Worcester Ballpark & Redev

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whighlander

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Time to launch a new thread focused on the redevelopment in Worcester focused on the new Red Sox minor league ballpark

Ground Breaking is next week
From the MssLive website
https://www.masslive.com/worcesterr...e-opening-day-at-canal-district-ballpark.html
Worcester Red Sox and city to break ground on Polar Park stadium July 11, less than two years before the opening day at Canal District ballpark
Posted Jul 2, 8:00 PM

By Melissa Hanson | mhanson@masslive.com

The city and future Worcester Red Sox team brass will break ground on the Canal District stadium on July 11, officials announced at the city’s Independence Day celebration.

A 10,000-seat ballpark, slated to cost upwards of $86 million, will house the Triple-A team, which will play its first game at the beginning of the 2021 season.

Construction of the stadium will spark a massive transformation of the city’s Canal District.

And, the team and city have just fewer than two years to complete the project before the team starts playing.

Along with the ballpark will be a surrounding development, including at least 225 residences, hotels, restaurants, retail and an office building overlooking the field. Denis Dowdle of Madison Downtown Holdings is spearheading much of that development, and previously told MassLive his work, which is on the opposite side of Madison Street from the ballpark, will begin sometime after the ballpark groundbreaking.

Renderings for the stadium have not been released, however, designers Janet Marie Smith and Pawtucket Red Sox Chairman Larry Lucchino have said the ballpark will have lots of open space for fans to gather.
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Meanwhile, MassDOT has been working on a redesign of Worcester’s Kelley Square intersection, one of the state’s top crash locations and what will become a gateway to the ballpark.

As it is now, Kelley Square is a confusing web of about six streets. MassDOT plans to construct a peanut-shaped roundabout, which designers say will slow traffic and help pedestrians cross the busy intersection.

Construction on the $17 million project is slated to begin in October and is planned to last 13 months.
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If we're going to do this, the thread should be named properly:

"Polar Park | Madison Street | Worcester".

I didn't found the thread before because I don't think we've ever had one for a Worcester (or Springfield or Manchester or Providence) project.
 
Yea Worcester stuff goes in the Worcester improvements thread under greater new england. This is in development projects under Bostons built environment, so the wrong spot.
 
Yeah. Worcester sucks. Take out the trash Poodleboy!
 
Compared to 20 years ago I'd say Worcester is much more part of Boston's outer metro. OTOH until Worcester has a steady stream of major projects this stuff should still live in the Worcester thread.
 
I have always wondered if there is / what would be the tipping point to really develop Worcester's downtown with some tall office / retail / hotels? Not 800 footers, but in the 25 to 35 storey variety.

Thoughts?
 
Czervik.Construction said:
I have always wondered if there is / what would be the tipping point to really develop Worcester's downtown with some tall office / retail / hotels? Not 800 footers, but in the 25 to 35 storey variety.

Thoughts?
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Can't imagine investors would be lining up to take that risk.
 
Downtown office vacancy rate currently hovers around 5%-10% or so, depending on what publication you read. That is much lower than in other metro west office parks around I-90 / I-495, where it’s somewhere in the upper teens/ lower 20’s.

I do think there is not as much demand for super high end office space in downtown Worcester as of yet. It’s still dirt cheap compared to Boston.
 
I used to live in the neighborhood where this project is going in (Canal District), and while I'm excited about the potential for additional economic development and activity in the area, I'm still peeved the city of Worcester is subsidizing this development. Public money should never be used to finance sports stadiums.

On a related note, I'll be sad to see Kelley Square in its current iteration go. It may be a mess, but it's an interesting mess. Plus, it is safer than most other major intersections in Worcester because it freaks drivers out and encourages them to slow down.
 
This belongs in the existing Worcester thread. If this were being built in Pawtucket, would this project be stuck in the Boston sub-forum?

I think an exception could be made for projects outside of 128, or 495 even, --if the project is particularly noteworthy from an architectural standpoint. Holy Cross (in Worcester) is building a performing arts center designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, whose Massachusetts portfolio, I believe, otherwise consists of the ICA. Perhaps a project such as that might be distinctive enough to be 'featured' in the Boston thread.
 
Wonder how many think of Worcester as part of the Boston metro. Marlborough Shrewsbury and the like are part of the Boston metro as her other 495 cities like Lowell and Lawrence.

This project almost certainly is interesting to many of us and I would rather it be here than in a far less active sub forum.
 
