Volpe Transportation Center Development | Kendall Sq | Cambridge

[tysmith95]

I don't think this will be used as a campus expansion for MIT. They mentioned in their statement that it would be mixed use.

 

[whighlander]

This. It makes no sense for the university to build a tall tower. MIT has a enormous campus, it doesn't need to build tall.

KentXie-- This should be properly viewed as an added benefit to MIT's existing plans for the "backdoor" to the Institute

No one is going to build undergraduate dorms. The residences that MIT wants to build are apartments where a grad student or post doc and family can settle in for 4 or 6 years. Since MIT has so many paid research staff there might be a market for some condos as well.

Beyond directly benefitting MIT through having more students closer to campus labs many of the newer one such as Koch or Nano are on the Vassar / Main Street edge] the rest of the motivation is purely financial. Therefore you would expect MIT to develop jointly [possibly with one of the losers in the lottery] more of what used to be called Cambridge Center

The only kicker for a tower is the Residences -- no one wants a lab up in the top of a tower where collaboration means elevation

 

[Suffolk 83]

Even SUNY Albany with a huge campus chose to build 4 285 foot towers to house students. Colleges seem to love dorm towers.

I would assume a dorm tower over 400ft would make much sense logistically. I remember myself as a college kid bouncing back and forth between my dorm room constantly. Living on the 30th floor of a dorm tower waiting for an elevator would be brutal 9 times a day.

 

[lexicon506]

I see the MIT designation as a trade-off. MIT is less likely to build tall here than a more traditional developer would be. But on the other hand they are more likely to push the envelope architecturally. If they can tap into their vast design talent and deliver on the latter, give me MIT any day of the week.

 

[stellarfun]

Certainly a circumspect announcement, and possibly there are more pieces in play.

GSA, early on, said it would consider a land swap as part of the development; i.e., a developer who had four acres elsewhere in Cambridge could build new Volpe there, and have the entirety of the Volpe parcel to develop.

Its possible MIT could swap potential projects/uses on the Volpe site with Mit-owned sites elsewhere.

MIT has zero interest in being a residential landlord, so no super-tall or even tall. Private developers of residential property are interested a.) in selling the residential units as quickly as possible to recoup costs and hopefully make a profit; b.) owning rental property for the depreciation life. Cambridge has zero enthusiasm for MIT housing MIT students at Kendall Square in what would be a tax-exempt building.

I agree with whighlander that MIT could take on one or more partners, either by selling off part of the land, or jointly developing. This parcel will not be land-banked, nor will it be a multi-decade development. MIT has to consider how much capital outlay it wants to commit to, and certainly, academic buildings would have a long recoupment period of capital spent (unless a generous donor pays for it).

The city of Cambridge would be delighted if most of the development was commercial / lab which would generate large tax revenue.

 

[odurandina]

I would assume a dorm tower over 400ft would make much sense logistically....

double the sprinkler system capacity and we're in the ballpark.

 

[navigator4]

I'd be pretty surprised if MIT goes tall here. Especially if it's just lab buildings with retail at ground level and some minor residential.

Don't forget, MIT will have to build a 400K foot building for the feds in order to have the right to build here. They are going to have to build something tall or dense in order to recover that cost plus the cost of building. Those who hope for a big park are off their rockers.

 

[HalcyonEra]

Don't forget, MIT will have to build a 400K foot building for the feds in order to have the right to build here. They are going to have to build something tall or dense in order to recover that cost plus the cost of building. Those who hope for a big park are off their rockers.

Think short, dense and ugly. Just like the vast majority of their campus. I may be in minority here, but I think this selection was the absolute worst case scenario to see anything of note or landmark status built here.

 

[fattony]

This land is entirely too expensive for dorm rooms, even ones for grad students. As stellar pointed out, the city will be having none of that either. They (rightly) want the tax revenue. MIT should be putting up dorms, but definitely not here. They could sell condos for well over $1000 per sq ft here.

The city wants to see both open space and affordable housing, so I think we will see this push relatively vertical. Since we've already seen one proposal over 400 feet in Kendall, I'll predict this one just cracking 500.

A tall office tower is pretty far outside the Cambridge model, so I predict the office space here will be restrained as a percentage of the floor space and entirely on spec. Nobody (MIT, Feds, City) is going to have an appetite to wait around trying to land a big fish before moving this forward.

