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Plans for new Stop & Shop & Apartments & Condos & Park in Allston unveiled
By adamg on Thu, 01/25/2018 - 3:24pm
Architect's rendering.
Stop & Shop and New England Development recently filed their formal plans to turn the current Stop & Shop property on Everett Street in Allston into "a vibrant mixed-use neighborhood focused on healthy living and eating," with up to 1,050 apartments and condos, a state-of-the-art "urban-style grocery store," office and retail space and a half-acre "community green."
The proposed Allston Yards - next to the New Balance developments in Brighton, rather than the old Allston freight yards - would also have up to 1,300 parking spaces and a "publicly-accesssible rooftop terrace."
The supermarket company and developer say the would be "transit oriented" because of its location near the new Boston Landing commuter-rail stop.
They added they would build the project, which will include four buildings between 13 and 20 stories - in phases over several years, which would let the existing supermarket stay open until its replacement is ready. The first phase would include construction of a 360-unit residential building and the new supermarket, along with creation of the "community green" at Guest and Arthur streets and improvements to nearby intersections.
In addition to the mix of apartments and condos and the 67,000-square-foot supermarket, the project would include 300,000 square feet of office space and 50,000 square feet of retail/restaurant space.
The filing says the new development would complement and extend the work New Balance has done on the Brighton stretch of Guest Street:
The Proposed Project extends the vibrant, pedestrian-oriented streetscape of existing Guest Street through its Project Site to Everett Street. With improved access and circulation along a retail-, restaurant- and residential-oriented Guest Street Extension, both sites will benefit from the density and program mix. Buildings lining Guest Street Extension thoughtfully frame the community green to create programmed open space between the two sites as an amenity for those who work and live in the neighborhood. The proposed building heights are consistent with the existing and planned Boston Landing buildings so that the two developments relate while each afford dynamic downtown views. The network of streets created on the Project Site ties into the new Boston Landing MBTA commuter rail station at the end of West Street. Therefore, the Proposed Project will complement and enhance the success of the Boston Landing project by providing a variety of uses and connectivity between the two projects and surrounding street grid.
Boston Landing to the left, Allston Yards to the right:
Allston Yards project-notification form (96M PDF).
Neighborhoods:
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Comments
bleh
RIP Studio 52, killed by new rich condo jerkheads don't like the noise from the existing thing next door
my first thought as well
my first thought as well
This can't come soon enough
Great project, ideal location. Build, baby, build!
Is this a place where you
Is this a place where you have to worry about NIMBYism?
They'll move in and try and
They'll move in and try and get the Pike shut down when they realize they live right next to it
And the airport
Of course. The airport.
They're going to get real mad
They're going to get real mad about the music rehearsal spaces next door within the first month. Can't wait to have to find a new place to practice and move all my stuff.
And my rent soars even higher...
With each new project over in Boston Landing, I count the leases I'll be able to stay in my apartment.
Really?
Care to share the data on how thousands of units being built in your area make your rent go up?
Gentrification
As the area goes from being a gritty, partly industrial neighborhood to a neighborhood of fancy hi-rises it is possible that prices or rent of existing housing stock in the area will go up. Much like has occurred in many other Boston neighborhoods like the South End, Charlestown, East Boston, South Boston, etc. The housing itself does not even have to be improved to be considered more desirable, merely being in a neighborhood that is perceived as up and coming can lead to price hikes.
Rent and housing sale prices can only be stabilized by strict limitations [from the government] on how much is allowed to be charged. Free market solutions are farcical.
But at the same time, the existing store at this location is grubby and run down. The area is full of space wasting violations like overlarge parking lots and abandoned retail and industrial space that for some reason was never able to hold tenants for long. So building here is a good thing. It's just important that the developer be held to strict interpretations of the affordable housing requirements.
Lies
That's insane, and there's absolutely no evidence to support it. The free market works (quite well, in fact) in housing. The reason prices have been spiking is because we've got a lot of people who want to live here and at the same time we've been doing everything we can to limit the construction of new housing for these new arrivals. We make developers shrink their projects. We make them build expensive, unnecessary parking. We make them pay huge hidden taxes in the form of things like subsidies for lottery winners who score below market affordable housing - housing they the rest of us pay for in higher rents. We delay their projects, often for years, with NIMBY fights and lawsuits, all while carrying costs soar. All of this acts to constrict the supply and keep the free market from actually working. Rent control just acts as one more limit on housing construction, and has the extra effect of giving landlords no way to profitably keep their units in good repair, so that the housing stock degrades.
You want a good example of places with rent control? Look at New York, hardly a bastion of affordable rents, or San Francisco, where a points to rent control as a reason for pride *increases*.
Rent control doesn't work. NIMBY policies don't work. Gentrification isn't caused by development, it's caused by a lack of housing in the places people want to live. What does work is increasing supply. Rents in Boston are leveling off and even dropping as new supply hits. With all the new units poised to come online in the next couple of years I fully expect that rents are going to stay level.
