The Ipswich | 2 Charlesgate West | Fenway

This image is on universalhub showing how the site interacts with the overpass replacement.

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Another detail, there will be zero car parking in this building. The last proposal here had 75 spots, but now those are gone completely. Which is great.

Also, according to UniversalHub article, "residents will be barred from obtaining Fenway resident parking stickers as part of their leases." That's fine, but kind of odd. Have there been other properties that struck this kind of deal with the city? If this is a one-off thing, it seems like it would be unlikely to be enforced if someone went to City Hall for a parking sticker.
 
ritchiew said:
Also, according to UniversalHub article, "residents will be barred from obtaining Fenway resident parking stickers as part of their leases." That's fine, but kind of odd. Have there been other properties that struck this kind of deal with the city? If this is a one-off thing, it seems like it would be unlikely to be enforced if someone went to City Hall for a parking sticker.
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I'm sure such a change would be unpopular with some, but if the Parking Clerk and BPDA maintained a list of parking permit ineligible developments, I feel like that could go a decently long way to invalidating a lot of NIMBY opposition to new developments.
 
ritchiew said:
Another detail, there will be zero car parking in this building. The last proposal here had 75 spots, but now those are gone completely. Which is great.

Also, according to UniversalHub article, "residents will be barred from obtaining Fenway resident parking stickers as part of their leases." That's fine, but kind of odd. Have there been other properties that struck this kind of deal with the city? If this is a one-off thing, it seems like it would be unlikely to be enforced if someone went to City Hall for a parking sticker.
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This is something that has come up at a lot of neighborhood meetings I've attended, though I've only ever seen it as a suggestion from NIMBY attendees, not something actually promised by the developer or city. I'm pretty strongly against it. In what way is it reasonable to subsidize parking to all but newly arrived residents? Parking needs to be treated as the scarce resource that it is, and resident permits should be priced accordingly. Price the permits high enough, and people who really need parking will be able to get it, without requiring the rest of us to subsidize their lifestyles. Or worse, requiring newcomers to subsidize a lifestyle not available to themselves.
 
ritchiew said:
Another detail, there will be zero car parking in this building. The last proposal here had 75 spots, but now those are gone completely. Which is great.

Also, according to UniversalHub article, "residents will be barred from obtaining Fenway resident parking stickers as part of their leases." That's fine, but kind of odd. Have there been other properties that struck this kind of deal with the city? If this is a one-off thing, it seems like it would be unlikely to be enforced if someone went to City Hall for a parking sticker.
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The BPDA has been quietly promising this for the past couple years on multiple projects during the permitting process. I would love to see some follow-up on whether the City is actually enforcing the agreements years later when residents finally move in.
 
HenryAlan said:
This is something that has come up at a lot of neighborhood meetings I've attended, though I've only ever seen it as a suggestion from NIMBY attendees, not something actually promised by the developer or city. I'm pretty strongly against it. In what way is it reasonable to subsidize parking to all but newly arrived residents? Parking needs to be treated as the scarce resource that it is, and resident permits should be priced accordingly. Price the permits high enough, and people who really need parking will be able to get it, without requiring the rest of us to subsidize their lifestyles. Or worse, requiring newcomers to subsidize a lifestyle not available to themselves.
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If I am remembering correctly, I'm fairly certain this was done with Common Allbright (525 Lincoln St) in Lower Allston. I served on the IAG for that project and while the BPDA told us that they were not comfortable from a legal perspective mandating the developer via the cooperation agreement to include such a provision in tenant leases (requiring as a condition of the lease for tenants not to procure a resident parking permit), I think the developer ended up committing to this. Not sure if they have an enforcement mechanism or where the BPDA is now from a legal perspective but I think there is some precedent here.
 
I never attended school in the city, but my sister did. I recall hearing that there a process that bars on-campus students from getting street parking permits registered to their on-campus / school addresses, so you could only get one if you lived off campus. If that's still true, adding a private residential property to that list should be akin to adding Wentworth's new dorm.
 
Stlin said:
I never attended school in the city, but my sister did. I recall hearing that there a process that bars on-campus students from getting street parking permits registered to their on-campus / school addresses, so you could only get one if you lived off campus. If that's still true, adding a private residential property to that list should be akin to adding Wentworth's new dorm.
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The reason for this restriction for on-campus residents is that dorms are not considered permanent housing nor valid as an official address. Somebody living off campus can change their official residence to that address and therefore qualify for a parking permit. This is not the same circumstance.
 
I LOVE this.

400 residential units added to the Fenway. Between this and the soon to be completed 60 Kilmarnock that's almost 900 units added.

....and the nice touch with that side of building stairway - - -adds another nice pedestrian flow.

My only sadness is that Boylston Street facade - - would it have killed them to better "emulate" their neighbors with making the entrance an archway instead of just a modern 90 degree angles rectangle???? (images on pages 26 and 27) It would be a nice touch that wouldn't cost them an arm and a leg and would give great continuity to an elegant streetscape.

But on the whole, more of this, please!!!!
 
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tobyjug said:
Wish I hadn’t loved the original design so much.
Also wish tumescence hadn’t become a Boston design crutch.
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All towers everywhere are by definition "tumescent"--they stand tall and erect. Otherwise, they'd collapse (or they'd not in fact be towers, but would be gas stations, or big-box econo retailers, or mortuaries, or whatever...).

Thus, I'd love to hear the explanation of how "tumescence," instead of being a universal feature involving, you know.... being tall, erect, and possessing structural integrity ... is in fact part of a highly pernicious syndrome localized to Boston's architectural ecosystem... I'll wait!
 
I had to run to the dictionary on this one. In what way does this structure appear "swollen?" Is it the appendages on the lower levels? I'll grant that the structure isn't lean or slender or deflated. I'm at a loss, however, for what "tumescence" would be as a design crutch.
 
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