UMass Boston suddenly has big plans for long vacant expo-center site

By adamg on Tue, 08/08/2017 - 6:53pm

The Dorchester Reporter gets a look at UMass Boston's latest ideas for the Bayside Expo Center it owns - which call for building "a modern-day Harvard Square."

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Comments

Modern-day Harvard Square?

By Snuggles on Tue, 08/08/2017 - 6:57pm.

Lots of banks and chain stores?

You should first have a few beloved local places, so you can take them away, with skyrocketing rents.

Modern day Harvard Square

By anon on Tue, 08/08/2017 - 7:03pm.

Great idea build a giant pit for runaways, truants, homeless and addicts to hang around in just like Harvard square.

In a past life I would gaze

By Chris77 on Wed, 08/09/2017 - 7:28am.

In a past life I would gaze at the punks in the Pit before hanging out at the Bow and Arrow, then I would get a late night sandwich at Buzzy's.

http://www.universalhub.com/files/images/buzzys.jpg

Modern Day Harvard Square

By The Ghost of John Harvard on Tue, 08/08/2017 - 7:16pm.

Will they take the ancient and (dis)honorable Harvard Square Defense brigade with them?

mall

By cybah on Tue, 08/08/2017 - 7:20pm.

So they are replacing an indoor mall with an outdoor mall.

You can call it whatever you want...but in the end, it's still an outdoor mall.

Will it have a depressed pit in the middle of the development full of angst filled anarchists, Marxists, Maoists, other fans of genocide loving-isms, nihilists, skate punks, would be rockers, urban campers, and other riff-raff hellbent on "sticking it to the man"?

Oh and a retro-news stand where people can go out of their way to be seen pretending to buy things as the proprietors slowly go bankrupt from no one actually buying any merchandise?

Maoists? "Sticking it to the man?"

By Jeff F on Tue, 08/08/2017 - 9:57pm.

Dude, 1974 called, it misses you too.

I really hope so!

By anon on Tue, 08/08/2017 - 10:07pm.

That sounds awesome. I'll walk by and sigh nostalgically and in my heart stick it to the man for old times sake.

Seems like a shortsighted plan for waterfront property

By O-FISH-L on Tue, 08/08/2017 - 9:06pm.

My first question is why is struggling UMass in the retail development business? UMass Building Authority? Really? Isn't the lifeblood of Harvard Square the fact that Red Line trains arrive right underneath and numerous buses stop on their way through, plus a top rated, historic university literally in the Square? JFK/UMass station may be a few blocks from the Bayside but it's a world away for pedestrians who would have to be hoofing it a much further distance and crossing busy streets. UMass is even further away than JFK. The mom and pop retail and newstands of Harvard Square are dead or dying. Are the planners simply proposing a waterfront strip mall? If UMass can't find an educational use, they should sell the property to the highest bidder, shore up their budget and get back to their mission of education not retail.

Agreed

By anon on Tue, 08/08/2017 - 7:58pm.

Somehow I lack any morsel of confidence in a governmental agency attempting to run a commercial enterprise.

UMass should not sell the

By anon on Tue, 08/08/2017 - 9:46pm.

UMass should not sell the land outright, but offer a long term ground lease (20 years?). That way the university can obtain additional funds over time at appreciating rates rather than a one time cash infusion.

UMB wants to be Harvard, methinks.

By necturus on Wed, 08/09/2017 - 5:19pm.

Harvard owns vast amounts of real estate in Cambridge and Boston which they rent out commercially.

It will end up like Winter St

By anon on Tue, 08/08/2017 - 7:35pm.

DTX. As DJT would tweet: #Sad

And developers will get federal $ for developing in a 'blighted' area.

Interesting

By Waquiot on Tue, 08/08/2017 - 9:11pm.

Am I the only one in the uhubaverse who remembers when there was a shopping center there?

I remember too...

By SBer on Tue, 08/08/2017 - 10:49pm.

The store I remember the most was the Almy's there - convenient for running out to buy panti-hose for school the next day. Too young to drive so had to wait for Dad to give us a ride and wait in the car while we ran in.

What other stores were there?

I recall not feeling safe - being told to run in and out quickly. This was pre-renovation of the then Columbia Point housing project.