The Boston MSA consists of the following counties: Middlesex, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Plymouth, Rockingham (NH), Strafford (NH). It does not include Worcester, which is a separate MSA,

Shrewsbury is not part of the Boston MSA, Marlborough is. Northborough, Westborough, and Southborough are part of Worcester.
 
stellarfun said:
The Boston MSA consists of the following counties: Middlesex, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Plymouth, Rockingham (NH), Strafford (NH). It does not include Worcester, which is a separate MSA,

Shrewsbury is not part of the Boston MSA, Marlborough is. Northborough, Westborough, and Southborough are part of Worcester.
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Stell -- Boston MSA is not the most inclusive of the Boston Area designations the largest and most inclusive designation is the Boston CSA*1

Boston is the 6th most populated CSA in the country with an estimated population of 8,285,407 just ahead of Dallas region and just behind SF Bay area

The following MSA [and micropolitan areas] are part of the Boston CSA:
  • Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH Metropolitan Statistical Area[/li]
  • Providence-Warwick, RI-MA Metropolitan Statistical Area
  • Worcester, MA-CT Metropolitan Statistical Area
  • Manchester-Nashua, NH Metropolitan Statistical Area
  • Barnstable Town, MA Metropolitan Statistical Area
  • Concord, NH Micropolitan Statistical Area
  • Laconia, NH Micropolitan Statistical Area

for most of that list you'd be hard pressed to find the boundaries between a given MSA and the adjacent one in any manner except on a formal document


*1 CSA Defn
Combined statistical area (CSA) is a United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) term for a combination of adjacent metropolitan (MSA) and micropolitan statistical areas (µSA) in the United States and Puerto Rico that can demonstrate economic or social linkage. The OMB defines a CSA as consisting of various combinations of adjacent metropolitan and micropolitan areas with economic ties measured by commuting patterns. These areas that combine retain their own designations as metropolitan or micropolitan statistical areas within the larger combined statistical area.

The primary distinguishing factor between a CSA and an MSA/µSA is that the social and economic ties between the individual MSAs/µSAs within a CSA are at lower levels than between the counties within an MSA.[1] CSAs represent multiple metropolitan or micropolitan areas that have an employment interchange of at least 15%.[1] CSAs often represent regions with overlapping labor and media markets.
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whighlander, I am well aware of the different boundaries for various statistical areas.

However, aB has a separate sub-forum for development outside of Boston Metro. This subforum has a long-standing thread on Worcester improvements, with 25 pages of posts, including posts on the new baseball stadium.

IMO, new threads within the Boston Metro forum should generally be confined to projects within Boston Metro, loosely defined as that is. To reach beyond those loosely defined boundaries, a project, again IMO, should either be architecturally noteworthy, e.g., a Herzog Meuron academic complex in Amherst, or cost mega- millions, e.g., a Wynn Casino in Taunton.
 
We may want to consider having city sub forums in the Greater New England sub.
Portland, Providence, Worcester are pretty active and a single thread does get cluttered.

A suggestion once we move to the new platform.
 
In the future, might be good to just have "tags" as the primary way to organize threads instead of separate forums at all. Let people tag however they want. I tend to miss interesting discussions when I don't drill down into the right forum. "New posts" plus tags would good way to view things. Unfortunately currently the "New Posts" only seems to work when logged in, so not a great default page currently.

While I certainly agree that Boston is the Hub of the Universe, I still wouldn't mind seeing Worcester pop up in our sphere of discussion for Boston.
 
stellarfun said:
whighlander, I am well aware of the different boundaries for various statistical areas.

However, aB has a separate sub-forum for development outside of Boston Metro. This subforum has a long-standing thread on Worcester improvements, with 25 pages of posts, including posts on the new baseball stadium.

IMO, new threads within the Boston Metro forum should generally be confined to projects within Boston Metro, loosely defined as that is. To reach beyond those loosely defined boundaries, a project, again IMO, should either be architecturally noteworthy, e.g., a Herzog Meuron academic complex in Amherst, or cost mega- millions, e.g., a Wynn Casino in Taunton.
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Maybe this thread should be in Greater New England (not sure) but it does deserve it's own thread especially if it's transformative. I only click into the broad Worcester thread occasionally when I happen to see it's active.
 
I’m going to assume for the time being that this thread will remain separate from the Worcester Improvements thread, where ever it may end up.

I went to the site last month, it still was not fenced off. There was some prep work done earlier in the year, when I visited there seems to have been some cleanup activity going on.
The following shot is from where the diamond is going to in the direction where the little arrow is pointing:


Google Earth




This rendering from a recent telegram article shows a different angle:

source: worcester telegram
 
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