 

[stick n move]

It was reported by multiple sources with renders that they may want to hit 1000'. Im not sure if that is now dead or what.

Theres actually a video they made rendering some pretty significant towers being built here.
http://www.cambridgeday.com/2015/06/26/five-things-that-must-be-considered-before-volpe-site-zoning-remakes-kendall-square/

Theres also this from Cambridgeday.com

And an article talking about a study done on different schemes one of them including a supertall.

http://www.cambridgeday.com/2015/06/27/city-prepares-for-meeting-on-volpe-zoning-releases-3-d-models-of-visions-for-kendall/

 

[fattony]

It was reported by multiple sources with renders that they may want to hit 1000'. Im not sure if that is now dead or what.

Leland Cheung, the most pro-development city councilor, said that as an off-hand comment.

 

[stick n move]

^ It looks like they went a bit further than an off-hand comment. There were apparently some studies done on this. Whether any of that stuff I posted means anything is another story though. Also whether this would actually ever happen even if they wanted it to is another story in itself.

 

[stellarfun]

MIT owns 2.922 million square feet of non-taxable residential space (dorms). MIT owns 164,000 sq ft of taxable residential space.

MIT told Cambridge it was not increasing the number of undergraduate beds over the next ten years (perhaps a 100 beds or so), and would increase the number of graduate student beds by perhaps 500 or so.

I believe if MIT were to develop a residential property to either sell the units, or rent, it could lose its tax exempt status. Non-profits, given the significant tax advantages they have, are not supposed to compete with the private sector.

 

[tysmith95]

The MIT surface lot on the corner of Vassar and Amherst Alley would be a good spot for a relocated Vlope (or a new dorm). There are also some empty lots behind Simmons Hall, also there are some surface parking lots on both sides of Hayward Street right near the Kendall T stop. (Apologies if there are any development proposals on these sites). I think the reason why MIT won was that they have so many other sites in and around their campus where VLOPE could be relocated.

It'll be interesting to see what development plans the school has for the Vlope site and any others that may be developed. Maybe our resident MIT alum has some ON TOPIC information about sites that MIT owns that could possibly be developed into a new Vlope center

 

[whighlander]

Certainly a circumspect announcement, and possibly there are more pieces in play.

GSA, early on, said it would consider a land swap as part of the development; i.e., a developer who had four acres elsewhere in Cambridge could build new Volpe there, and have the entirety of the Volpe parcel to develop.

Its possible MIT could swap potential projects/uses on the Volpe site with Mit-owned sites elsewhere.

MIT has zero interest in being a residential landlord, so no super-tall or even tall. Private developers of residential property are interested a.) in selling the residential units as quickly as possible to recoup costs and hopefully make a profit; b.) owning rental property for the depreciation life. Cambridge has zero enthusiasm for MIT housing MIT students at Kendall Square in what would be a tax-exempt building.

I agree with whighlander that MIT could take on one or more partners, either by selling off part of the land, or jointly developing. This parcel will not be land-banked, nor will it be a multi-decade development. MIT has to consider how much capital outlay it wants to commit to, and certainly, academic buildings would have a long recoupment period of capital spent (unless a generous donor pays for it).

The city of Cambridge would be delighted if most of the development was commercial / lab which would generate large tax revenue.

Stellarfun -- you are confusing undergraduate dorms with graduate and post doc family housing -- graduate apartments would not be tax exempt property -- this is not part of the MIT Campus.

The latter is all about apartments rented by the family from MIT. Obviously, MIT hires a firm to handle the actual logistics. As I pointed out earlier with nearly 30,000 people involved with MIT [both on campus, Lincoln Lab, and some far-flung sites including: students, grad students, temporary post-docs and semi-permanent members of the Sponsored Research Staff -- MIT is chronically short of housing. The highest priority is now for family housing and a tall tower would probably do quite well.

Overall -- MIT will act as Master Developer with conceivably both Alexandria and Boston Properties and possibly residential developer like Avalon

The new Volpe Center will not be tall as it needs some strange features including: large floor plates, high ceilings, access to ramps, or very large freight elevators, auditorium, several smaller meeting rooms, food service and of course offices.

