West Cambridge / Alewife Area Infill & Small Developments

I will try to take a picture of the remake of Jefferson Park - State on Ringe Ave in Cambridge. I am super impressed with what I see so far (even though I am not sure i love the 4 over 1'ness of it). It is dense but very human. There are a mix of units in including townhouses that land on the ground with a stoop. This looks like good stuff so far.

cca
 
Too much bleating over the developments in this area. I used to live in Cambridgepark Place right after it opened (really the first residential complex aside from the projects across the street). Its a reclaimed office park turned into residential buildings. It was never going to look like Back Back. What it does do is fill a critical need of a mass of housing near public transit, so in that case Cambridge is doing the region a favor.

Yes, the Royal is awful but that was a perfect storm for Belmont. They weren't 40B compliant, and someone proposed a massive project on the edge of town where Belmont itself would see very little traffic from. Arlington is being squeezed with the same vice. The Mugar woods property (across from the former Faces) is within town limits but the town isn't 40B either, so they're desperately trying to stall the development. Once that fails you're going to see another massive complex on the other side of the highway.

I do the commute into Alewife every day and yes I agree traffic is awful, but traffic is always going to be awful. At least some of those people are taking transit although I might be in the T's interest to at least run a bus out to 128 (granted a lot of those companies run shuttles) to capture people doing the reverse commute. I think Hanscom is as far as the bus goes from Alewife.
 
@Rover strongly agreed. It's not pretty urbanism, but adding thousands of units of transit-oritented development in the highest cost city in the state is fundamentally a good idea. With additional units, however crappy looking, Alewife can begin to attract tenants for ground-floor retail near the station. Traffic is bad, but building fewer units near the subway (and consequently creating more sprawl) is the worst way to address it.
 
That is some nasty looking shit. Lime green?
 
I'm ashamed of Cambridge for this whole area. This is some abysmal urbanism. They've had decades to plan it and zone it and turn it into a wonderful, vibrant neighborhood. Instead it is just a hodgepodge of bedrooms and driveways. Whoever has accused the Seaport or Kendall of being "soulless" needs to see this dreck and count their blessings.

P.S. Thanks BeeLine, as always, for the pictures. Even if I don't like what's in the pictures...
 
fattony said:
I'm ashamed of Cambridge for this whole area. This is some abysmal urbanism. They've had decades to plan it and zone it and turn it into a wonderful, vibrant neighborhood. Instead it is just a hodgepodge of bedrooms and driveways. Whoever has accused the Seaport or Kendall of being "soulless" needs to see this dreck and count their blessings.

P.S. Thanks BeeLine, as always, for the pictures. Even if I don't like what's in the pictures...
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I don't disagree about the disinterested planning, but this is a LOT of housing stock piled right onto a subway station. If people want to start addressing the housing crisis, this is what needs to happen in some places.
 
Equilibria said:
I don't disagree about the disinterested planning, but this is a LOT of housing stock piled right onto a subway station. If people want to start addressing the housing crisis, this is what needs to happen in some places.
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It seems to me that they built a car-dependent neighborhood next to a subway station. Maybe that is what this area should be because it's the end of the line and the transition zone between urban and suburban, but I think it could have been so much more. I suspect a lot of the people who chose to live here will be commuting in on the red line, but many others will be commuting out on route 2 by car and only going into Boston on night and weekends. Perhaps the ideal residents here would be a couple that is split - one going into Boston and the other going out to the office parks.

Aside from commuting, this whole place looks completely auto-oriented. Where are the restaurants, bars, grocery store, pharmacy, etc? Is there any hope that the residents of these zillion new homes can do anything in their own neighborhood? We need homes, yes, but people should be able to leave those homes without employing a 2 ton automobile or a 2000 ton train.

Housing crisis: check
Transportation and energy use crisis: meh
 
The Vecna site on Cambridgepark Drive should be entering construction soon. Vecna is relocating to somewhere on 128.
 
I lived in this neighborhood back when the 1st "new" apartment building went up across from the Alewife T station. What I can tell you is that they're good for young professionals in transition before you find a place to buy, with a smattering of affordable housing mixed in within the building. I too think these places are necessarily even if they aren't most people's ideal of an urban utopia. The region needs lots of housing near transit, and while I do have to deal with horrific traffic getting into Alewife everyday, that's not necessarily the fault of apartments being built next door to the T. Cambridge to its credit has built a shit ton of apartments from Rt 2 down to Concord Ave on both sides of Alewife/Fresh Pond parkway. I just don't think the people living here are trying to put down roots in the neighborhood.
 
fattony said:
It seems to me that they built a car-dependent neighborhood next to a subway station. Maybe that is what this area should be because it's the end of the line and the transition zone between urban and suburban, but I think it could have been so much more. I suspect a lot of the people who chose to live here will be commuting in on the red line, but many others will be commuting out on route 2 by car and only going into Boston on night and weekends. Perhaps the ideal residents here would be a couple that is split - one going into Boston and the other going out to the office parks.

Aside from commuting, this whole place looks completely auto-oriented. Where are the restaurants, bars, grocery store, pharmacy, etc? Is there any hope that the residents of these zillion new homes can do anything in their own neighborhood? We need homes, yes, but people should be able to leave those homes without employing a 2 ton automobile or a 2000 ton train.

Housing crisis: check
Transportation and energy use crisis: meh
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I believe these units are 1 parking space per (I might be wrong on that) which isn't zero but also isn't 1.5 or 2.

In terms of your second point, there's a Whole Foods a Trader Joe's, and a CVS within easy walking distance of CambridgePark Drive. There are bars on Mass Ave in North Cambridge, also within easy walking distance, and that doesn't consider the presence of the Red Line that gets you to Davis, Harvard, etc. When I worked in that area the lack of restaurants was an issue, but there are some at Fresh Pond.

There's also another 1.5 times this to come on the other side of the tracks, and it looks like Cambridge will actually try to plan that side, so there's a chance for some more amenities that way. The area is hardly non-livable, though.

RandomWalk said:
The Vecna site on Cambridgepark Drive should be entering construction soon. Vecna is relocating to somewhere on 128.
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Yes, and it's more of the same from Hanover on that site.
 
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