development

What the building could look like.

Urban Edge yesterday submitted plans to the city to build the recreational facility at 1562 Columbus Ave. as part of its Jackson Commons mixed-use development.

The space was originally meant for a DYS treatment program, but the state agency pulled out of the project in 2008. The new center would allow for skating in colder months and indoor turf sports the rest of the year in a 39,000-square-foot building:

WBUR interviews Peter Meade.

Karen Cord Taylor considers opposition to a plan by Mass. Eye and Ear to replace its Charles Circle parking lot with a four-story office building:

The BHCA opposes this change of use, but it has not spoken out when the hospitals have RENTED space on Beacon Hill. MGH moved into the whole second floor above Harvard Gardens less than ten years ago. MEEI recently moved out of the two-story building at West Cedar Street and Charles Circle, which it occupied for ten years. One could consider a new building at Charles Circle simply a replacement for their rental space at the end of West Cedar.

Two non-profit groups are the latest to take a whack at finding uses for the long dormant, increasingly decaying Roslindale Square substation, which lost its purpose decades ago when trolleys stopped running down Washington Street.

The Globe reports the convention center authority wants to get somebody to build a $640-million hotel next to the South Boston convention center - and wants to throw in $200 million in state subsidies to attract that somebody.

The Boston Licensing Board voted yesterday to cancel the liquor license for a still unopened restaurant at the 45 Province luxury high-rise project.

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports on the land now owned by the Daughters of St. Paul near Allandale Farm.

Residents from Brighton, Brookline and Newton are trying to organize a task force to watch over a proposed hotel and retail development that would demolish not only the vacant Cleveland Circle Cinema but the Applebee's next door, on land split by the Boston/Brookline line just down the street from Newton.

The first meeting of the Cleveland Circle Task Force is Tuesday, March 8 at 7 p.m. in the basement of Roggie's, 356 Chestnut Hill Ave.

Rodney Singleton posts some "guiding principles" from neighbors of St. Margarget's Convent, which the Sisters of St. Margaret are planning to sell to the Bridge Boston Charter School, which will ultimately serve up to 335 students.

The neighbors say they are worried about all the buses for what will be a citywide school in a neighborhood already full of schools and buses and even the safety of having a school on a rocky outcropping. They say they'd rather see a museum, a library or even condos on the land.

The Globe reports the YMCA has canceled its plans for a new center on the Greenway, meaning the Greenway score is now:

           Rising costs and economic downturn: 4
Large new cultural and community institutions: 0

Proposed Hayward Place. Rendering from BRA.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority reports Millennium Partners have filed new plans for a 15-story residential building on what is now a parking lot across from the Ritz, which they also built.

Hayward Place will mean 265 new residential units, along with first-floor retail space. It's on the parcel bordered by Washington Street, Avenue de Lafayette, Harrison Avenue and Hayward Place, which now consists of a parking lot, an abandoned Orange Line entrance and that weird set of glass panels on beams.

The developers' original plans, submitted in 2006 before the condo market collapsed, called for 225 "loft style" condos.

Utile posts an image from a 1959 plan for a Scollay Square replacement that would have started pretty much at Old City Hall and which would have involved a series of low-slung buildings:

In spatial design, as well as building massing, and no less in spatial and massing composition we were very mindful of weaving into the existing social and physical texture of this part of Boston.

Via Boston Reddit.

As promised by city councilors Mike Ross and Ayanna Pressley, a city Web site now lets you see how construction projects in the city match up with the city's construction job policy, which asks developers to ensure at least half their workers are Boston residents, 25% are people of color and 10% are women.

So the city better be snappy with those permissions, Cambridge Day reports:

“We want to create this space as quickly as possible,” Owu said.

The Globe reports on the massive proposal that would essentially remake the somnolent downtown from scratch and turn it into a densely populated urban center.

Karen Cord Taylor finds much to like about the SimCity-like development happening on the 1,000 acres between the Reserved and Fort Point channels, but worries about what isn't being defined in the plans:

So far no plans call for schools, a community health center, post offices, a Y, baseball fields, a soccer pitch, public tennis courts, a skating rink or libraries - public realms as important as green spaces where you sit and enjoy fountains. ...