You can also work to reduce demand by doing things like restricting short term rentals (in the works) or taxing absentee owners who are just sitting on units as investments (being tried out in Vancouver).
And I have no problem with income equality measures like a $15+ minimum wage or a universal basic income. These would both help with affordability. There are also lots of positive steps the government could take to unlock housing by extending the blue and orange lines, etc. I'm. 100 percent behind using public money to increase access to affordable housing that way.
But rent control is a complete failure and will only make the problem worse.
Data
Not more speculation.
Data.
Show your work.
Rent and housing sale prices
This is nonsense.
You really want to sock it to the poor, limit supply like you are proposing. Nothing like white eccentrics winning the rent controlled lottery while everyone else pounds sand, in a system where slumlords don't keep up properties and nothing gets built.
You want to fix gentrification? You build your way out, and you do something about wages.
Tedious Nonsense
Are you the one who claims that there should be $100,000 700sq ft 1br condos everywhere and that is "affordable".
Oh please. You are so bad at math and so ignorant of history that it is laughable.
The fact is that such condos were not available anywhere in the Boston Area for the last 30 years. Not anywhere. The change in interest rates have substantially lowered the costs of housing, too. My first mortgage on a $150K house was at 11% and you couldn't get that mortgage unless you had worked at a single employer for over three years. I doubt you want to go back to that nonsense.
The fact is that an affordable amount to spend on housing was - and is - 1/3 of your gross income. The mortgage on a 100,000K condo would be $500/month. That's the amount that I spent on rent 25 years ago for a shared place! If you were in the workforce you would be making way more than $1500 a month - that's less than full time at minimum wage ($12 x 30 x 50 = $18,000 or $1500/month).
You are a ridiculous buffoon when it comes to making a case for affordable housing. Learn some math and economics - you will be able to present a much stronger case for affordability. In the meantime, start listening and stop demanding ridiculous things ... or move somewhere like Kentucky where a newly flipped house is <70K.
Sorry but a mere 20 years ago
Sorry but a mere 20 years ago [1998] you could buy 1 BR condos in neighborhoods like Allston/Brighton and JP for under $100K with 5% interest rates. This changed most dramatically with the bubble and market crashes of 2001 primarily, but the costs have been going up ever since with few dips to counter that. Now the same 1BR units are over $350,000. That is a 3.5x increase without a corresponding increase in wages over the same period.
And Boston is not 3.5x as desirable to live in as it was in 1998.
In order to afford a mortgage of around $1,500 a month, plus taxes, plus condo fees, plus utilities, plus food, plus some modest amount of savings and money for fun, a car or T fare ... you're talking about people needing to take home over $4,000 a month or more - that's something only a small minority of the population can do.
I don't know how you think that is not alarming. Waiting for that issue to self correct is futile as prices will never dip enough to match what they should be.
Just Compare...
Let's see: the new buildings will offer a walkable street grid, 1,050 homes in a city that sorely needs more, 300,000 square feet of office space, a 67,000 square foot grocery store, 50,000 square feet of restaurant/retail space, and a community park.
The existing site has a one-story, 100,000 square foot building and 207,195 square feet of pavement for 450+ parking spots and drive lanes. It is inhospitable to walking and provides fewer parking spots, less retail space, and no housing, office, or park space.
The current store and massive parking lot is a tremendous waste of space. I can't wait to see this project finished.
Look at all this density
Look at all this density going up by the Boston Landing commuter stop. Look at how the station is serving way more passengers on a daily basis than expected. That is a perfect example of why the state needs to build West Station ASAP. None of this 2040 crap from Baker. Smart cities are planning around public transit and walkability. Dumb cities are planning around cars.
Exactly. I also hope that the
Exactly. I also hope that the new Guest st corridor will include dedicated bike lanes - there is a space for it!
A-B build up, West Station, and the FramWor Comm. Rail
I support this development, and I wish that I had had some kind of capital to invest for the many years that I lived nearby. I could see then that it was the next frontier - it was a great community then, and its a great community now.
I also agree this is also reason number 3 of at least 652 why West Station needs to be built at the earliest part of the redevelopment of the old Beacon Yards. If it is not, this already great neighborhood that is being made greater will suffer a major degradation in quality of life.
I wanted to add one point though. The FramWor CR line that serves Boston Landing and the future West Station is already the Commuter Rail's second busiest. The developments in Brighton and Allston will put it on top (already, BL ridership is way beyond projections). The health and efficiency of this rail line, which connects the state's two largest cities (and formerly, the state's most populous town until the Ham shifted to a city) must be enhanced. Adding stations adds a non-trivial amount of time to each train run that stops at those stations (especially when that time is aggregated over a week/month/year). Such increases in run time makes the CR significantly less attractive, and causes people to mode shift (to cars). The corresponding increase in automobile traffic will not help A-B at all.
