Just outside the square: Union Square presentation

[secretlyironic]

 Monday at  6 PM at the Argenziano school on Washington Street-- meet with developers and city officials to see what the current plans look like. 

The plan has several updates in response to neighborhood feedback, including relocating a park further from the busiest roads, and adjusting the massing of some buildings to make them fit into the surrounding buildings. 

This is bound to be controversial so this is a really good opportunity to have input on the ways in which the community is going to be redeveloped.

Comments

Re: Update...

[secretlyironic]

I think that makes sense. I went in really supporting it, but Union United brought up a couple of issues that 1) are important and 2) Shouldn't be terribly difficult to resolve.

Basically there were a few major questions. Some could be decided later (like "which of these two lots should be a park?) and some were pretty uncontroversial (clustering creative economy uses in one building so there's a more flexible space and creative economy people can collaborate from within the same building).

And there were a couple that were real issues.

* How will they make sure the traffic mitigation plan works?
* How do they justify the request to pay a fee to reduce the total square footage of creative economy spaces?
* The city and US2 don't own all the land in this plan: How will they get it? What if someone else wants to develop it?

I think the plan is *really close* to ready to approve. So, I hope US2 can get back to the board quickly with answers to those questions.