Volpe Transportation Center Development | Kendall Sq | Cambridge

The Constellation Center lot is still a wasteland in that rendering. Hilarious.
 
mdd said:
The Constellation Center lot is still a wasteland in that rendering. Hilarious.
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Seriously WTF is going on with that? I am in favor of land piracy.. let's at least make it into a park if nothing is ever going to get built there.
 
Galactic said:
let's at least make it into a park if nothing is ever going to get built there.
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There is already more than enough open space in Kendall Square. Volpe has been designed as yet another superblocks in a park, not a single continuous street wall anywhere and no 2 buildings connect. One of the most valuable neighborhoods in the country and 25% of if is mandatory grass! WTF? The buffer zone around the new transpo center with one additional small park would have been plenty of open space. 2 more high rise towers (preferably residential) could easily be fit in. In spite of a 500 footer (maybe) this is another North Point density failure.
 
Brad Plaid said:
There is already more than enough open space in Kendall Square. Volpe has been designed as yet another superblocks in a park, not a single continuous street wall anywhere and no 2 buildings connect. One of the most valuable neighborhoods in the country and 25% of if is mandatory grass! WTF? The buffer zone around the new transpo center with one additional small park would have been plenty of open space. 2 more high rise towers (preferably residential) could easily be fit in. In spite of a 500 footer (maybe) this is another North Point density failure.
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I think this approval is an interesting example of both the good and the bad when it comes to City bureaucracy.

On the one hand: way too much open space. I agree, there should be more residential buildings.

On the other hand: holding out approval for more pot-sweetening got them more affordable housing, which MIT could plainly afford to give.
 
GW said:
I think this approval is an interesting example of both the good and the bad when it comes to City bureaucracy.

On the one hand: way too much open space. I agree, there should be more residential buildings.

On the other hand: holding out approval for more pot-sweetening got them more affordable housing, which MIT could plainly afford to give.
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Well said; on the one hand, this is old Cambridge folks...getting a 500-footer approved is revolutionary.

On the other hand, this really shouldn't be revolutionary with what's going on in Kendall at this point. We should be way area of where we are now with admitting to ourselves what's going on here.

I'm so torn on this one. Would have loved to see it even denser/taller. But on the other, holy sh*t Cambridge is changing. I guess I am old enough to think of Cambridge as never being up for something like this.

My feelings about this are quite complicated!
 
34f34f said:
Capitalism is why it's a gravel lot. The owner has sat on the land for twenty years and not done anything with it besides talk.
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Wow, it's beginning to seem like this guy was land-banking this lot, yet using non-profit status to avoid taxes while he sat on the property. If he ends up selling this lot to a commercial developer, the city should go after him for back taxes.

My guess is that we'll start to see movement after this:
The site returns to the tax rolls as of Jan. 1; an assessment in spring will attach a price tag for the valuable Kendall Square property for the first time since the 1990s.
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And the assessed value is not looking to be in his favor given the exorbitant price paid by MIT for Volpe right next door...
 
Yes, it's a 380' tower with a 120' spire. You gotta start somewhere, i guess.

(i guess).

i very much doubt an occupied floor rises much higher than 380' in my lifetime. There probably should have been something ungraciously tall in Cambridge 10 years ago.

Cambridge is going to wake up some day and be rich and powerful. It would follow that ordinary land owners having felt they've hit the lottery will cash out, for endless more 260~280' highrises.
 
odurandina said:
Yes, it's a 380' tower with a 120' spire. You gotta start somewhere, i guess.

(i guess).

i very much doubt an occupied floor rises much higher than 380' in my lifetime. There probably should have been something ungraciously tall in Cambridge 10 years ago.

Cambridge is going to wake up some day and be rich and powerful. It would follow that ordinary land owners having felt they've hit the lottery will cash out, for endless more 260~280' highrises.
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For a sense of scale, the JHT look-a-like is the 400 ft MXD residential tower. It is a weird angle, but I would bet this render depicts the big one at 500 feet to the roof. It looks much more than 100 feet taller than the Broad.
 
fattony said:
For a sense of scale, the JHT look-a-like is the 400 ft MXD residential tower. It is a weird angle, but I would bet this render depicts the big one at 500 feet to the roof. It looks much more than 100 feet taller than the Broad.
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This sounds reasonable but I think the tower falls in the 500' FAA zone. I'm not sure what kind of leeway there is for a spire.

Unfortunately, the 1 parcel that could go up to 1000' (and the only one that can break the 500' barrier) appears to be slated for a park. (the upper left part of the site in the aerial)
 
does anyone have a list of the individual buildings? not asking for much; just
[(what building/address, sq ft, stories, height), so i can add them to the list].
 
^ I don't think we're there yet. The city approved all of the zoning changes MIT requested. They've committed to square footages for specific uses (see article above), and they state they plan for a 500' residential tower to be among the buildings...but the renders we're seeing are just the massing study in support of the zoning change request.

The article states:
Now that the City Council has approved the zoning for the site, the next step for the Volpe project will be formulation of a planned unit development, or PUD, for the parcel. The PUD will further define the buildings, uses, and spaces for the overall proposal.
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So I think you're going to have to stay tuned...
 
DZH22 said:
This sounds reasonable but I think the tower falls in the 500' FAA zone. I'm not sure what kind of leeway there is for a spire.

Unfortunately, the 1 parcel that could go up to 1000' (and the only one that can break the 500' barrier) appears to be slated for a park. (the upper left part of the site in the aerial)
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This is on the high edge of the downtown exception zone. That straightedge seems to just represent how far the FAA thought development would go at the time. It may be easier to get a waiver in Kendall than on the waterfront.
 
bigpicture7 said:
^ I don't think we're there yet. The city approved all of the zoning changes MIT requested. They've committed to square footages for specific uses (see article above), and they state they plan for a 500' residential tower to be among the buildings...but the renders we're seeing are just the massing study in support of the zoning change request.

The article states:


So I think you're going to have to stay tuned...
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http://www.cambridgeday.com/2017/10...ted-council-oks-zoning-for-mits-volpe-center/

Just to clairfy the time frame here, Volpe construction must happen first and is currently scheduled for 2019-2021. So everything else would logically be after that, although conceivably construction could begin on other buildings that don't occupy the current tower's footprint...
 
Equilibria said:
http://www.cambridgeday.com/2017/10...ted-council-oks-zoning-for-mits-volpe-center/

Just to clairfy the time frame here, Volpe construction must happen first and is currently scheduled for 2019-2021. So everything else would logically be after that, although conceivably construction could begin on other buildings that don't occupy the current tower's footprint...
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As old Volpe will not be closing while new Volpe is being constructed, parking for Volpe employees would need to be maintained.
 
stellarfun said:
As old Volpe will not be closing while new Volpe is being constructed, parking for Volpe employees would need to be maintained.
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It'll never cease to amaze and frustrate me that we plan cities based on the preferences of suburbanites around here. So much housing and jobs aren't created because of this car centric nonsense.
 
Kinopio said:
It'll never cease to amaze and frustrate me that we plan cities based on the preferences of suburbanites around here. So much housing and jobs aren't created because of this car centric nonsense.
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I mean, it's a practicality thing. Should everyone who is currently employed at Volpe and commutes move to the city or quit?
 
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