foods is not what the area needs, since there's already one at Charles River Plaza and there will soon be another in Charlestown (formerly Foodmaster). What the area needs is a regular conventional chain supermarket.

Responding to the later comment -- Whole Foods has been taking over some pretty small stores lately, with their acquisition of 6/10 of the old Foodmaster chain.
 
Re: One Canal (formerly Greenway Center, Bullfinch Triangle)

briv said:
If it turns out like the renderings I'll be happy. It's no great work of architecture but its urbanism is pretty good. It's got decent density, the street-level is active, it's not precast, nor is it a landscraper like the Victor or the Avenir. It also preserves the fairly vibrant commercial building along Canal St. And extra points for the cornice, half-assed as it may be.
Click to expand...

I was with you until the cornice thing. There's way too much of it, PoMo exaggeration.
 
Re: One Canal (formerly Greenway Center, Bullfinch Triangle)

I am surprised Stop & Shop, or even Shaws, has not developed some form of an urban store with a smaller footprint. If these developers, and even the city, expect people to live in these areas without a car, there's a need to more supermarkets spread throughout the city.

South Boston is a prime area that has a need for more decent supermarkets.
 
Re: One Canal (formerly Greenway Center, Bullfinch Triangle)

All these stores have suburban style business plans. It's a big risk for them to open an urban market, believe it or not. There needs to be proof that it would work economically. There is more to it than "people in the neighborhood want it". Rents in the city are so much higher than some strip mall. And space is constrained so they'd need to engineer a multi-level store. None of this is really difficult to do... just more expensive than a box off the highway.

It's been done before but not by Shaws or Stop & Shop. Whole Foods does it but they are a premium brand and would only build a new store in an area with high income. Look where there are Whole Foods: btwn West End and Beacon Hill, btwn Back Bay and South End, JP, Brookline, and three in Cambridge. And even these locations are arguably suburban style. Honestly I don't see a Whole Foods coming into the North End; it doesn't make sense.

Shaws and Stop & Shop, and suburban super markets in general, rely on large stores with lots of inventory, cheaply built with low overhead, which makes money on the margins. That doesn't work in a city unless you have a flagship store that will lose money (or a specialty supermarket that is subsidized by the other stores).

There is also the space issue. Suburban stores have loading docks. Where will you fit a loading dock in the middle of the North End? The trucks load on the streets and it will make traffic terrible. I see this in New York with Trader Joe's and other super markets. Where in Boston would a super market on this level have the space for loading?
 
Re: One Canal (formerly Greenway Center, Bullfinch Triangle)

Ron Newman said:
Another Whole Foods is not what the area needs, since there's already one at Charles River Plaza and there will soon be another in Charlestown (formerly Foodmaster). What the area needs is a regular conventional chain supermarket.

Responding to the later comment -- Whole Foods has been taking over some pretty small stores lately, with their acquisition of 6/10 of the old Foodmaster chain.
Click to expand...

I really hope that Whole Food relocates to the North End because their store in Charlestown makes absolutely no sense. A significant portion of the population in Charlestown lives in government housing, of which, very few can afford shopping regularly at an upscale supermarket such as Whole Food and the majority are going out of their way to shop at cheaper supermarkets such as the Market Basket in Chelsea. My prediction (or hope): Whole Foods in Charlestown shutters in 5-7 years.
 
Re: One Canal (formerly Greenway Center, Bullfinch Triangle)

^That whole foods will be there a long time. City sq is getting a lot of yuppies who have nowhere else to go. You also have NorthPoint on the other end that is going to be adding a lot of rich housing.
 
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