Volpe Transportation Center Development | Kendall Sq | Cambridge

Blackbird said:
How do Fed buildings normally receive deliveries? This seems like something that can be controlled.
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Sorry, was referring to the security constraints of a ped zone. Even if the fed deliveries are screened, what about every other company, restaurant, shop in the pedestrianized zone? If that 500ft residential tower is built next door, what about movers? I think the idea of creating a "sterile area" in a mixed use urban center isn't workable. Even in a place with as many high risk targets as DC they haven't tried it with mixed use, only keeping very limited areas sterile where every user is the government. It'd be like working at, living and getting deliveries behind security at the airport (the sterile area we're most familiar with). I would happily take the landscaped strip, concrete benches and planters instead of the sterile area.
 
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While I appreciate where they're coming from (from an urban planning critique standpoint), I think these quibbles over Volpe's security buffers lose touch with the actual big picture of this particular development. Specifically: the main offender of good urbanism here will not be the new Volpe facility, but the thoroughly anti-urban Binney St. corridor. Binney is awful; it's super wide, feels like a highway running through the area, has other dead zones along it. The key improvement here is that Volpe is being converted from sprawling fortress-like campus adjacent to the heart of Kendall to now be fronting Binney which is a lost cause to begin with, opening up the much larger footprint of old Volpe to be improved from an urban design standpoint. If you're concerned about too much open space and lack of human engagement, then focus on critiquing the new MITIMCO parcels; if there needs to be parklets anyway, let them be around the new Volpe near Binney and densify everything else.
 
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Binney is remarkable in how it has so much new construction on it yet none of it even begins to acknowledge its existence. It reminds me of some 1950s parkway (specifically in my hometown of Albany there's the Harriman state office campus with a massive ring road) in how isolated it feels, yet it's smack dab in the middle of a dense urban environment. It's impressive almost in a Will Ferrell I'm-not-even-mad.gif sort of way.
 
kz1000ps said:
Binney is remarkable in how it has so much new construction on it yet none of it even begins to acknowledge its existence. It reminds me of some 1950s parkway (specifically in my hometown of Albany there's the Harriman state office campus with a massive ring road) in how isolated it feels, yet it's smack dab in the middle of a dense urban environment. It's impressive almost in a Will Ferrell I'm-not-even-mad.gif sort of way.
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Its the middle of an office park. Not saying there needs to be residential in this industrial zoned area, just saying Binney could be any office park off 495. The closest residential is Memorial Drive and Charles Street three blocks to the North.
 
Blackbird said:
How do Fed buildings normally receive deliveries? This seems like something that can be controlled.
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https://goo.gl/maps/21nvnk3mGqLv8xcA7
.Dept. of Commerce, controlled access to inner courtyard

https://goo.gl/maps/pUAQatuJNoqGzQaXA
Dept. of Commerce, controlled access to inner courtyard

https://goo.gl/maps/Z1proF3GYuP63hJMA
International organization, barriers that can be raised or lowered

https://goo.gl/maps/1ZLiRoDKpvVPC1aC8
International organization, barriers that can be raised or lowered

https://goo.gl/maps/H6UD4XE4FbpaZiRM6
Controlled access on a street.

https://goo.gl/maps/d4erx5R5yznwpMqq9
Dedicated holding lane for trucks making delivery, access point with barrier.

See also:

Deliveries to Capitol Hill

All delivery vehicles are required to report to the U.S. Capitol Police's Off-Site Delivery Center located at 4700 Shepherd Parkway, SW, Washington, D.C., for inspections before proceeding to the U.S. Capitol Complex. Following inspection, delivery vehicles will proceed to the U.S. Capitol...
www.uscp.gov www.uscp.gov

www.gsa.gov

Truck Security Clearance for Deliveries to GS Building

Truck security clearance procedures for deliveries for the GS building.
www.gsa.gov www.gsa.gov
 
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chmeeee said:

Binney/Galileo/Broadway Streetscape Redesign — Cambridge Redevelopment Authority

www.cambridgeredevelopment.org www.cambridgeredevelopment.org
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^Very good to see this; I am not convinced it will be enough to fix it, but at least it's recognized as a problem that needs solving. Even when looking at these plans, I still maintain that having the new Volpe fronting Binney lessens the additional impact of the security barriers than if it were elsewhere.

dhawkins said:
Its the middle of an office park. Not saying there needs to be residential in this industrial zoned area, just saying Binney could be any office park off 495. The closest residential is Memorial Drive and Charles Street three blocks to the North.
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^I'm guessing you may not have spent a lot of time in Kendall lately. As of the last 5-10 years, there's now a substantial amount of residential well within the Charles-to-Memorial outline you mention, and/or within +/- 2 blocks of 'old Volpe'. For instance, Equity Apartments/Lofts at Kendall, Watermark towers East & West, Third Square Apartments, the Proto tower, Vivo Apartments, and the ~75% completed MITIMCO North of Main tower. This does not even include the hundreds+ units planned to be built within the old Volpe site as part of this redevelopment. Indeed, "'70s-2000's kendall" was all offices and parking lots, but a large number of people reside there now as a wave of residential construction has taken place.
 
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They're still out there.
A Texas man who boasted about being on the U.S. Capitol steps during the Jan. 6 insurrection has been arrested by the FBI and accused of planning to detonate a bomb at a data center outside Washington in the hopes that doing so would cripple not just Internet traffic but also the FBI, CIA and other government agencies, officials said Friday.

Justice Department officials said Seth Aaron Pendley, 28, was arrested Thursday after he allegedly attempted to take material from someone he thought was an illicit supplier of explosives, but who in fact was an FBI agent. Pendley’s planned target was an Amazon Web Services building in Ashburn, Va., authorities said.
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bigpicture7 said:
^Very good to see this; I am not convinced it will be enough to fix it, but at least it's recognized as a problem that needs solving. Even when looking at these plans, I still maintain that having the new Volpe fronting Binney lessens the additional impact of the security barriers than if it were elsewhere.



^I'm guessing you may not have spent a lot of time in Kendall lately. As of the last 5-10 years, there's now a substantial amount of residential well within the Charles-to-Memorial outline you mention, and/or within +/- 2 blocks of 'old Volpe'. For instance, Equity Apartments/Lofts at Kendall, Watermark towers East & West, Third Square Apartments, the Proto tower, Vivo Apartments, and the ~75% completed MITIMCO North of Main tower. This does not even include the hundreds+ units planned to be built within the old Volpe site as part of this redevelopment. Indeed, "'70s-2000's kendall" was all offices and parking lots, but a large number of people reside there now as a wave of residential construction has taken place.
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I'm not being a pessimist about Binney being a pedestrian level boulevard. I'm just stating in it's current zoning , it is an industrial park along this corridor. The mixed use zone on Third Street is a great pedestrian walk zone. One it is great way to break up this massive industrial area and connect the Kendall to East Cambridge neighborhoods, but I don't see anyone walking from Memorial Drive or Third St to One Kendall ( I miss the Blue Room menu) or Landmark Cinema because it's a long desolate walk, and windy as hell in the winter. I do consider this an important area though, one of the greatest concentrations of modern industry and it should be connected to the T system. I support many of the Crazy Transit pitches to extend the Blue Line across the river and run under the length of Binney and terminate at the Grand Junction
 
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Those air ducts seem large for a non-lab office building, or is that just par for the course now?
 
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