Worcester Approves $583M City Square

So in today's Worcester Telegram and Gazette there are pictures of the demolition of the garage. Its the first part of the large scale demolition of the mall, they are demolishing the part of the garage where the Unum building will be built. Here is the article
 
Even more good news!

taken from part of an article here: http://www.newcitysquare.com/ground...dbreaking_20110424_RedevelopmentProgress.html

Last week, the project got its second occupant. St. Vincent Hospital signed an agreement to buy a parcel of land in CitySquare from Hanover and build a 40,000-square-foot cancer treatment center at a total cost of about $21 million. St. Vincent, which treats about 1,300 cancer patients a year, expects to open the center in January 2013.
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and a rendering of said cancer center:

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EDIT

here is a map too (Building H is the Unumn building i believe)
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from this article:
http://www.newcitysquare.com/ground...ges/groundbreaking_20110422_CancerCenter.html
 
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I knew that St. Vincent was planning on a cancer center there, but I had not seen any renderings. I like the look of it, it looks better than what is there now.
 
Great to hear/see! I've seen some videos of the severe lack of progress of this development on YouTube and was concerned.
 
They said demolition of the that section of garage will take about three to four days, thiat must be only the part where the Unum Insurance building is going because I don't think a 5,000+ car garage is going down that quickly.
Here is a video from the Worcester Telegram and Gazette.
 
DCournoyer1993 said:
They said demolition of the that section of garage will take about three to four days, thiat must be only the part where the Unum Insurance building is going because I don't think a 5,000+ car garage is going down that quickly.
Here is a video from the Worcester Telegram and Gazette.
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Only part of the garage is coming down. They are keeping the other half.
 
Yes, I knew that only a portion of the garage was coming down, I phrased it poorly, sorry. Also Berkley Investments still has the Foster St. Garage and they are doing a smaller project on that garage that seems to incorporate retail and offices. Today I was in the Worcester Plaza Tower and got a few pictures of the Mall and the Garage, you can see a little bit of where the demolition is taking place, and the garage with the cars on it is the one that Berkey owns.
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The area of demolition is behind the green roof and starts where the big "P" is.
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This is just the whole complex, one day there will be a street between the two brown towers, the St. Vincent Cancer Center will be located on that street. I also read the Worcester Telegram and Gazette is seeking to move into CitySquare. However that will leave their older building empty on Franklin Street on Worcester Common next to City Hall.
 
Here i another rendering i found, the Uunum building is in the back on the left of the big yellow building.

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And here is the berkley website if you ar eintrested in what is goign on with the towers etc.
http://front-center.com/index.htm
 
Looks very good, but all the pictures show a living vibrant active sidewalk. Worcester is far from that from what I see when I go there. Although they are nice concepts and all, it is going to take a lot of work and time to get the city back on its feet. This much needed revitalization is a great start. I just do not think it has the potential other cities have yet. But hopefully over time it will.
 
Worcester has probably as much potential as any other city in Massachusetts other than Boston, because it is the fastest growing metro area (last I heard). Projects like this are needed to infuse interest in the city proper instead of having that growth captured by outlying areas.

Also, John, setbacks are tough to make work like this, but they can work when they are more than just a setback. If the area itself becomes an outdoor "room" it works. If you are familiar with Boston, consider the smaller scale example of the corner in front of Boloco (Boston Local Company) on Boylston. It is an outdoor room with plenty of foot traffic and al fresco dining near a busy college.

The surrounding land uses determine the success of this sort of public or semi private space. It looks like this might be a success.

That being said, however, lowering the building height and spreading it so that it hugs the street would create a much more urban place.
 
found5dollar said:
yeah i like it... just a little disappointed it is only 2 stories.
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When Worcester was a thriving city a hundred years ago this was the scale of downtown: human scale. They didn't start building skycrapers in Worcester until the 60's. By then, downtown was dead. I think tall buildings are beautiful and dramatic, but they didn't turn out to have the desired effect of bringing life to downtown. This project is what Worcester needs to come out of hibernation.
 
Update from today:

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And a couple other shots of Worcester:

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Had to include turtle love boy. Hope they keep that statue. (I like turtles)

Actual progress, this is nice to see.
 
Thanks for the photographic update, AdamBC. Keep us updated if you find yourself in Worcester again.
 
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