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UMass Boston deal could turn old Bayside Expo Center into the next Kendall Square - to go along with all the other next Kendall Squares
By adamg on Thu, 02/14/2019 - 11:11am
The Dorchester Reporter reports UMass Boston has a deal with a developer to transform what's left of the former Bayside Expo Center into one of those mixed-use, biotech-type developments that are all the rage.
The Reporter quotes an executive at the real-estate firm it hired to find a developer as saying the parcel could be "the next Kendall Square," in part because it's right on the Red Line.
The project will have to get in line as the nextest next Kendall Square, a moniker that eager developers have sought to apply to:
- Western Avenue in Allston
- Union Square in Somerville
- Lexington
- Land along the Newton/Needham line
- Widett Circle
- Cambridge's NorthPoint development
- Worcester
- A collection of shipping crates in London
- And, of course, the South Boston waterfront
What the next Kendall Square will take to build (it's not just buildings).
H/t Rus Lodi for the next idea.
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Comments
So it’s going to be the same
So it’s going to be the same exact thing as “The Beat” which is being built practically across the street? Neat.
But bigger
Maybe with some South Bay (the new part, not the Olive Garden part) thrown in (they're talking up the possibility of both retail and that exciting live/work space for the serfs down in the veal pens who want to be at their employers' beck and call). It's a 20-acre parcel.
It would’ve made a great
It would’ve made a great soccer stadium.
Get real
Get real
No silly, our local soccer
No silly, our local soccer team is called the Revolution. We can’t get real, you’re thinking of Real Salt Lake and that’s a whole other city!
You’re so silly.
Instead of stadia can the MLS focus on its sad knockoff status?
Columbus Crew = Dortmund, NYCFC = Manchester City, Real Salt Lake = Real Madrid. So dumb
Arenas are a good choice for a floodland
Such a facility could be built to flood, and be hosed out when the king storm tides recede.
Might need a turf field or, if possible, salt tolerant grass.
Absolutely not. local I-93 gridlock
Despite being right next to I-93, the local gridlock made Bayside a non-starter compared to South Bay & others. Remember the D.O.A. Neponset Patriots stadium proposal? Same deal. I-93 gridlock. No go
New construction next to a gut job
Sorta like Assemby Row.
So what are they going to
So what are they going to turn Kendall Square into?
Central
It's just gonna be renamed
Someone call MIT & Harvard
They really need to ramp up construction in Kendall Sq so that Kendall Sq can be the next Kendall Sq.
Just MIT
Harvard is planning its own next Kendall Square for the old rail yard it now owns in Allston.
It's already happening
Will need to wear a dust mask around here!
A team from the real estate development firm Boston Properties plans to replace the MIT Coop building at 325 Main St. with a glass tower that Google would occupy. Cambridge development officials approved the tower in December.
The project could feature a new entryway for MBTA’s Kendall Square station. Boston Properties also plans to develop a 34-story, 355-unit residential tower at 135 Broadway in Kendall Square, featuring 70 condominiums and 285 apartments, which company leadership presented as “more or less a package deal” with the Google tower.
MIT is rebuilding a concrete dorm and something big is also happening on the 14-acre Volpe site.
What will happen to the MIT Coop?
Does it have a new location lined up?
Wow, so now a 4-story 1980s
Wow, so now a 4-story 1980s office building is obsolete, and will get replaced by an office tower? I guess this counts as progress.
Would be a great site for...
Amazon. What say you, Jeff?
No.
No no no no no.
They would have to do some
They would have to do some work to connect it to the T station, since there's some terrifying road crossings in the way.
And on the other sides, it's walled off by the Harvot Point compound, big parking lot development, and the ocean and parkland.
Any chance we could get a re-do on the last Kendall Square?
Because let's face it, Kendall Square has become a place only a real estate developer could love.
A finer point
One Kendall Square was the original Kendall Square. That complex of former factories (firehoses, e.g.) was a dense cluster of biotech companies such as Genzyme and Repligen in the early 1990's and perhaps even earlier (my personal "data" there started in 1993). I remember Kendall Square didn't have any biotech. There was MIT and probably IT, but there were also brownfields between Kendall Sq. and OKS. The anchor industry in OKS is Cambridge Brewing Company. So the Kendall Sq. hub grew out of One Kendall Square.
There were other developments
There were other developments before that, such as Cambridge Center and Tech Square.
.
.
Doesn't MIT have a startup
Doesn't MIT have a startup incubator?
How’s the Investigation Going?
The Bayside Expo is relatively close to the Tynan School in Southie. Does anyone know what’s going on with the racist graffiti investigation? That kind of died a quick death. Why?
It's not anywhere near the Tynan School
There are several elementary schools closer to the Bayside Expo Center. The Perkins and the Dever are basically across the street. Also, it's located in Dorchester. Are you even from Boston?
EDIT- and by the Perkins I meant the McCormack.
Here you go
It's the Dever elementary and the McCormack middle schools that are on Columbia Point (which is in Dorchester, not Southie).
McCormack is slated to get rebuilt as a 7-12 high school.
And the widely circulated rumor around the Tynan is that the graffiti was done by a troubled African-American janitor.
Speaking of things that happened in North America
Anyone hear how the Picture This album release party at the Empire State Building went today?
Kendall Square Theme Park
An old-timey affair with gigantic tar-paper covered fire traps stretching for blocks and "reenactors" who playfully mug you as you walk home to your triple decker that is sinking into the mud for lack of a foundation.