Accordingly, in connection with the development of West Station, there must be a holistic approach to making the FramWor CR work better. That means, at least:
(1) the construction of high level platforms (and corresponding all-door boarding) at every station on the line (major dwell time reductions);
(2) the construction of a third track between Framingham and Weston (there is plenty of room for this, as the ROW used to accommodate 4 tracks) (allows for many more express trains and operational flexibility to mitigate issues); and
(3) electrification of the line (run time reductions and major equipment reliability improvements).
Without these improvements, there will be a significant degradation of service on the line, which will cause people who will work in the old Beacon Yards area (and that's going to be a lot of people) to drive for what should absolutely be a transit commute. Everyone should agree that packing more cars into A-B is not an acceptable outcome, and accordingly, this issue that should transcend the suburban/city divide that we see so frequently since it literally traverses that divide (city-suburbs-city).
Hopefully Harvard's plans (with additional funding from BU)
will help jump-start the discussion to run DMUs on (or even electrify) the Worcester line between South Station and either 128 (Needham/Riverside) or Natick to offer much more frequency inside the Inner Belt. A larger purchase of these vehicles can also be used on the Fairmount (Indigo) Line.
West Station also offers the possibility of accommodating at least a portion of the Urban Ring to provide bus rapid transit (BRT) between Longwood and Somerville/Medford, partially using the Grand Junction alignment through Cambridge.
double-track/platform Newton stations
will also go a long way to improve service on the entire Worcester Line. It is amazingly sad that for so many years all three of those stations have had only single-track access.
Thankfully some great advocacy from the Transit Matters team has a two-track compatible station coming to Auburndale
https://commonwealthmagazine.org/transportation/t-is-rebuilding-station-...
I don't know about those TransitMatters guys
But, really, Issac is completely right. There's a huge need for the Worcester Line to be improved. If the Newtons are upgrade with platforms on both sides and proposed development is built, that probably adds 1000 riders a day there. Boston Landing probably has 1000 to go with the new development in progress and shown here, and West Station 2000 or more. (Not the farcical 250 the state's bs model shows.) A good connection to Kendall would probably bring out several thousand more riders from the corridor. And the Pike isn't getting any better, it's jammed 6-10 and 3-7.
There's probably 30,000 passengers: significantly more than any line currently has, but perfectly suitable for a two-track railroad: Metra's UP-N line in Chicago has 41,000 weekday riders on a two-track railroad. It would just require some investment to bring the line at least to 20th century standards. The new speed limit (79 mph) is a good start (although parts of the line could probably handle higher speeds for express trains), but high level platforms are really necessary the rest of the way, as is an express track between Weston and Framingham, and at some point, electrification and doing something about the grade crossings in Framingham.
Imagine, for a moment, that Amazon says "we want to come to Boston but don't want to be on the edge of the world, but rather close to the universities and such." Harvard could offer them a tailor-made parcel. But the Pike and river roads won't support 100,000 more car trips every day. An upgraded Worcester Line, however, could put West Station a 40 minute trip from Worcester, and all the towns in between. The Worcester line serves the highest population of any Commuter Rail corridor in the state. It's time to treat it that way.
Not to mention ...
Enhancements on the Worcester Line would mean better service to Worcester and surrounding areas.
You can buy a 2br house for $150K in Worcester, or a really nice 1br condo for $120K.
more runs
More passengers can (and should, but doesn't always) lead to more trips per day on the line. More frequent service is better -- easier to schedule, less lost if you miss the train by a minute, etc.
I agree the platforms should be raised and a third set of rail would help -- but so too would more runs each day.
Allston Landing
When the building coming together at Brighton Landing and Allston Yards are finally occupied traffic in that area will be at a standstill. And how is that a project built in Brighton will be called Allston Yards? It's not Allston. It's Brighton west of Everett St.
And how is that a project
Many people use the definition based on zip code of 02134 (since, historically, Allston was created when the area got a second Post Office). And this development is in the 02134 zip code.
It's payback for the Brighton Music Hall being
in Allston.
Stop & Shop pricing higher than Shaw's Star Markets & DeMoulas!
Stop & Shop pricing is higher than Shaw's Star Markets and higher than DeMoulas Market Basket supermarkets, many by more than one or two dollars.
Also, that is one of the
Also, that is one of the worst links in the Stop & Shop chain.
At least there's a Dollar
At least there's a Dollar Tree next door. That and Warrior Arena are the reasons I go to that area.
Stop & Shop pricing is higher
As someone who lives in the area, I can tell you that there are many items that cost less at this Stop and Shop than at the Star Market down the street in Brighton Mills.
Blanket statements like yours generally turn out not to be true.
