Station Landing | Wellington Circle | Medford

[Javier]

 

[stick n move]

Great pics. Is there anything else proposed for the area? Id love to see a lot more density, theres plenty of room and its directly on an OL stop.


Without even worrying about air rights or the other lot across the tracks, theres plenty of room here for 4-5 more buildings. It would benefit the residents as well by blocking the train yard from the streets removing noise/"ugly" views, plus the dirt parking lots with all kinds of crap in them. Hopefully once the world starts up again we see some action here.

 

[Equilibria]

Great pics. Is there anything else proposed for the area? Id love to see a lot more density, theres plenty of room and its directly on an OL stop.

Without even worrying about air rights or the other lot across the tracks, theres plenty of room here for 4-5 more buildings. It would benefit the residents as well by blocking the train yard from the streets removing noise/"ugly" views, plus the dirt parking lots with all kinds of crap in them. Hopefully once the world starts up again we see some action here.

The T actually uses all of that space (that's an old picture) - a lot of it is construction support for the OL track improvements and the Wellington Yard expansion (which will end some day), and they train bus drivers there.

 

[stick n move]

Doesnt mean they cant move it around the site or even what they can to somewhere else. It would be a few years before anything would happen.

 

[Arlington]

Seems to me you could at least add a building, similar to the Boston Fire HQ along the Surface Artery, where you combined:
1) Garage functions / road vehicle space
2) Training-classroom
3) Other "back office" and "shop" functions

Also, if you're looking for underdeveloped parcel / uses in the Wellington Circle, consider
Mass State Police Medford Barracks

State Police Medford Barracks

Station A-4, SP Medford, situated near the intersection of Route 16 and 28 at Wellington Circle, administers a vast area exceeding 70 square miles. This jurisdiction includes nine densely populated cities and towns.

www.mass.gov

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Doesnt mean they cant move it around the site or even what they can to somewhere else. It would be a few years before anything would happen.

Look on Google to see how much has already changed since that aerial picture was snapped. Wellington Yard + Carhouse rebuild is now at 71% completion; new tracks are online and occupied by the new cars, reducing the remaining non-storage space to only about 100,000 sq. ft. They're now redoing the loop 'infield' space to pack all the work equipment storage ever tighter, because there's a bunch of procurement items upcoming for expanded systemwide track machine and road-railer fleet acquisitions about to drop.

The outer lots along the Constitution Way property line have already been re-landscaped into a new tie-loading yard evidenced by the 20-deep stacks of ties resting up against the property fence on freshly-poured asphalt. The haphazardly arranged portable office trailers will be next to go so they can make a neatly-packed rail pile. All of the so-called 'slack' space showing in that months-old aerial is thoroughly spoken for, and being gobbled up in real time by mission-critical rail usage that can't be situated anywhere else. With all the torrid track renewal the T has scheduled on all 4 color lines over the next few years how, for example, can you work without a home-base OL tie/rail storage pile? That land is being used way faster than any outside developer can possibly daydream up a doodle and present it as a counterproposal. They aren't jump-ball parcels.

Further, all it takes is full-implementation RUR to put Orange Line to West Roxbury under paper study, as removing the Needham Line from the SW Corridor tunnel bottleneck becomes immediate urgent priority if you're full-bore planning to do 30-minute bi-directional service to Providence and Stoughton.

And if they are studying OL-West Rox, Wellington's going to have to be expanded by another 2-4 storage tracks meaning the bus training lot immediately gets targeted for eviction so the materials piles can shape-shift around the once-again expanded yard into that space. Boom...all square footage in the yard now maxed out with critical Orange-specific functions that can't plausibly be sited elsewhere.

Regardless of speculation as to the state's willingness to ultimately build OLX, the up/down decision on RUR service levels could well breach the trigger for pushing the paper study this decade. No one has so much as enough time to daydream about rearranging the deck chairs on the west slice of Wellington property before that trigger puts future-considerations yard expansion on the planning front-burner as a going concern. And, yes, they know right now today that's one of the potential outcomes of the Rail Vision for shaking out RUR service on a jam-packed NEC.

For all intensive purposes it was game-over for ever entertaining discussion of any non-transpo use of the property long before the first shovel got turned on the ongoing Wellington renovations, because of the very existence of the Rail Vision and now-likelihood that RUR in some half-baked-or-better form is coming to the NEC. Whether playing or holding their chips, they can no longer afford to barter away any Wellington land functions for private use. That ship has sailed...past-tense.

