USPS Complex | Fort Point

king_vibe said:
If the Post Office leaves, is there any part of a NSRL that would preclude dense construction along Dorchester Ave? (Apart from the fact that NSRL will not ever occur.)
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No. The tunnel is nearly 100 ft. below ground on any of the considered South Station Under alignments, well below the reach of any building pilings.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
No. The tunnel is nearly 100 ft. below ground on any of the considered South Station Under alignments, well below the reach of any building pilings.
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It depends! SST has end-bearing deep foundations that extend over 100 feet below grade to reach rock. The theoretically smaller buildings that would get developed at the PO site may be able to use friction piles only, which would not need to extend down to bedrock. There’s an obvious design consideration that must be made when tunneling beneath piles, or installing piles above a tunnel. It’s doable but not preferable.

What I was asking is that the path of the NSRL tunnels may either be narrow enough for any development to essentially bridge over it, or may miss the development sites completely. Can anyone clarify if the layout and dimensions of current NSRL options would necessarily render development impossible?
 
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stellarfun said:
I think that max build proposal is as dead as a dodo. Instead of building extra tracks at South station, proponents of the North South rail link want that project to be funded instead.

From the Globe article,
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One reason I suspect MassDOT is dead-eye focused on SSX?

stellarfun said:
Lynch said he would take the lead in pushing USPS for a deal on behalf of the Massachusetts congressional delegation. Straus has been raising concerns because the station is at capacity — complicating plans to increase train frequency, particularly with regard to the extra service under discussion for Western Massachusetts.
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East-West Rail trains aren't running through the NSRL, and we all know that the only way this state spends anything on rail is if it helps win 10 votes in a far flung city.
 
Equilibria said:
One reason I suspect MassDOT is dead-eye focused on SSX?



East-West Rail trains aren't running through the NSRL, and we all know that the only way this state spends anything on rail is if it helps win 10 votes in a far flung city.
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The Globe article is ambiguous about who would build the new USPS building. There is a hint that the Commonwealth (Massport?) might be the builder. Massport would give up about 15 acres of its land. In return Massport would gain title to 20 acres of land owned by the Postal Service near A St., much of which is used for Postal Service employee parking. IMO, that land, if acquired and developed, is much more valuable (And one could build on one or two acres of the Postal Annex land at the north end, if the additional tracks were to start a bit south of the new main concourse.)

USPS land on the east side of Fort Point Channel, with City assessor's address
42,630 sq ft Wormwood St.
87,306 sq ft A St
17,793 sq ft A St
692,203 sq ft Haul Road
33,024 sq ft Haul Road (northward of Richards St.)

According to the City Assessor, the Dorchester Ave USPS land is a total of 610,397 sq ft., about 14 acres
 
Equilibria said:
East-West Rail trains aren't running through the NSRL
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I don’t know all the ins and outs about NSRL, so forgive my ignorance. But why wouldn’t east-west trains take advantage of NSRL and continue to a final destination north or south of the city?
 
Blackbird said:
I don’t know all the ins and outs about NSRL, so forgive my ignorance. But why wouldn’t east-west trains take advantage of NSRL and continue to a final destination north or south of the city?
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East-West is functionally an intercity train, not a regional rail service - from a service prospective I think it would be hard to schedule into regional rail. That said, it's possible that some future operator would see value in running a service from, say, Springfield to Anderson RTC (EW Rail would approach on the southern half of the system, so continuing to a point south of Boston would not use NSRL).
 
Equilibria said:
East-West is functionally an intercity train, not a regional rail service - from a service prospective I think it would be hard to schedule into regional rail. That said, it's possible that some future operator would see value in running a service from, say, Springfield to Anderson RTC (EW Rail would approach on the southern half of the system, so continuing to a point south of Boston would not use NSRL).
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Ah, I see. I thought you were talking about the Worcester Line on the commuter rail, not a Springfield train.
 
IMHO,, any expansion of the Convention Center should try to find a way to incorporate the Postal Service Operations. Whether we are looking at subterranean levels for sorting and office space above ground floor, not really sure. But i think that would serve the site well along with other uses on the site.
 