If the feds say that they need 400k sq.ft. -- think a 3 or 4 story podium with about an acre per floor [probably a similar footprint deep basement] then one or two office towers [one 100x100 about 20 stories; two same kind of footprint for each about 15 stories].

 

[whighlander]

Think short, dense and ugly. Just like the vast majority of their campus. I may be in minority here, but I think this selection was the absolute worst case scenario to see anything of note or landmark status built here.

Halcyon -- do you care to share with us your most ugly [5] and least ugly [5] MIT buildings on the campus -- and you can't use buildings such as 20 or 12 which have been replace by something else

 

[whighlander]

MIT owns 2.922 million square feet of non-taxable residential space (dorms). MIT owns 164,000 sq ft of taxable residential space.

MIT told Cambridge it was not increasing the number of undergraduate beds over the next ten years (perhaps a 100 beds or so), and would increase the number of graduate student beds by perhaps 500 or so.

I believe if MIT were to develop a residential property to either sell the units, or rent, it could lose its tax exempt status. Non-profits, given the significant tax advantages they have, are not supposed to compete with the private sector.

Stellerfun -- the MIT Investment Management Company [aka MITIMCO] is not part of the tax-exempt "University Polarized Around Science] -- it's function is to make money for MIT based on the endowment -- they manage a wide variety of assets from entrepreneurial VC to buying bonds. MIT hires the same kind of financial analysts and managers as Fidelity. MIT also hires the top-notch real estate professionals and top-notch VC professionals.

As for the Cambridge Real Estate Portfolio

CAMBRIDGE REAL ESTATE TEAM
The Cambridge Real Estate Team manages MIT’s investment real estate holdings in Cambridge. This consists of:
• Maintaining and improving the quality of the innovation environment in Cambridge and surrounding the campus
• Creating direct economic support for the Institute
• Ensuring that the Institute has appropriate amounts of flexible space to accommodate its evolving long-term needs

we manage a portfolio of real estate in Cambridge around the MIT campus. Because MIT owns a critical mass of land holdings in Cambridge and is a large driver of demand for real estate space, we have advantages in this arena that third parties cannot match. In this particular circumstance, it also is important for MIT to take direct control of these investments because our goal is not simply to seek the highest financial returns with the properties.

While it is important for a real estate project to be financially viable for itto be sustainable, we also want to attract innovative companies to the Cambridge area and to create a lively
interactive environment that benefits local residents, local businesses and the MIT community.

The bottom lines is that when they do a real-estate project -- they are always thinking about how perhaps some a-yet-imponderable dept might need some space in 100 years.

 

[tangent]

It was reported by multiple sources with renders that they may want to hit 1000'. Im not sure if that is now dead or what.

Theres actually a video they made rendering some pretty significant towers being built here.
http://www.cambridgeday.com/2015/06/26/five-things-that-must-be-considered-before-volpe-site-zoning-remakes-kendall-square/

Theres also this from Cambridgeday.com

And an article talking about a study done on different schemes one of them including a supertall.

http://www.cambridgeday.com/2015/06/27/city-prepares-for-meeting-on-volpe-zoning-releases-3-d-models-of-visions-for-kendall/

Better to put the tall on the North side of the parcel to reduce shadows on the center. Nice to see some massing though.

 

[odurandina]

Call Accordia and build either of their amazing tower proposals @ 1000'.

Halcyon -- do you care to share with us your most ugly [5] and least ugly [5] MIT buildings on the campus -- and you can't use buildings such as 20 or 12 which have been replace by something else

Bashing MIT's failed architecture across the board is way more fun.

 

[HalcyonEra]

Halcyon -- do you care to share with us your most ugly [5] and least ugly [5] MIT buildings on the campus -- and you can't use buildings such as 20 or 12 which have been replace by something else

This is a difficult assignment. It would probably be easier to rank them 1-100.

Most
1. Simmons Hall
2. Dreyfus Building
3. Eastgate (I know its coming down)
4. Green Building
5. Baker House
6. Landou Building
7. One Broadway
8. Hermann Building

Least
1. Great Dome
2. Messiah Hall
3. Maclauren Buildings
4. Walker Memorial
5. Koch Institute
6. Henge
7. Media Lab
8. Sloan (probably due to its excellent café but should have been taller

Indifferent
Stata Center - As much as I love it, I hate it

I do like their recent proposals though. We will see what actually gets built.