I got particularly worried when Fan Pier's website touted Morton's Steakhouse and Starbucks Coffee as amenities. Don't we have higher aspirations for our city than eating and buying stuff?

The Tech reports on MIT plans for the area around its campus, starting with construction of a new $100-million, five-story R&D facility at 298 Mass. Ave. next year and continuing with a decade-long effort to add up to 1 million square feet of office sapce and 100,000 square feet of retail to Kendall Square. A key part of the school's Kendall plans is to turn it into more of a destination location rather than a collection of random unconnected buildings, with much of the work focused on the area immediately around the T station.

MIT's president is inviting "city leadership" to her home for a chat on the plans. No word if an invite is going out to Councilor Ken Reeves, who recently called the guy in charge of all the planning "duplicitous and deceitful."

OK, the developer didn't exactly say that's what he wants to do with the former North Cambridge Catholic High School, but the Cambridge Planning Board was left "speechless" (Cambridge? wow!) by the sheer awfulness of his proposal, Cambridge Day reports:

"You're building something that's actually worse than a tenement," [the board chairman] said. "Tenements were reform structures, they were built to prevent things like this from happening."

Sean Roche reports that the proposed mall for the old Omni Foods site on Rte. 9 will actually make pedestrian access along Rte. 9 worse and that that's just fine with the city lawyer, who got into a "heated exchange" with an alderman on the topic, basically arguing that nobody walks along Rte. 9 and never will - which Roche refutes with photos of some actual pedestrians walking along that stretch of Rte. 9.

Brian McGrory reports this morning that Don Chiofaro's latest plans for the Aquarium garage would keep the garage in place (no word on the stupid red ribbon) and stick 12 stories of condos and apartments on top of it. That would keep the thing at the 200-foot level Mayor Menino insists is the tallest anybody can build along the Greenway (and a far cry from the 48-story complex Chiofaro proposed a couple months back).

But here's an idea:

Just yesterday, Barry Bluestone proposed a multi-university student village in Downtown Crossing aimed at grad students. And City Councilor Mike Ross marveled at Harvard at Trilogy, which provides housing for Harvard types who want to be near the medical area in one of the city's more successful recent residential projects.

Now where could you find the land for a place to house a few hundred grad students in Downtown Crossing? Yep. Why not get Bluestone, Chiofaro and Ross in a room with the BRA to work out a land swap: the Filene's Memorial Hole for what will become the Menino Memorial Park Next to the Other Park. Bonus for Chiofaro: Bluestone's proposal calls for some luxo-units for rich foreign students.

Then again, this is Don Chiofaro and Tom Menino we're talking about. The city would take ownership of the garage and then the BRA would promptly enact emergency regulations barring any projects taller than two stories along Washington Street.

The Fenway News reports Berklee wants to use land it bought at 168 Mass. Ave. from the Christian Scientists for a 16-story building with dorms, classrooms and performance space.

More from Berklee.

Paul McMorrow takes a look at the new D Street now that Southie no longer distrusts the convention center or the fancy-shmancy waterfront district.

Last week, the Boston Business Journal reported construction on more than 2,000 apartments is expected to begin by the spring. This week, the Boston Redevelopment Authority approved a $65-million project to convert the old Boston Renaissance Charter School at 100 Arlington St. into apartments (along with a $10-million senior apartment complex in Roxbury and a $45-million hotel on Congress Street in Fort Point Channel).

A BRA effort to help condo developers out by letting them change their projects into apartments could mean even more parking woes on overcrowded streets in neighborhoods such as South Boston, City Councilor Bill Linehan (South Boston, South End) says.

Linehan says the BRA is letting developers who already have city approval to build condos turn them into apartment - and cut the amount of parking they have to provide from one space per unit to as little as 0.5 spaces per unit. The move saves the developers money, but the assumption that apartment dwellers are less likely to own a car doesn't seem to make sense anymore, he says. With less off street parking, the new residents will likely turn to the street, he says

Linehan told fellow councilors yesterday the BRA has resisted his attempts to get information on the on the change, so he asked for permission to hold a formal hearing into the practice, which was granted. He'll call for representatives of both the BRA and the Boston Transportation Department to attend.

Linehan's request for a hearing.

The city's lost $20 million in tax revenue from the negative space and enough is enough, the BRA says in a letter sent today.