 

[Javier]

 

[WormtownNative]

Seems to me you could at least add a building, similar to the Boston Fire HQ along the Surface Artery, where you combined:
1) Garage functions / road vehicle space
2) Training-classroom
3) Other "back office" and "shop" functions
View attachment 4311

Also, if you're looking for underdeveloped parcel / uses in the Wellington Circle, consider
Mass State Police Medford Barracks

State Police Medford Barracks

Station A-4, SP Medford, situated near the intersection of Route 16 and 28 at Wellington Circle, administers a vast area exceeding 70 square miles. This jurisdiction includes nine densely populated cities and towns.

www.mass.gov

View attachment 4312

That isn't BFD headquarters though, that's over on a block surrounded by Southampton St., & Mass Ave. Purchase Street is just a fire station, albeit a large one.

https://goo.gl/maps/NUp2VjL76XxGpcNh6

Not to say you couldn't do something with the state police barracks though. Colleges especially have built police stations into buildings that house other portions of campus services. Just not sure how receptive MSP would be to that idea.

 

[stick n move]

If the side by the tracks cant work, theres still 2 more parking lots like the one this is going up on that could add some density.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

If the side by the tracks cant work, theres still 2 more parking lots like the one this is going up on that could add some density.

While not Station Landing-specific, future transpo uses at Wellington can free up other Medford parcels of note. The T's last Integrated Fleet & Facilities Plan scoping study called for a 200-unit 60-footer bus garage to be built on the Wellington Station commuter lot, with the parking spaces traded vertical into a new garage on the parking infield of the kiss-and-ride loop. The added bus capacity in a Wellington/Charlestown/Everett "super-campus", in addition to equipping any needed Charlestown-sourced routes with 60-footers, would also allow for immediate closure of Fellsway Garage and sale-for-redev of that whole 170,000 sq. ft. parcel bordering MA 60 / Emerald St. / Surrey St. Lumped together with redev of the ugly-ass strip mall next door it's 472,000 sq. feet on the prime-most traffic corner of Fellsway & 60 that can be reimagined for something juicily dense.

While not in the current scaled-back facilities plan that's more concerned with jump-starting badly needed renovations at the existing garages, punting Wellington Garage is a short-term move only as there's no use in renovating Fellsway at all for diesel-hybrid and battery buses if it's so easily zeroed out and Charlestown district badly needs the extra capacity that the 60-footer garage would afford. Wellington Station parking is inherently shitty-value land because of the only access to the outside world being constrained behind the congested station kiss-and-ride and lone parkway exit, so that giant slab has no upside for SimCity doodling. But be able to transform the neighborhood up Fellsway by the garage + strip mall as direct outflow of the T building the Wellington bus garage?...hell yes, that's a tremendous score.

Put stock in that sequence of events: eventual Wellington backlot bus garage build begatting Fellsway Garage closure and jump-ball on the giant garage + strip-mall parcel in the most densely-populated stretch of the Fells.

 

[RandomWalk]

Which Medford and Malden NIMBYs will cut down to townhouses for 200 residents, 450 parking spaces, and a CVS.

 

[Arlington]

^ The Fellsway Garage is a HUGE hot button for Medford and Malden NIMBYs. I'm sure that Rep Paul Donato (now senior on Beacon Hill) whose district straddles this part of Medford-Malden would love to do a deal that closes the Fellsway Garage and expands hugely at Wellington.

"Fellsway Garage and sale-for-redev of that whole 170,000 sq. ft. parcel bordering MA 60 / Emerald St. / Surrey St. Lumped together with redev of the ugly-ass strip mall next door it's 472,000 sq. feet on the prime-most traffic corner of Fellsway & 60 that can be reimagined for something juicily dense."

The kind of 5-story stuff now being built around Medford (e.g. on Locust St) is probably dense enough, considering that it is in a very "bus only" transit context. (it is a full Mile to Malden Center)

 

[Javier]

 

[Javier]

 

[Javier]

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I don't get "nonstandard window size faddism" at its most basal level. Somebody help me...does pop architecture deem me an "OK, Boomer" luddite for still desiring the option to outfit with standardized interior furnishings?

 

[Javier]

 

[Javier]

 

[Javier]

 

[Javier]

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