Waltham Infill and Small Developments

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kz1000ps said:
The girlfriend gets bloodwork done at MGH West so I find myself out here with time to kill...

The old Polaroid campus

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Route 128 veterans will recall this disco era structure

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Here it is in 1987 courtesy of an MIT photo collection

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It was demolished last year and a 5-story office building is going up in its place

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Also the former IDC building...

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Is no more

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Bye bye quirky postwar buildings!
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That last building that was demolished is the 180 Third Avenue development.
Just found this link for the project. 180 Third Avenue (stantec.com)

The other one is the 300 Third Avenue development. Life Science Development | 300 Third Ave | Waltham, MA
 
stick n move said:
The edison on the charles that burnt down mid construction a couple years ago has been rebuilt and is now wrapped up. Came out great imo.
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https://www.skiarch.com/projects/cooper-street/
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Saw this when it was u/c and was impressed at what was clearly going to be vastly improved bike / park amenities. That’s the biggest win of this project I think, but it’s got decent density, too.
 
Is there a good way to properly urbanize this area or due the highways and topography basically rule that out?
 
curcuas said:
Is there a good way to properly urbanize this area or due the highways and topography basically rule that out?
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Highways and topography are certainly constraints, but I think the largest constraint is that it is so far down the office-park path that urbanizing this would be a century-long process.

*That is to say, projects like the Edison on the Charles look great, and a few more decades of development of that nature and you can have something going.

Also, stellar pics kz.
 
Isn't there a large chunk of woods behind this area?
 
curcuas said:
Is there a good way to properly urbanize this area or due the highways and topography basically rule that out?
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There is the old central mass rail line spur that goes past here from the split in waltham. That line could be used to route the commuter rail around downtown waltham if the waltham line gets converted to some kind of mass transit line in the future. There is already plans for a future park n ride by 95 for the current line that could be moved to the proposed line along with a station here. There is a discussion about using the central ma rail line spur somewhere on this forum that could probably be found with a search.
 
stefal said:
it is so far down the office-park path that urbanizing this would be a century-long process.
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Every single time I'm here I'm left wondering how the street grid got so royally fucked. Every north-south road has a bunch of awkward bends (I know I know--topography) and especially in the area where I was shooting it would seem about 70% of the roads just dead end. It's the ultimate cul-de-sac office park, and any real change here is going to hinge on them making sense of that confounding street grid.

Edit: and the fact that they named these roads as "2nd Ave" or "4th Ave" is hilarious considering they're just glorified office park access roads.
 
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I had no idea this is the future of that latest hole in the ground; 180 Third Ave.

180 Third Avenue

Our architecture, interior design, and engineering teams designed the 180 Third Avenue lab building perched along Route 128 in Waltham, Massachusetts. This workplace with a dynamic façade is part of the City Point Office Park campus.
www.stantec.com www.stantec.com
 
180 Third Ave by Stantec
Stylish, sexy life science. It can be done, please take note Elkus.
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awood91 said:
Looks nice but that massive garage better be to support future future phases
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That's the problem with Waltham... you'd have to expect most of your workforce is driving there.
 
I worked at a software company up above the reservoir, by the Raytheon HQ. It was stifling to be isolated out there with absolutely nothing around you but other megabuildings, and your commute tightly tied to the 128BC shuttle to Alewife.
 
awood91 said:
Looks nice but that massive garage better be to support future future phases
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You'd think, but unfortunately the steep slope made them separate the office and garage parts into near-separate structures. The thinking must've been keep the garage traffic on 3rd Ave and the front door on 4th Ave.

I like the architecture but it sure makes for some wonky massing.
 
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