Union Square Somerville Infill and Small Developments

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121 Prospect is the orange cousin of the Smurf building. The Smurf still lacks fenestration.

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The transformer at the former Thunder Road has been enclosed, but the streetscape still sucks.

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The corner of Bow St and Bow St Place progresses.
 
RandomWalk said:
View attachment 64558
The transformer at the former Thunder Road has been enclosed, but the streetscape still sucks.
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No idea how the plans say retail entrance.
that somehow changed to a transformer
they painted a mural on that
not enough, so they put up an ugly screen
Not sure what kind of nod nod wink wink messing is going on here
 
The Thunder Road developer has finally filed for a permit to cover the transformer changes. The narrative explains that the original plan for a vault was impractical and the pad mount has prescribed clearance requirements.
 
Tried to find some more information on this, but it looks like something may be in the works for 32 Webster Ave.
maps.app.goo.gl

Street View of 32 Webster Ave · Google Maps

32 Webster Ave, Somerville, MA 02143
maps.app.goo.gl maps.app.goo.gl

I randomly came across this post from Balance Architects:

Kinvarra Capital (ugh) is tagged in the post and has a link to this story on their website (along with a little Revit model axon view of the proposed building):
wbznewsradio.iheart.com

Abandoned House In Somerville To Get Demolished, New Condominium Underway | WBZ NewsRadio 1030

A new 29 unit apartment building will replace an abandoned lot in Somerville's Union Square. For more, ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio.
wbznewsradio.iheart.com wbznewsradio.iheart.com

It looks like it was supposed to be on the agenda for Tuesday's Urban Design Commission* meeting, but so far I haven't found any documents posted on somervillema.gov regarding the project. Maybe something will be made public soon. Looks to be 4 floors, possibly 5 considering the sloped site. Feels like it could be taller, but maybe they just want to limit opposition from the people living in the two-story buildings down the hill. It'll be interesting to see if this goes ahead.

*The agenda says 32 Webster St, but, since Webster St numbers appear only to go to 27, I'm going to assume it was to discuss this site and proposal.
 
Some of the station areas are slowly turning over. Magoun has a couple of projects along Lowell up to the square, but they’re smaller. Ball Square is getting a larger project at the Lyndell’s location, but is otherwise frozen.
 
Every time I go back to my old haunts, I swear, it's like a new apartment building construction site pops up. Somerville seems to be leading the region in housing production near rapid transit. Boston is piecemeal, Cambridge may start catching up with multi-family housing. Chelsea (and near by Everett) aren't getting this much new build. Medford, lolz.
 
22marc said:
Chelsea and Everett are building a helluvalot more than any other city you mentioned. 5-10 300 unit projects + infill is a lot more units than 25 15-25 unit projects. Though you're right with Meford doing jack diddly squat.
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Yeah, I did a double-take also when the previous poster said that about Everett, while praising Somerville.

Everett is hitting far above its weight class re: residential unit building. Given the golden platter Somerville has been bestowed with the GLX, their current rate is disappointing. I hope it picks up with the new Mayor coming in soon.
 
shmessy said:
Yeah, I did a double-take also when the previous poster said that about Everett, while praising Somerville.

Everett is hitting far above its weight class re: residential unit building. Given the golden platter Somerville has been bestowed with the GLX, their current rate is disappointing. I hope it picks up with the new Mayor coming in soon.
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Somerville has substantially fewer lots available for large-scale dense residential. Each time they do a dense building, they do so by replacing an existing multifamily lot (most of the time).

Much harder, much slower, probably a much better result.
 
Equilibria said:
Somerville has substantially fewer lots available for large-scale dense residential. Each time they do a dense building, they do so by replacing an existing multifamily lot (most of the time).

Much harder, much slower, probably a much better result.
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I mean that's kinda why I like the 108 Prospect project that sparked this conversation so much. Wrangling 30 landowners to build one commercial triangle scale project just sounds uhh challenging. But I don't see why it should be impossible to consolidate 2 triple deckers into 30-40 units in a building like this one. The area around ball square could be so nice. I don't know the local zoning, but that sort of thing ought to be legal by-right this close to GLX.

shmessy said:
Yeah, I did a double-take also when the previous poster said that about Everett, while praising Somerville.

Everett is hitting far above its weight class re: residential unit building. Given the golden platter Somerville has been bestowed with the GLX, their current rate is disappointing. I hope it picks up with the new Mayor coming in soon.
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Especially considering the public investment in transit through the major hotspot is a 1-200 million dollar bus lane that's not even complete lmao. I feel like we should be weighting transit investments more heavily towards municipalities that enable more significant private dollar multiplier effects on top of our tax dollars.
 
Lots of Somerville is subject to historic review and demolition delay. That can be weaponized to gum up a project really fast.
 
Equilibria said:
Somerville has substantially fewer lots available for large-scale dense residential. Each time they do a dense building, they do so by replacing an existing multifamily lot (most of the time).

Much harder, much slower, probably a much better result.
Click to expand...

To be sure, but along with those very valid reasons, alot of the "slower" is because of Ballantyne. The new Mayor - whether Wilson or Burnley will be a big change - - I see both (for different reasons) being more of a wider spigot for dense residential construction going forward.

Pro-developer can be perjorative to much of the public. Say what you will about DeMaria (and yes, there are some valid questions), he is Marty Walsh-level pro-development and the pace of dense residential in Everett is impressive - even without a Golden Platter of a GLX being delivered to it in the past 5 years like it was to Somerville.

I'm interested to see what happens with Wilson or Burnley - - the other dynamic is how this all navigates with the changes in Washington.
 
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shmessy said:
To be sure, but along with thise very valid reasons, alot of the "slower" is because of Ballantyne. The new Mayor - whether Wilson or Burnley will be a big change - - I see both (for different reasons) being more of a wider spigot for dense residential construction going forward.

Pro-developer can be perjorative to much of the public. Say what you will about DeMaria (and yes, there are some valid questions), he is Marty Walsh-level pro-development and the pace of dense residential in Everett is impressive - even without a Golden Platter of a GLX being delivered to it in the past 5 years like it was to Somerville.

I'm interested to see what happens with Wilson or Burnley - - the other dynamic is how this all navigates with the changes in Washington.
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It is an interesting dynamic that Burnley, the more progressive candidate, is also more pro-development. His platform calls for adoption of Cambridge’s 6 floor citywide zoning.

Wilson calls for more targeted upzoning near transit stations. This is pretty weak without defining the extent of the upzoning, especially because most of the city is near transit.

Both candidates have committed to developing the city owned Homan’s site at the center of Gilman Sq quicker than Ballantyne would. It is probably the biggest empty lot TOD opportunity right now.
 
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The real laggard is Chelsea, which has punitive levels of IZ. There's next to no new private development there despite plenty of brownfield like Everett and an insanely bad housing crisis.
 
The inner belt is zoned 3 story. I guess partly caused by the tunnels brige on the inner belt road that restricts access.
Change that bridge to a regular one.
Switch inner belt zoning to CX levels.
Push Brickbottom development.
Build pedestrian access across the CR tracks at the T station from new washington.
Develop 90 washington immediately, 7-9 stories with residential commercial.
Put the public safety building next to target
Eventually build a new CR station beside the T station.
Put heavy penalties on developers that leave huge pits like the one at the start of McGrath.
Use those funds to discourage that carry on and invest in hyper local infrastructure.

I'm sick of people bickering about where to develop in somerville while there are still dated industrial lots flanking a brand new T station 2 stops from north station.
 
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