The Ropewalk | 5th Street | Charlestown Navy Yard

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goldenretrievers

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https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/05/19/charlestown-historic-ropewalk-building-finally-ready-for-its-rebirth/hWci5nyR7BKpT4WOhPP4DM/story.html

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From the link above:

New life planned for old Charlestown rope factory

By Jon Chesto GLOBE STAFF MAY 20, 2016

Joe Timilty walks past the old hemp spools, down a fire-charred corridor that stretches as far as the eye can see, and muses about the success that is almost within his reach.

He is about to accomplish a task that no other developer has been able to pull off: resurrecting the old Ropewalk complex in the Charlestown Navy Yard.

Redeveloping a structure with these quirky dimensions would be tough enough — it’s more than a quarter-mile long but only 45 feet wide for most of its length. Then add the stiff historic requirements imposed by the National Park Service and the Massachusetts Historical Commission for the roughly 180-year-old granite building. Steel tracks that run down the length of the mill, for example, must be incorporated into the design.

“Seventeen people tried this over the years,” Timilty says as traffic rumbles by on nearby Route 1 and Chelsea Street, and it’s not clear if he’s talking to himself or to a visitor along for the tour. “They all walked away.”

...

Finally, there’s a tentative date for the construction crews to arrive. They’ll convert this nearly 160,000-square-foot complex, including an adjacent “tar house,” into 97 apartments. To help finance the $42.5 million project, Timilty’s Boston-based firm, Frontier Enterprises Inc., has secured a loan commitment worth up to $31 million from the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency.

Now all that’s left is a final approval from the BRA for a long-term lease that will allow Frontier to take over. Timilty, a former state senator, hopes that could happen at the authority’s June meeting, and that construction can begin before Labor Day.


The goal: getting the bulk of these units done by next summer, in time for the peak rental season. There will be a mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments, and Timilty hopes to command monthly rents from $2,500 to $3,500, depending on the unit. Twenty will rent for much less than that, to meet the affordable housing threshold required to get the project financed.

...

Full Article: https://www.bostonglobe.com/busines...its-rebirth/hWci5nyR7BKpT4WOhPP4DM/story.html
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Looked through the PNF and NPC: when I look through documents, I typically just look for cool renderings and site plans, then search out things that have to do with bicycles. On both fronts these project documents are pretty disappointing. Not to say that this is a bad project-- but if you're looking for renders, you'll be disappointed. This will just be a major cleanup job of several existing buildings and the parcel they sit on. No new structures or anything like that, they'll be converting what is currently a vacant historical set of buildings into residences and a museum.

On the bike front: they'll be doing bike parking-- really? Just one spot per unit? Some of these are three-bedrooms!-- and zero bike lanes or other improvements. They point to a lack of bicycle use found by their traffic study as a reason not to build additional facilities. To my mind, if you never build the cycletrack, you'll never have cyclists, not the other way around. But I suppose it's a neat project all the same.
 
Oh wow, I love this building because it is so odd but such good materials (who doesn't love granite blocks?). I was a bit worried to see this thread at first, though. Looks like this will actually guarantee it is preserved. Phew.
 
Finally, potential movement on the Ropewalk and Chain Forge...

Other development projects

The Ropewalk and Chain Forge projects are proceeding, with financing nearly in place and site preparation scheduled for coming months. The Ropewalk is the quarter-mile-long Navy building behind the fence along Chelsea Street, which is expected to be rehabilitated into 90 rental units. The Chain Forge (Building 105) will be designed for a 230-room hotel with off-site parking. It is located on First Avenue between Ninth and Thirteenth
streets.
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Glad the exteriors will be fully restored. This has the opportunity of being a very cool project. Certainly better than the tired trend of new buildings with multiple haphazard facade materials and neon colored alucobond accent panels.
 
So odd that after decades of redevelopment of the Charlestown Navy Yard this building had not been touched.
 
TomOfBoston said:
So odd that after decades of redevelopment of the Charlestown Navy Yard this building had not been touched.
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Only because they couldn't figure out a way to torque and pivot its length upright. With mechanicals but no spire, the result: a very thin, super-tall that might have reached between 1300 and 1400 feet. Lost opportunity!
 
stellarfun said:
Only because they couldn't figure out a way to torque and pivot its length upright. With mechanicals but no spire, the result: a very thin, super-tall that might have reached between 1300 and 1400 feet. Lost opportunity!
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They could have carefully disassembled all the stones, numbered them, and put them back into place in a vertical structure. As an engineer I've designed stone masonry faced MSE walls that did something similar with the original stone masonry retaining wall.
 
It is an incredibly cool building, one of the few ropewalks left in the US. It has defied developers for years--I think it would have been great start up space or something similar that could have embraces the crazy length. But even with tax credits, the financing seems to have not work out. (I think of the Globe site as a more modern example of a former essentially industrial building that is being refit for newer uses--but that is a lot bigger and newer so the economies of scale seem to work).

But seeing something happen that will preserve the building is great.

TomOfBoston said:
So odd that after decades of redevelopment of the Charlestown Navy Yard this building had not been touched.
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TomOfBoston said:
So odd that after decades of redevelopment of the Charlestown Navy Yard this building had not been touched.
Click to expand...

The odd dimensions and the historical requirements made this a tough building to redevelop. I think I even remember reading that they had to keep the RR tracks in the new floors of the residential units.
 
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