Isn't any talk of Amazon @ Volpe a non-sarter with MIT already redeveloping the site?
playing make believe for a moment; say Amazon isn't locating to NYC.... it's Boston (obviously). With the distance between DTB and Northpoint being only a few thousand feet, are 2 campuses a possibility?
MIT didn't buy Volpe to be Amazon's landlord, or to sell the land to Amazon. Why is that predicate so hard for some people to grasp?
Similarly, Harvard and Beacon Yards. Harvard didn't spend tens of millions acquiring often highly contaminated land in Allston to now turn it over to JB, who is not even a Harvard graduate. (He graduated from Princeton.)
https://boston.curbed.com/boston-development/2017/8/15/16148408/mit-volpe-center-dorms
This is a great idea, but geez, what a weak way of getting it out there. "We really need housing, and here's our great idea... but it's just a suggestion. We won't make a fuss if you ignore us."
Along with the known 1,400 units of housing and 2.5 acres of open space that will appear in Kendall Square over Volpe’s 14 acres, with government research being done in a much smaller footprint alongside it, there would be several other big-ticket items, said Israel Ruiz, executive vice president and treasurer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Included in the packet are long-awaited access rights allowing the creation of a Grand Junction multi-use path, along with $8.5 million for design and construction.
The institute’s development arm committed also to spending $25.5 million on a Volpe community center, $8.5 million for transit improvements to ease the traffic expected from the creation of a neighborhood and $1.5 million to support a job connector program aimed at letting all residents take advantage of the square’s innovation economy.
There should really be an observation deck here. The webcam on 88 Ames Street convinced me that this would be the absolute best view in the city.
Seriously, look at the city view across the top. Wow! This would be higher too, completely unobstructed in every direction.
https://app.oxblue.com/open/BostonProperties/BostonRegion
It not at the top of a building, maybe MIT should consider a hi-tech observation tower, like Cambridge's version of the Space Needle. Kendall could really use the flair.
Cambridge City Council approves MIT’s Volpe zoning petition
-Approximately 1.7 million square feet of commercial development
-Approximately 1,400 housing units, ...including 280 permanently subsidized affordable units and 20 middle-income units
-A minimum of 5 percent innovation space for entrepreneurship and incubator activities
-Approximately 2.5 acres of open space
-Height limits ranging from 170 feet to 500 feet (one residential building is slated for a potential 500-foot height)
-Retail and active street uses in a minimum of 65 percent of ground floors...
Wow, lots of great stuff included in this render. The 2 towers on the right are MXD. The Ames Street tower is in there too. Plus all the Main Street additions.
This is simply spectacular. I just wish the open space were more contiguous. I fear this could come out as a bunch of unusable "lawns" instead of a real park or 2. The number of trees depicted is ... aspirational at best.
On the subject of green space, it would be nice for the Grand Junction path project to include some corporate-funded renovations of the lawn at Binney and Fulkerson. That will be a gateway in the future with the cinema right there, and it would have a ton of potential if done right.
I think a lot of the green space in front of the buildings is really green roof. At least... I hope it is.
Bigger:
You can see in this south facing view that at least one of the green areas that appears to be a park in the aerial is in fact a green roof. If you look closely, that seems to be the case for the tallest tower as well.