West Cambridge / Alewife Area Infill & Small Developments

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Wow ^ that's a design that really pops, a standout from the mundane Lego block boxes put up in in the last several years around there.
 
That’s the former Jose’s. They kept the basic massing of the building, but it just looks off. I assume it’s going condo.
 
stick n move said:
GSK quadruples space in Alewife lab building with new lease
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GSK will soon lease nearly all of the space in 200 Cambridge Park Drive.
The global pharmaceutical giant GSK is significantly expanding its presence in Cambridge's Alewife neighborhood, with an eye on bringing together R&D staff to focus on RNA technology.
https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2023/01/10/gsk-quadruples-alewife-space.html
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This looks somewhat brutalist. Is brutalism making a comeback?
 
RandomWalk said:
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The ex-Jose’s is progressing. You can tell it’s housing by the monochromatic color palette.
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Looks great, but it mirrors the trend of these older neighborhoods that used have some small commercial uses becoming almost totally residential. North Cambridge decades ago had little corner stores and restaurants embedded in the middle of its neighborhoods, but those have almost all been converted to housing. Makes the neighborhoods a bit monocultural and boring. When I was a kid in North Cambridge we'd use the corner candy store, the corner drug store, and the corner bakery store all the time. They were neighborhood institutions run by local people everyone knew. All gone now, most converted to residential but a few converted to small businesses (not stores).
 
Charlie_mta said:
Looks great, but it mirrors the trend of these older neighborhoods that used have some small commercial uses becoming almost totally residential. North Cambridge decades ago had little corner stores and restaurants embedded in the middle of its neighborhoods, but those have almost all been converted to housing. Makes the neighborhoods a bit monocultural and boring. When I was a kid in North Cambridge we'd use the corner candy store, the corner drug store, and the corner bakery store all the time. They were neighborhood institutions run by local people everyone knew. All gone now, most converted to residential but a few converted to small businesses (not stores).
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Those small businesses embedded in the neighborhood are what make pre-war sections of towns and cities interesting. Harkens back to the days before driving everywhere, when needs could be met on a small, local scale.
 
Honest question because I don’t know the answer. Have those corner stores been zoned out of existence? I know there are tons of buildings in Cambridge that are technically out of compliance after downzoning in the 20th century that I wonder if commercial uses have also been restricted.
 
In Somerville, the recent rezoning has made mixed use legal along major thoroughfares. A tiny corner store built in the side yard of the owner’s house isn’t legal though.
 
Justbuildit said:
Honest question because I don’t know the answer. Have those corner stores been zoned out of existence? I know there are tons of buildings in Cambridge that are technically out of compliance after downzoning in the 20th century that I wonder if commercial uses have also been restricted.
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I think the commercial reality and changes to the work and family did them in before zoning may have directly. The volume of sales required to keep a store in operation and still make rent and insurance isn't really feasible anymore.

Also with most 2-parent families being predominantly dual income i think there's also the aspect of less opportunity to spend close to home.

Plus the fact that most families are much smaller than even 2 or 3 decades ago, on average with 1 to 2 children instead of 3 or 4 or 5.

Thus there could be an indirect effect of residential zoning density being frozen resulting in fewer potential customers within a shop's reach. Though nothing directly tied to the zoning itself.
 
RandomWalk said:
View attachment 34144
The ex-Jose’s is progressing. You can tell it’s housing by the monochromatic color palette.
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Before this was Jose's restaurant, it was The Keg, back in the 1950s and 60s. As a kid I played with the children of the owners. Then, going back to the 1800s, the West Cambridge railroad depot stood in what is now the parking lot on the west side of Sherman St next to the Fitchburg Division RR line. In the depot photo below, you can see the small pointy roof green house behind the ex-Jose's restaurant/condo conversion.
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The massing for Jose’s always felt weird, like they jacked up a small house and built the first floor for commercial use. I would love to know the full history of the structures on that lot.

The Cambridge property database entry for the property says 1883 as the year built.
 
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RandomWalk said:
The massing for Jose’s always felt weird, like they jacked up a small house and built the first floor for commercial use. I would love to know the full history of the structures on that lot.
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I don't know about the previous configuration of the building, except that The Keg was a bar that preceded Jose's. But the significant thing for me is that when the West Cambridge RR depot was operational, the Jose's building and the immediate area around it was obviously a small commercial area servicing the pedestrian traffic from the depot. It was a mini town center right there. I grew up 600 feet from that spot, so I find it fascinating.
 
There's a bunch of corner stores that are grandfathered in to Boston zoning in the South End and similarly old neighborhoods. One way you can tell they're illegal is by how underretailed n'hoods like JP don't get any new ones.
 
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