Wentworth Dorm | 630 Huntington Ave | Fenway

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Wentworth Institute of Technology
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is planning to develop a 200-bed dormitory at 630 Huntington Ave., the school said in a Nov. 18 letter of intent to the Boston Planning and Development Agency.
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Mod Edit 11/22/19:
BPDA link with LOI: http://www.bostonplans.org/projects/development-projects/630-huntington-avenue
Direct link to LOI: https://bpda.app.box.com/s/jy5lvezeq1ejdxjmg7l2kwi9cw4quvtu
 
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The article references a "vacant site" which is a very tiny park in the corner next to Baker Hall (620 Huntington) and 610 Huntington:
Wentworth owns the vacant site, which is located on the corners of Huntington Avenue, St. Alphonsus Street and Ward Street. The private university plans to use the new dormitory as an opportunity to redevelop other existing dormitories and add more beds to its campus.
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If it's going to have 200 beds, it's going to have to go high on this site.

Here is the site. This was formerly a gas station until April 2008. The site was vacant until it was turned into a park in 2010:
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Looks like there's some nice trees on the sidewalk there. The city has to make them keep those during construction tooso those arent chopped down. I believe there was a Globe article about that not too long ago
 
Sad. Not every square inch of land needs buildings. This is a nice little greenspace in an area where there is very little (please don't bother pointing out the proximity of the Fenway parks proper; that's worlds away when you're standing right where this spot is). We do need to preserve greenspace in the city. Allowing more liberal heights would maximize use of vertical developments much better.
 
I'm trying to find the LOI itself (not in the article), but I'm curious if they are proposing to tear down Baker Hall, which is extremely substandard for today's college housing standards, as well. (08-09 Baker survivor here)

You'd think if they were proposing to tear down Baker the BBJ article would have mentioned it though...
 
Suffolk 83 said:
Looks like there's some nice trees on the sidewalk there. The city has to make them keep those during construction tooso those arent chopped down. I believe there was a Globe article about that not too long ago
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FK4 said:
Sad. Not every square inch of land needs buildings. This is a nice little greenspace in an area where there is very little (please don't bother pointing out the proximity of the Fenway parks proper; that's worlds away when you're standing right where this spot is). We do need to preserve greenspace in the city. Allowing more liberal heights would maximize use of vertical developments much better.
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As Data pointed out, this was a gas station a decade ago. You can still see it in Google Streetview. If we reach a point where gas stations-turned-parklets can't be later developed because parklets are nice, then it will never be in an institution's best interest to turn a gas station into a parklet. That would be a bad outcome.
Brad Plaid said:
And the vinyl-sided suburban sprawl of Mission Main.
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I never cease to be amazed at how bad Mission Main is. Any competent housing developer could probably fit in another 500 units there without displacing anyone or even really breaking a sweat.
 
Prescient post..

briv said:
Re: The Apartments at 525 Huntington Ave (Wentworth)

If I had the ear of anyone with any pull over at Wentworth, I'd advise them that next time they want to land bank a parcel, don't make it a park. I'm shocked the NIMBYs aren't already screaming bloody murder.

I'm happy to see this lot get developed, but I wish it weren't so boring. You'd think Wentworth would up their game a bit more with NEU's West Campus and MassArt's new tower on their door step.
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Suffolk 83 said:
Looks like there's some nice trees on the sidewalk there. The city has to make them keep those during construction tooso those arent chopped down. I believe there was a Globe article about that not too long ago
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I'm no arborist, and I'm just looking on streetview, but these don't look like trees worth saving. They look like what people I knew used to call "junk trees," and they're used in almost every new development because they're cheap and grow fast and anywhere. They're might also be some birches in there, but again, those will grow pretty quickly if you wish for large trees in this area.
 
JumboBuc said:
As Data pointed out, this was a gas station a decade ago. You can still see it in Google Streetview. If we reach a point where gas stations-turned-parklets can't be later developed because parklets are nice, then it will never be in an institution's best interest to turn a gas station into a parklet. That would be a bad outcome.


