Seaport Neighborhood - Infill and Discussion

Today I dropped someone off at Logan and drove through the TW tunnel, and I gotta say, the exposure to the development in the Seaport once you emerge from the tunnel around NEMA is really impressive driving into the city. What an excellent new gateway into Boston for visitors. I'm sure it will look even more surreal once it's fully built. As someone who's on foot/transit 99% of the time, it took me a second to realize where I was!

AndrewOnTheMBTA · Mar 10, 2022

Are there any plans for either of these three parcels? The one that appears to be a US Army empty parking lot is something that is in dire need because of the condition, the ugly frontage to Summer St, and the potential connection between Dry Dock Ave redevelopment and Omni/convention center area. The one on Haul Rd would have an interesting type of reconnection with the parcel H development and possible conversion to pedestrian-friendly. I can't wait til these areas start changing.

stellarfun · Mar 11, 2022

AndrewOnTheMBTA said:
Are there any plans for either of these three parcels? The one that appears to be a US Army empty parking lot is something that is in dire need because of the condition, the ugly frontage to Summer St, and the potential connection between Dry Dock Ave redevelopment and Omni/convention center area. The one on Haul Rd would have an interesting type of reconnection with the parcel H development and possible conversion to pedestrian-friendly. I can't wait til these areas start changing.

You may be waiting for a long time. Many of the parcels in this area e.g., 495 Summer St., Fargo St., etc., are owned by the U.S. Government. There may be as much as 10 acres in total,

Equilibria · Mar 11, 2022

stellarfun said:
You may be waiting for a long time. Many of the parcels in this area e.g., 495 Summer St., Fargo St., etc., are owned by the U.S. Government. There may be as much as 10 acres in total,

If I recall, these parcels were part of the prospective land swap to move USPS and the new distribution center would have been here. I may be misremembering, though.

When Boston was a finalist for the HQ of the US Army Futures Command, these parcels might have seen development as an HQ. Went to Austin, instead.

AndrewOnTheMBTA · Mar 11, 2022

stellarfun said:
You may be waiting for a long time. Many of the parcels in this area e.g., 495 Summer St., Fargo St., etc., are owned by the U.S. Government. There may be as much as 10 acres in total,

Seems like a fairly controversial waste of land near a very valuable and essential area of the city. Oh well. Are things like this ever hot-button issues from a political standpoint? Like the thought of a city politician negotiating or pushing the owners of these properties? Or would a developer have to push in the same way Massport was?

AndrewOnTheMBTA · Mar 11, 2022

I am not sure where to post something like this. Maybe we could start another thread called "soon to be redeveloped" or "what is this building"? Kind of like the "what's left to build on" thread. Or maybe this could go in the urban blight thread.

I have this question about a lot of buildings as the question can sometimes be indicative of something soon to be redeveloped.

So...what is this dilapidated building at 12 Channel St? It appears to hild an AA (alcoholics anonymous) office as well as a robotics startup. The condition of it doesn't look suitable for labs inside and it surely isn't keeping up with what's around it? I wonder if it will go or be redeveloped soon.

Ps I didn't have time to go near the entrance and check it out. And I couldn't find much online.

stellarfun · Mar 11, 2022

AndrewOnTheMBTA said:
Seems like a fairly controversial waste of land near a very valuable and essential area of the city. Oh well. Are things like this ever hot-button issues from a political standpoint? Like the thought of a city politician negotiating or pushing the owners of these properties? Or would a developer have to push in the same way Massport was?

I think you must be fairly young. A city of Boston politician is not going to negotiate with or push the Federal government into doing something. The Federal government is the ultimate sovereign when it comes to Federal land. As an example, local zoning does not apply to Federal land, nor do local building codes --unless the Federal government consents to such.
______________
Equilibria, I came across an article in BBJ from 2008, in which the U.S. Army was willing to give all this land and several buildings thereon (including the Fargo building) to a developer in exchange for the developer building the Army some sort of base in Virginia. Its not clear from the BBJ article who actually was behind this, but nothing ever came of it, probably because it likely was illegal; i.e., circumventing Congressional appropriations.
_____________

As for future use of this land, I think it might be a very good site, and perhaps one of very first sites, for a commercial, 200 megawatt fusion plant in 10 years time, which is when Commonwealth Fusion expects to start bringing its facilities on-line.
https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-021-03401-w/index.html#:~:text=CFS: aims to have 200,plant (pilot) in 2030s.