ILL InterLibraryLoan Consumer Reports Boston Consumers Checkbook
● Via ILL InterLibrary Loan public libraries/college libraries can get the Supermarkets Ratings for Consumer Reports Magazine https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/grocery-stores-supermarkets/buying-g...
● Via ILL InterLibrary Loan public libraries/college libraries can get the Supermarkets Ratings for Boston Consumers' Checkbook Magazine https://www.checkbook.org/boston-area/
● And Public Libraries/College Libraries can get online access to both magazines' Supermarkets Ratings via libraries' website databases.
For example
https://bpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/search?query=boston+consumers+checkbook...
Or
http://www.cambridgema.gov/cpl/eLibrary/consumerinfo
● Local newspapers and magazines have rated supermarkets in recent years.
● Of note, please see
http://www.consumerworld.org/pubs/supermarketsurvey2015prs2.pdf
http://www.consumerworld.org/pubs/supermarketsurvey2014chart.pdf
You claimed
You claimed
and then pointed to:
both of which show what I said, Star Market is more expensive than Stop & Shop. In 2014, Start Market was $38.19 vs. Stop & Shop at $34.23 . And in 2015, Star Market was $41.08 vs. Stop & Shop at $36.70 .
So, I have no clue what the basis for your original statement was. Your own sources show you to be wrong.
It would cost me a couple bucks in gas and an annoying amount of time to drive to Somerville to go grocery shopping. Since many items are nonperishable, most frugal people just stock up when they are on sale and the prices are similar. For instance, I can tell you Stop & Shop's prices on spaghetti are lower than everyone else in that list when they have a sale. You buy 20 boxes of spaghetti and you're good on that front for a while. Same with vegetable oil. A little planning allows me to get those cheap prices and still be happy that I can just walk to and from my grocery store.
I dunno about that.
I went into the Liberty Sq Shaw's in Eastie the other day. Ouch.
Either I've been shopping at Market Basket too long without going anywhere else or that place is over priced.
I've always just found it to be (from cheapest to most expensive)
Market Basket -> Stop & Shop -> Roche -> Shaws/Star -> WF
That Market Basket in Chelsea is a thing of beauty. One of
my favorite supermarkets in the Boston area.
It is awesome
I live closer to three MB locations but still trek to Chelsea whenever I can. The ample parking. The apparent multitude of checkout lanes. The Bosnian aisle. Love it.
Chelsea MB
A few weeks ago I had a 'date' with someone who was staying over at one of the hotels near the Chelsea Market Basket. I asked if he went in (since they had a Market's Kitchen so its easy to get quick, hot food since there's nothing really nearby that's quick and not fast food or sit down)..
His reply "I travel all over, and I've never seen a supermarket so large, and so damn busy on a sunday afternoon. They had every register open and the lines were going into the aisles, you'd think it was the day before Thanksgiving. Is it always like that?"
I said "Pretty Much", and then I had to explain Market Basket to him (how they work, why they are so cheap, why people shop there).. and of course that he went the first weekend of the month..
Put Wegmans between MB and S&S
and you have it, almost. I don't know where Hannaford rates because it's not near me.
Every store chain has some
Every store chain has some items that are priced higher (and lower) than the same item at another chain.
Considering that there's a Star Market about eight feet from this particular Stop & Shop, comparison shopping seems pretty easy to me.
Not in my experience
Not sure what items you're buying... I find the prices at Shaw's (by which I mean the Star Market at Packard's Corner) way, way higher than at the Stop & Shops I go to (Everett St. store and Brookline Village store). In fact I find the prices at Star (Shaw's) to be absurd so I rarely shop there; I might as well go to Whole Paycheck if I want to be fleeced.
The best values are at Trader Joe's. I wish they would open a store in the Allston Village area.
Anything would be an
Anything would be an improvement over that messy, over-priced, incompetently-staffed store full of about-to-spoil produce.
You haven't seen the Arlington S&S, then.
It's even worse.
Watertown
Stop and Shop on Watertown St. waves hello.
Yes please!!!!! But my gosh
Yes please!!!!! But my gosh the parking, That still specifies at least 1 per unit, when will we figure out that the climate and our roads simply can't afford that! Yes I get that many people feel the need to own cars, great, this is not a project for you if you need one. I am hoping that number goes down, and support for transit goes up. Talk about jacking up the price of rent, try building structured parking at 50-100k per space, well there is your high rent right there since the developer needs to now pay off that building debt.
I thought we needed fewer folks driving alone (lots of reasons), that much parking ain't gonna help...
I think that at least a
I think that at least a portion of that parking is intended for Stop & Shop customers and employees of the office potion of the development. I highly doubt they're providing all of that parking exclusively for residents.
Was In An 'Urban Style Grocery Store' Yesterday
In Fields Corner. But for some reason, I have the feeling that the one by the New Balance campus is going to be a little different.