Developer details plans to replace old bakery, bean-sprout warehouse with 14-story residential building
The company that now owns the former Quinzani Bakery and Ho Kong Bean Sprout buildings on Harrison Avenue in the South End today unveiled plans for 14-story building with 280 apartments and condos and ground-floor commercial space.
Related Beal's proposal for 370-380 Harrison Ave., filed today with the BRA, also calls for a three-deck, 180-space underground garage on the one-acre site.
Rather than choosing between apartments and condos, the company proposes roughly 175 apartments and 105 condos.
Also planned: A mid-block "connector" from Traveler Street to E. Berkeley Street:
The design of the public realm on all edges of the building is intended to strongly enhance the pedestrian experience, with the Harrison Avenue streetscape being the predominant public experience. The generous walkway along the length of Harrison Avenue—ranging in width from approximately 27 to 63 feet—is envisioned as a tree-lined linear plaza, creating both linear and plaza like spaces. The primary pedestrian walkway will be between rows of trees providing ample shade and definition to the pedestrian experience. Either side of the allée of trees will be populated with locations for outdoor seating and other activities. The spatial arrangement of walkway and trees will allow for multiple potential uses that can provide both public and commercial amenities to the neighborhood. Mid-block along Harrison Avenue, the tree lined walkway will expand further into a courtyard that will be a public extension of the sidewalk, emphasized by the planting strategy. Open to the sidewalk and street on one side, and surrounded by potential building program on the other three sides, the courtyard will allow for dining, retail or other activities to open onto it. With a great deal of new and proposed development, the intersection of Harrison Avenue and Traveler Street has been identified as a destination node by the Harrison Albany Corridor Study. The design of the landscape and building each respond to this unique place making opportunity by creating a covered arcade at this location. The arcade will give definition to the sidewalk spaces while also giving prominence to the retail spaces inside.
The Proponent intends to establish a mid-block connector, a multi-purpose space, that will encourage pedestrian circulation within the Project area, and prioritize all personal modes of transportation (e.g., personal vehicles, bicycles, walking) by de-emphasizing curb elevations.
Project notification form (11.5M PDF).
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Comments
No Museum of Crappy French Bread?
C'mon, we need some kind of public accommodation inside the building to commemorate all the pre-Chinese food main course filler this place turned out for decades.
This rendering looks a lot like the MIT / Forest City buildings near Central Square.
The New York Streets are filling in nicely after that failed 50 year failed experiment with Urban Renewal. What would you rather have, bean sprout factory and bakery, or lots of housing?
Be careful what you wish for
.
You are presenting this as a
You are presenting this as a false choice between some extra housing and interesting local businesses.
It does kind of look like a
It does kind of look like a box of Chinese takeout...
Doesn't look like the
Doesn't look like the architect lost much sleep while working on that design.
gonna be a busy development
gonna be a busy development filing day...
Chinatown will no longer be
Chinatown will no longer be interesting and cultural with the rate of residential development. I wish more businesses owned by local longtime Massachusetts Chinese citizens could stay.
Forget it, Jake. It's not Chinatown.
That's the South End.
ackshally
this neighborhood is very much an extension of chinatown with markets and a good number of asian residents.
How many? and where?
That block was a bakery and noodle factory. Were people sleeping above the factory floor?
of course it was...
..and the bread smelled better than it tasted, esp on a warm summer evening. I believe the orig point being made was the wave of new development impacting local renters and their displacement...at least that's how I understood it. I expect Pine Street Inn to have a moderating influence on complete displacement for the better.
Surprising that Utile is involved with this project.
pretty mediocre.
oh, Robert Stern is involved...instead of his po-mo shtick (1980's), we get the industrial loft wallpaper fakey stuff. This building is twice as high as it should be.
Built it.
Build it. Build 3 of them.