JeffDowntown · Mar 11, 2022

AndrewOnTheMBTA said:
I am not sure where to post something like this. Maybe we could start another thread called "soon to be redeveloped" or "what is this building"? Kind of like the "what's left to build on" thread. Or maybe this could go in the urban blight thread.

I have this question about a lot of buildings as the question can sometimes be indicative of something soon to be redeveloped.

So...what is this dilapidated building at 12 Channel St? It appears to hild an AA (alcoholics anonymous) office as well as a robotics startup. The condition of it doesn't look suitable for labs inside and it surely isn't keeping up with what's around it? I wonder if it will go or be redeveloped soon.

Ps I didn't have time to go near the entrance and check it out. And I couldn't find much online.

12 Channel Street is a city owned parcel (CIty's EDIC under the BPDA). I am not sure how the city came into posses the light industrial site, but it is pretty full of light industrial activity. MassRobotics (robotics startup incubator) occupies a floor, for example. It is a pretty typical light industrial site and not exactly derelict, just not pretty.

AndrewOnTheMBTA · Mar 11, 2022

stellarfun said:
I think you must be fairly young. A city of Boston politician is not going to negotiate with or push the Federal government into doing something. The Federal government is the ultimate sovereign when it comes to Federal land. As an example, local zoning does not apply to Federal land, nor do local building codes --unless the Federal government consents to such.
______________
Equilibria, I came across an article in BBJ from 2008, in which the U.S. Army was willing to give all this land and several buildings thereon (including the Fargo building) to a developer in exchange for the developer building the Army some sort of base in Virginia. Its not clear from the BBJ article who actually was behind this, but nothing ever came of it, probably because it likely was illegal; i.e., circumventing Congressional appropriations.
_____________

As for future use of this land, I think it might be a very good site, and perhaps one of very first sites, for a commercial, 200 megawatt fusion plant in 10 years time, which is when Commonwealth Fusion expects to start bringing its facilities on-line.
https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-021-03401-w/index.html#:~:text=CFS: aims to have 200,plant (pilot) in 2030s.

Thank you for the response. Yes, I am not employed in the space but appreciate new development as a hobby rather. I am very interested in learning a lot more about thus though. Thank you for sharing your interesting info/insight - really cool!

stellarfun · Mar 12, 2022

AndrewOnTheMBTA said:
Thank you for the response. Yes, I am not employed in the space but appreciate new development as a hobby rather. I am very interested in learning a lot more about thus though. Thank you for sharing your interesting info/insight - really cool!

If you want to pursue a hoppy of identifying land (vacant or with buildings) that you think ought to be developed or re-developed, you could use the database of the assessor's office to do that.

Go to:
https://www.cityofboston.gov/assessing/search/

Search by address: (In this example, I searched for 495 Summer)
https://www.cityofboston.gov/assessing/search/?q=495+Summer+St.

Property details, e.g., who owns it. This is done by parcel number.
https://www.cityofboston.gov/assessing/search/?pid=0602828000

The search by address will also provide a link to a map displaying a particular parcel. The map is called the Boston Tax Parcel Viewer.

https://app01.cityofboston.gov/AssessingMap/?find=0602828000

If you click on the map, and on an adjacent parcel, a parcel ID will appear. Paste that parcel ID in the search by address link, and find the property details for the adjacent parcel. In the example below, the parcel on Summer St. does not have a street number, but it is also owned by the United States government.

https://www.cityofboston.gov/assessing/search/?pid=0602831000

In the past, I recall one could search by the name of the owner, but no longer. You can search by street, if the street is not a long street. Long streets will give you too many hits.

This is a search for all parcels on Summer St. 236 are listed.
https://www.cityofboston.gov/assessing/search/?q=Summer+St