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Developer wins approval to replace East Boston salvage yard with residential building

Architect's rendering of 277 Border St. in East Boston

Architect's rendering

The Zoning Board of Appeals yesterday approved a developer's plan to build a five-story, 18-unit residential building on what is now a salvage yard at 277 Border St., near Central Square.

Developer MG2 won BPDA approval last month for the project, which will include an eight-space garage and first-floor retail space.

The building is larger and taller than would have been allowed by the lot's zoning, but MG2's attorney, Richard Lynds, said the proposed structure is comparable to other buildings going in along Border - and with the commercial buildings across the street.

Nobody spoke against the proposal.

Auto-repair lots are becoming an endangered species along Border: Another developer has proposed a 16-unit building at 425 Border St., on the site of another lot. Two years ago, a developer won approval to replace a garage at 301 Border St. with a six-story, 64-condo building.

277 Border St. small-project review application (10.2M PDF).

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A new condo building a block away on same street has retail space also but has been vacant for a year.

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A new condo building a block away on same street has retail space also but has been vacant for a year.

And? If true, the developer or owner takes a loss then. Caveat emptor. That's the essence of a market.

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Boston certainly has cornered the market on generic grey metallic and cementitious panel boxitecture.

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"Boston certainly has cornered the market on generic wood paneled triple deckers." - early 20th century anon

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'Why in my carriage ride down Marlborough Ave, I saw nothing but the same building over and over again' Universal Hubbe poster, late 1800s.

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but are you even remotely seriously comparing the beauty of Marlborough Street to today's Ikeaplague?

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All the construction looks the same. Same then as it is now.

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You are comparing streets designed and built by extremely wealthy people with an apartment block designed for office workers.

The triple decker is much more the equivalent of these homes than Marlboro street is.

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is a perfectly cromulent word

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This design is common across the US. It's cheap, gets approved by planning boards, and is easy to sell. Boston is hardly unique.

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and they have these things going up everywhere, too - except one panel of the sticky outy wall part will be covered in fake stone, and there's "timber' detailing everywhere, to make it more, you know, mountain-chic, made the stuff in boston look downright Designer -- at least in 20/30 years the people owning these buildings might decide to put on some nice siding or even shingles, settle into it, and they won't look half as bad.

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In 20-30 years people will complain about the 20-teens pre-fab garbage.

Then in 60-70 years they'll be cool again and people will pay top dollar for something "authentic".

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In 60-70 years this will all be swimmable.

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these buildings may not even still be standing.

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I don't mind the building, but as best as I can tell BD's is across the street from the location of this new building (see streetview below.) Maybe they just tucked BD's into the shot so locals would know where this is?

https://goo.gl/maps/kWibTyn468K2

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The view they are showing is from about 20 feet into the BD's parking lot, closer to the building to its right. I'd go take a picture, but screw going outside anymore this year.

edit - looking at your link, it's roughly from the vantage point of next to the BD's van when you are facing toward the laundromat

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Clever perspective to show both the existing and the new. Got it.

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I like how they kept the discount store (BD's) in the rendering.

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and my son turned boston into a minecraft nightmare!!!!!!

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Glad to see they decided to use the materials they found in the old salvage yard to build it!!

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… that would be a Historic Abandoned Salvage Yard

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in a Nanterre sort of manner.

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