WBUR article on Union Square development

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

An interesting WBUR piece on possible future development in Union Square. TL;DR: In anticipation of the Green Line's arrival, the city has reserved the right to take large swaths of Union Square by eminent domain in order to sell them to a single developer, rather than letting them be developed piecemeal by the current owners or whoever they choose to sell to.

Comments

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

It cuts both ways. A large development is worth a lot more than the sum of a lot of small developments. The city is hungry for the taxes that can be extracted from businesses. It's hard to assemble a large parcel of land if you don't have some sort of leverage over the current owners, because whichever owner holds out the longest has the most leverage to extract into his own pocket the value that will be created. Of course, a big, new development will be much less quaint, and probably somewhat less useful for the sort of people who live there now. But it will be much more useful for the sort of people (yuppies) who can be attracted to the area by that sort of development.

[hikermtnbiker.livejournal.com]

This does not have to be the case. The problem is that the developers around here have no imagination and seem to do everything on the cheap or ordinary, as evidenced by the monstrosity by the Rosebud, the proposed development next to the Dilboy, even the CVS/BSC building. Station Landing is a bit better. I've not looked at the Maxpac site to see if that is more creative.

I was absolutely blown away by Orenco Station in Oregon. I felt like I was in the Back Bay. All the construction seemed top notch (externally anyway) with nice little architectural details that no one around here seems to use. Some info here. http://www.terrain.org/unsprawl/10/

I've also seen lots of really nice modern developments in Seattle and Vancouver. But for some reason around here, for the most part, we get the same bland old thing every time, small developer or big.

[serious-noir.livejournal.com]

Glad to know I am not the only one who thinks that the "greek" building next to the Rosebud is an utter monstrosity and a good example of the worst of the architectural style of "urban development on the cheap."

I don't know anything about Somerville's zoning or building regs but it is pretty clear they don't do much in the way of design review. Doesn't bode well for Union (or Assembly) Square.

[geekpixie.livejournal.com]

Not only is the space next to the Dilboy a bit much, you should see what they want to rent out the first floor! (hence it being empty still...)

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if the Mayor Joe had noticed lately, but any parcel of land larger than a rat's tiny little ass has developers dropping multi millions of bucks just for the rights to look at it funny.

You don't need to harness five parcels together to get a better deal for a developer. You need a horde of angry citizens with pitchforks to keep developers in line when there's only *one* parcel. And you don't need to ED private property to attract developers. Shame Shame Shame on him.

This Mayor sometimes really gets my gall.