I never cease to be amazed at how bad Mission Main is. Any competent housing developer could probably fit in another 500 units there without displacing anyone or even really breaking a sweat.
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That's beside the point. The prior history as something awful in now way whatsoever affects the argument as to whether a now-park is or is not worth saving. Anyway, I'm not digging in and demanding they save the park, simply observing that it it's unfortunate that this is happening. There simply is no argument on any side that rationally can prove that removing a small piece of greenspace, here, where it is, is 100% fine and good. And we (the collective we, on this forum) generally ignore, in all the ways we all support development and are enthusiastically pro-urban, the very real and constantly emerging evidence that cities are in many ways adversely impacting health, including mental health... and the absence of exposure to greenspace is a significant risk factor for this. So I don't think it's something to be taken lightly. The LMA overall is a very unpleasant area; the presence of the Fenway is great, but it's really an exception to the rule. The rest of the LMA is overall an aesthetically oppressive and overcrowded area, and standing on the corner of Ward & Huntington is psychologically pretty damned far from the one major park (that really is on the margin of this whole area). Anyway, the point is that greenspace is important for many reasons, and just because it gets used as a lever by NIMBYs to fight development does not remove the actual real importance of it, or of sound and sensible urban planning.

Mission Main is abysmal. The traffic circulation, architecture, and density are pretty appalling. I am too young to have any memory of it before the old iteration was torn down, but I am in this area often and every time I see it, I wish it had been done better. That would have been a much better place to actually plug in a real park, along with some actual density, instead of the crappy little lawns surrrounded by black-painted aluminum fencing that we got instead. Perhaps, some day, redevelopment can be done here.
 
Lots of institutions "land bank" for future construction space via small pocket parks.

I know in my neighborhood, Tufts Medical Center/Tufts Medical School have a couple of parklets (today) that are clearly designated for future development in their Institutional Master Plan. The parklet is a nice temporary option (versus surface parking for example). But honestly, these institutions do not exist to provide the City park land/open space. They have their own missions to accomplish on their own real estate. If the City needs more parks, the City should pony up to pay for more parks.
 
FK4 said:
That's beside the point.
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I think you might be missing his intended point. My reading of the statement is that if we fight a temporary park being reverted to built structure, then the incentive for building the temporary park is gone. When a land owner has a gas station or other unsightly structure that they aren't ready to replace with new development, they will just leave it as is, rather than risk a fight over the temporary park when the time comes to build.
 
HenryAlan said:
I think you might be missing his intended point. My reading of the statement is that if we fight a temporary park being reverted to built structure, then the incentive for building the temporary park is gone. When a land owner has a gas station or other unsightly structure that they aren't ready to replace with new development, they will just leave it as is, rather than risk a fight over the temporary park when the time comes to build.
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I have long lamented that banked urban-land/ parcels otherwise in transition often get underutilized for fear of NIMBYism and or liability. There are a lot of great examples, particularly in Europe, of temporary uses in declining cities or districts in transition. It would be great if there was a program to encourage better utilization of these parcels, this park is certainly better than a kick in the head but is not the only way parcels in transition could be programmed. I wonder if a modest tax break (or penalty) to allow for community uses in the interim would be sufficient incentive?
 
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datadyne007 said:
13 stories.

BPDA link with LOI: http://www.bostonplans.org/projects/development-projects/630-huntington-avenue
Direct link to LOI: https://bpda.app.box.com/s/jy5lvezeq1ejdxjmg7l2kwi9cw4quvtu
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While 13 is high for Wentworth standards I wish this ones height competed with MassArt's Treehouse.

Back when I went to Wentworth, late 90s early 2002s, the rumor was that Menino had some bad blood with the school or the president of the school and that's why it was hard to build anything new on campus especially with height while NEU had no problems building their new west campus.
 
From the LOI, this new residence hall is 'swing space'; once completed, it will house students from other Wentworth dorms while these are renovated. Once renovations of the other dorms is done, this will represent addition of new beds on campus. No indication of a schedule for all of this, nor whether it might be more practical to demolish old dorm(s) rather than renovate.
 
stellarfun said:
From the LOI, this new residence hall is 'swing space'; once completed, it will house students from other Wentworth dorms while these are renovated. Once renovations of the other dorms is done, this will represent addition of new beds on campus. No indication of a schedule for all of this, nor whether it might be more practical to demolish old dorm(s) rather than renovate.
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I suspected they are talking about Evans Way/Tudbury and some of the other random leased properties in the Fenway that, like Northeastern's, were not ever designed to be student housing, are subpar, and should be returned to the real estate market.
 
datadyne007 said:
I suspected they are talking about Evans Way/Tudbury and some of the other random leased properties in the Fenway that, like Northeastern's, were not ever designed to be student housing, are subpar, and should be returned to the real estate market.
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That's what Northeastern will do once the 840 Columbus dorm is completed.
 
This has been on Wentworth's radar for a little while now, here's a grab from the 2017 IMP.

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