South Boston Innovation Campus | 2 Harbor Street | Seaport

Equilibria

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I posted a render of this before but I don't think I made a thread. No idea why this building needs such a big plaza.

PNF:


1574724685248.png
 
The surface lot directly above the tunnel may be unavoidable, but seriously? A second surface lot <100ft from SL Way?
 
The area under the proposed plaza is subject to a subsurface easement for the TW Tunnel. I assume the easement precludes any digging below the surface.
 
Is this u/c?
Not yet. The old warehouse has been fenced off, geo/soil rigs worked the site this summer, and a couple of earth movers have been parked on the site for a couple of months. The frame was new to me in the last couple of weeks. That's why I bumped the thread.
 
The whole area looks awesome.
The plaza works fine (here).
 
Interesting -- from the standpoint of R&D and Kendall-wanna-be -- there is starting to arise a Bipolar Seaport -- at the extrema well outside of the offices, condos and retailing:
  1. The area heading along Northern Ave out towards and including the Old Navy / Old Army facilities bounded by the Cruise Pier -- there are several projects by several developers with other partners participating including:

  1. The area over by the "World Shaving HQ" and along A Street-- same idea but different developers with other partners including:

Wonder which one wins in the end?
 
Interesting -- from the standpoint of R&D and Kendall-wanna-be -- there is starting to arise a Bipolar Seaport -- at the extrema well outside of the offices, condos and retailing:
  1. The area heading along Northern Ave out towards and including the Old Navy / Old Army facilities bounded by the Cruise Pier -- there are several projects by several developers with other partners participating including:

  1. The area over by the "World Shaving HQ" and along A Street-- same idea but different developers with other partners including:

Wonder which one wins in the end?
Isn't this something of a Kendall versus Cambridgeport/Central (versus Lechmere) question?

In Cambridge aren't all areas "winning"?
 
Isn't this something of a Kendall versus Cambridgeport/Central (versus Lechmere) question?

In Cambridge aren't all areas "winning"?
Jeff --up to a point

Everything in Cambridge has one real advantage -- you can walk to MIT and back during your lunch break and certainly after work:
  1. Obviously Kendall is number because it is becoming literally MIT's back door
  2. the area on the other side of Mass Ave and near Central is not too far walking wise
  3. Cambridge Crossing is getting a bit of a stretch for a walking round trip in one hour with some purpose on the other end -- but its a easy walk after work
  4. Anything else on the Red Line anywhere is by definition the next best thing over any other subway line where you have to change one or more times as well as travel --
    1. Alewife for example has a big advantage over Somerville
    2. Innovation Point being a short walk to Broadway is somewhat "closer" than
    3. Innovation Square because you don't need to transfer to the Silver Line at South Station
 
Why is there SO much open space and a surface parking lot?!
 
Why is there SO much open space and a surface parking lot?!

I asked that question last time and got an answer - it's on top of the I-90 tunnel. The site plan actually has an outline of the tunnel in a dotted line.
 
At least the West Lot, which looks like it'd be difficult to build over due to the tunnel, is masked rather well from the plaza. There's also a BSWC easement (that would enter crazy development pitches if they wanted to relocate it) hugging the tunnel easement, so considering everything they were presented with on the west side, they did rather well. Albeit, there shouldn't be any surface parking allowed here anymore, and we will have to see how the plaza turns out.

The South Lot is totally ridiculous and I hope they have a plan to develop it later. They used an example picture for the parking lot design and it's straight out of a suburb.
 
I asked that question last time and got an answer - it's on top of the I-90 tunnel. The site plan actually has an outline of the tunnel in a dotted line.
In other parts of the Seaport, I believe that the I-90 tunnel design included additional footers placed to allow for moderate scale development over the tunnel.

Was that not the case here?
 
In other parts of the Seaport, I believe that the I-90 tunnel design included additional footers placed to allow for moderate scale development over the tunnel.

Was that not the case here?
I believe the sewer easement is more controlling in this instance. Part of the building is cantilevered over the sewer; the tunnel is outboard of the sewer. The sewer easement looks to be 20-25 feet in width.. It is quite likely this is a large diameter sewer going directly to Deer Island.
 
This looks like any number of generic biotech buildings in Kendall Sq. That's not a compliment. I'm also not a fan of the corrugated metal.
 
At least the West Lot, which looks like it'd be difficult to build over due to the tunnel, is masked rather well from the plaza. There's also a BSWC easement (that would enter crazy development pitches if they wanted to relocate it) hugging the tunnel easement, so considering everything they were presented with on the west side, they did rather well. Albeit, there shouldn't be any surface parking allowed here anymore, and we will have to see how the plaza turns out.

The South Lot is totally ridiculous and I hope they have a plan to develop it later. They used an example picture for the parking lot design and it's straight out of a suburb.
Stefal -- this is after all an industrial area -- no one is going to be living in the immediate vicinity or likely to be walking [unless they are walking to work]

In addition --- There needs to be somewhere where there is parking for things like Trucks that might have to queue up somewhere to get onto the floor of the BCEC and then there needs to be a place for buses to wait
 

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