CBCArch61 said:
IMHO,, any expansion of the Convention Center should try to find a way to incorporate the Postal Service Operations. Whether we are looking at subterranean levels for sorting and office space above ground floor, not really sure. But i think that would serve the site well along with other uses on the site.
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excellent suggestion.
 
CBCArch61 said:
IMHO,, any expansion of the Convention Center should try to find a way to incorporate the Postal Service Operations. Whether we are looking at subterranean levels for sorting and office space above ground floor, not really sure. But i think that would serve the site well along with other uses on the site.
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They could use their parking lot parcel I guess. It's a bit of a walk from South Station though. The Postal Service workers who use T/CR would not be happy. Plus it would wreak havoc with traffic with all the deliveries, backing in and out.

Don't know how tall they can go on that though, because it's right over the Pike.
 
MassPort already has a potential parcel queued up:

bankerandtradesman.com

Massport Buys Parcel Eyed for Postal Facility Relocation - Banker & Tradesman

Massport has acquired a South Boston property that’s been eyed for a potential replacement site for the Dorchester Avenue postal sorting facility to accommodate a potential expansion of South Station.
bankerandtradesman.com bankerandtradesman.com

Which has better access to Logan. Personally I think we should just throw something near Logan itself to really sweeten the deal in Eastie.
 
www.bostonglobe.com

A South Station expansion? Some are optimistic after visit from Postal Service head. - The Boston Globe

USPS needs to relocate to make room for more tracks. Representative Steve Lynch says he is more hopeful than ever that it could happen.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

Many thanks to Lynch for pressing this. It would be a huge, huge deal to make this happen...

The next steps involve figuring out how much the postal service’s Fort Point property is worth — hint: a lot of money — and finding an appropriate new spot for the workers in the 24/7 mail processing operation as well as the USPS administrators and carriers based there, some 2,000 employees in all based on a recent tally. Neither Lynch nor DeJoy wants them to move far. The state controls several nearby parcels, including a Massport site out by the Reserved Channel in Southie that was integral to one proposal to relocate the postal service a decade ago; the port authority currently uses it for chassis parking to support the nearby Conley shipping terminal.
 
Justbuildit said:
www.bostonglobe.com

A South Station expansion? Some are optimistic after visit from Postal Service head. - The Boston Globe

USPS needs to relocate to make room for more tracks. Representative Steve Lynch says he is more hopeful than ever that it could happen.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

Many thanks to Lynch for pressing this. It would be a huge, huge deal to make this happen...

The next steps involve figuring out how much the postal service’s Fort Point property is worth — hint: a lot of money — and finding an appropriate new spot for the workers in the 24/7 mail processing operation as well as the USPS administrators and carriers based there, some 2,000 employees in all based on a recent tally. Neither Lynch nor DeJoy wants them to move far. The state controls several nearby parcels, including a Massport site out by the Reserved Channel in Southie that was integral to one proposal to relocate the postal service a decade ago; the port authority currently uses it for chassis parking to support the nearby Conley shipping terminal.
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Only part I don't like is his explicit deep-sixing of the NSRL. I get that it is dead in the water under Trump, but it sounds like he's killing it off forever.

My more immediate concern is that I wouldn't trust DeJoy even 1%. He's a "true believer", and human progress over private gain is not his deal. This is like asking Putin to help with the US military.
 
shmessy said:
Only part I don't like is his explicit deep-sixing of the NSRL. I get that it is dead in the water under Trump, but it sounds like he's killing it off forever.
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Lynch doesn't even sit on the relevant committees for transportation funding, so he's not in a position to "kill" it...he's just being a general-purpose sourpuss to a hot mic, as is his wont. Now...the fact that few local pols have even been able to articulate NSRL's benefits in non- ham-fisted fashion over the last 2 decades is a much larger structural problem. But Lynch (age 69) won't be around in office too many years longer to hold things back when we finally get our act together.
 
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