Volpe Transportation Center Development | Kendall Sq | Cambridge

BKNA said:
I dont know about the acreage the feds are requiring, but there are security offsets from any vehicle space (road, parking, drop off, anything accessible by a car) to the federal building. I believe its 150'.
Unfortunately, the federal building cant fit between Binney and Munroe with those requirements.
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I would presume that requirements for building distance from vehicular traffic varies by security level of the federal facility: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_building_security

US DOT does some pretty important research here, but I don't think any of it qualifies for such stringent security requirements. You could achieve required distance from street by narrowing the lanes on Binney St and removing the center median that makes it feel like a highway like Seaport Boulevard - should happen anyway. Then set back the building from Third and Munroe Sts. OR put it in the northern corner along Binney St as part of the L-shaped building, displacing the residential or office to Binney and Third.
 
fattony said:
First, I don't think anyone wants a floor plate as big as you've drawn in blue. That's the size of a shopping mall or an automobile factory. Why on earth would anyone want that much contiguous floor space in Kendall Square?

Second, I'm not sure that tower-on-lab massing works. There are 30+ foot mechanicals and vents on top of many lab buildings. Those are going to be where? Rising up alongside multiple stories of apartment windows?
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A large company that would want all their employees on one floor so they can mix and collaborate instead of them being spread across multiple floors or multiple buildings? It doesn't have to be an "Open office plan" but even with offices or cubicles it's better to be in close proximity to your coworkers.

Similarly small/startup or medium businesses can share a lot of space while still being able to collaborate and without being separated by elevators.

Lab mechanicals can be 30+ tall because they get squeezed on top of narrow towers. With more lateral space you can make those ventilation systems much more compact.
 
Mongo said:
That is a really stupid requirement to impose on a transportation research building in the middle of a city. And the current building doesn't meet that at all.
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It may be really stupid to you, but I can assure you, its not really stupid to the government.

The FBI in Chelsea is 220,000 sq ft on 5+ acres.
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Murrah-Building.jpg




Design guidelines for the replacement building to the above.

http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/images/c...ub-pollalis-case-Oklahoma-Sept2006-public.pdf
 
stellarfun said:
It may be really stupid to you, but I can assure you, its not really stupid to the government.

The FBI in Chelsea is 220,000 sq ft on 5+ acres.
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I understand where the requirements come from, and I understand why the FBI and other "high visibility" agencies would have those requirements, but this is a transportation research building, it doesn't need the same protection as the FBI.
 
BKNA said:
I apologize, the offset is 75'. Not 150'
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You have to understand they aren't hard and fast requirements either. From the paper that stellar linked to about the replacement OK city federal building (with much more stringent requirements than this has)

The new requirements include a recommended 100 foot building setback to create a safety barrier between the building and potential detonations in parked cars. While Murrah was nine stories high, the tenants insisted that the new building have only three or four stories. Based on further studies, discussions and test data from blasts, it was decided that 50 feet would be adequate in order to maintain a safe perimeter at the south, east and west wings Since this is half the setback recommended by the government, to account for the remaining 50 feet required by the guidelines, parking is only permitted along the far sidewalk, away from the building. GSA also requires that vehicular drop-off lanes be no closer than 20 feet from the building and that there be physical obstructions to maintain this distance. In response to this, the architects incorporated bollards in the design to create a ceremonial gateway into the site. Bollards will also run around the entire perimeter of the site but will be hidden in tall, native prairie grass.
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There is currently no parking on Binney or Third, and Monroe could be made into a restricted access street.
 
This is one situation where NIMBYs will not be the biggest impediment to a good urban development in Cambridge. If security is going to demand anti-urban designs, then they should not be trying to shoehorn into an urban setting.
 
Handbook of perimeter security design.

http://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/20130726-1624-20490-0371/430_ch4.pdf

It is not enough to simply prohibit parking, physical barriers preventing such are necessary, even if these take away street lanes (or streets). For example:

https://goo.gl/maps/m7dLpVJTyzM2

https://goo.gl/maps/Ph9QN7U25Ww

https://goo.gl/maps/RkBKJPg1RFz

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The government owns 14 acres. It could keep all 14 if it so chose. Instead it has said, 'I'll keep four, and give you ten'. Yet it seems that for some, four acres is keeping too much, and the government should give away more, --perhaps 11 or 12 acres. The government had at least 10 respondents who seem to feel that ten is fine by them.

As much of the four acres will be open space, perhaps the city ought to credit that against its desired open space percentage for the site.
 
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stellarfun said:
The government owns 14 acres. It could keep all 14 if it so chose. Instead it has said, 'I'll keep four, and give you ten'. Yet it seems that for some, four acres is keeping too much, and the government should give away more, --perhaps 11 or 12 acres. The government had at least 10 respondents who seem to feel that ten is fine by them.

As much of the four acres will be open space, perhaps the city ought to credit that against its desired open space percentage for the site.
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I have yet to see the 4 acres comment on any government documents. That is something a Cambridge city counselor said once, which could be a generalization of how much space is being given up. The RFI states their sqft and parking requirement and seems to be open to any plan that could accomplish that.
 
interesting that we live in a country were US.GOV offices swallow up multiple city blocks

and build these huge secure fortresses.
 
Mongo said:
I have yet to see the 4 acres comment on any government documents. That is something a Cambridge city counselor said once, which could be a generalization of how much space is being given up. The RFI states their sqft and parking requirement and seems to be open to any plan that could accomplish that.
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If you think its other than that, perhaps you ought to write to the city.

...Basically, this is a provision that GSA has available to them, which has not been used very often at all. In fact, I think this might be only the second time that it's being used. In that it's almost like a land swap. That the Volpe center needs to be made whole, so a private developer needs to build a new Volpe building. In return, they will get the balance of the land.

The site is 14 acres and the needs of the Volpe Center are approximately four acres, so there will be approximately 10 acres left. And the developer will have to-- that's what they'll get is the space. But they have to build and make the Volpe Center whole. And I think-- kind of "back of the napkin" calculations are, that's going to cost a developer somewhere between $300 and $400 million to build a new Volpe site.
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MIT interview with the Mayor of Cambridge, Nov 2015
https://static.3playmedia.com/files...yMg4ZKNd8YWQ72wKS8YZyGhiXv1&dl=1&usevideoid=1
 
So 4 acres seems to be an approximation someone came up with for the following criteria (from the RFI):

The New Facility will be a single facility or connected facilities that contain up to 390,000 gross
square feet (GSF) and parking spaces as appropriate to house up to1,300 personnel. The New
Facility will accommodate the following:
 Office operations including conference rooms and space for collaborative, joint-use activities,
and special use space (i.e., fitness center, child care facility) (approximately 90%);
 Flexible, ground-level laboratory space to accommodate simulators and large vehicles and
storage space (approximately 10%); and
 Public access to showcase the work of the Volpe Center.
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So that's 39,000 square feet for the building on the ground floor. So at least an acre for the building, another for the setbacks. If that parking was included in an underground garage for the rest of the site it could really shrink down the required acreage.

As for the setbacks 50 ft seems to be the right number. This is the DOT headquarters building in DC, opened in 2007, and the setbacks are 50 ft. So if Munroe were restricted you could definitely get a good sized building in there.
 
The DOT Headquarters building is not owned by the government, its leased space. Even with that, streets are closed off.
https://goo.gl/maps/vKJYTcP5cU72

There are lots of government buildings in Washington that don't have desired setbacks. This Federal office building would certainly not be built today.
https://goo.gl/maps/BWLkCG4wVpR2

But I am not going to second guess DOT when it says its needs four acres. If it only needed two, that would make development of the non-government acres more attractive, would it not?

The security envelope that DOT is trying to create may not be limited to the physical security of the building.

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It may also be that the building specification calls for a high-bay, wide span truss, no columns section, thus a building footprint that would be an irregular polygon.
 
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...-volpe-site/47lMg7anZSAoQcae1YRi1O/story.html

No real new news, other than GSA has received number responses to the RFP, and is reviewing them. Very much under wraps.

Also, the city, for the moment, gave up trying to zone because of competing demands.

I suppose, one option, is that the Federal government could retain ownership of the land, and execute very long-term ground-leases for parts of it to developers. That would keep it out of zoning.
 
stellarfun said:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...-volpe-site/47lMg7anZSAoQcae1YRi1O/story.html

No real new news, other than GSA has received number responses to the RFP, and is reviewing them. Very much under wraps.

Also, the city, for the moment, gave up trying to zone because of competing demands.

I suppose, one option, is that the Federal government could retain ownership of the land, and execute very long-term ground-leases for parts of it to developers. That would keep it out of zoning.
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I read the secrecy less as "we won't tell you what we want" and more as "we have no idea what we want, and we'll know more when we read the proposals." The secrecy is a problem because, while I'm sure the GSA knows how to develop Federal office buildings, I doubt they know much about urban planning. The proponents will have a design firm, but Cambridge may get the plan as a fait accompli up/down vote, and that's how good projects die.

Really, the GSA should only concern themselves with the best new building for Volpe, then sell the rest of the site to that developer and call it a day. Let the public process handle it from there - Cambridge isn't anti-development by any means.

I also thought it was interesting that the proponents were asked for three potential design firms. I bet about 75% of them listed Elkus Manfredi and another 75% listed cbt.
 
If I was the federal government I'd want to keep the process away from Cambridge, they know with certainty that the Cambridge NIMBY's would screw it up. The developer should move the VLOPE center to a location along 128 imo. The federal government already has a military base in Bedford.
 
tysmith95 said:
If I was the federal government I'd want to keep the process away from Cambridge, they know with certainty that the Cambridge NIMBY's would screw it up. The developer should move the VLOPE center to a location along 128 imo. The federal government already has a military base in Bedford.
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The DOT has stated they want to remain in Cambridge, --insist might be a better word. Early on, there was chatter about the government being willing to swap parcels, giving all of the Volpe site to a developer in exchange for the developer building a new Volpe on another site in Cambridge. If that possibility is still on the table, then MIT is probably the only proposer who might pull it off.
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equilibria, GSA has some experience in urban planning. See development of parts of the Washington Navy Yard.
http://www.gsa.gov/graphics/regions/The_Yards_Final_EA_7_16_10.pdf

St. Elizabeth's Hospital
http://www.stelizabethsdevelopment.com/index.html

GSA has little inclination to referee competing interests in Cambridge.

I doubt that competing firms would select the same design firm. The only way that could happen is if the government specified a particular firm to be included as part of the proposal. Highly unlikely for Volpe. You might have seen something like that if the government was building MIT Nano, where a particular firm had highly specialized design expertise.
 
stellarfun said:
I doubt that competing firms would select the same design firm. The only way that could happen is if the government specified a particular firm to be included as part of the proposal. Highly unlikely for Volpe. You might have seen something like that if the government was building MIT Nano, where a particular firm had highly specialized design expertise.
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If the developer was expected to partner with a design firm (as was the case at Winthrop Square, for instance), then yes. In this case, they were only asked to provide three POTENTIAL design firms. If I were a developer at this stage of the process, I'd include Elkus by default and then fight with the other finalists to secure them later. They're a security blanket.

I bet they end up with MIT, given that the KSI seems to be working out.
 
Would it be possible for the federal government to approve a 800+ ft tower without the approval of Cambridge? Any chance the feds would do this?
 
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