The SimCityfication of Boylston Street in the Fenway continues

This aggrivated me too. The Fenway Health building was clearly set up with a party wall as that lot was a sure thing for a future development a la McDonalds. To completely ignore it when designing the new structure is surprising. Especially because inverting the tower and roofdeck locations would be a nice "step down" from the Fenway Boylston buildings to the Fens (for a counterpoint, see the Viridian by Sweet Caroline's, where it juts abruptly and jarringly into the sky).

Even doing something like what the Van Ness just down the street, where the deck is encapsulated by two towers, would at least make some architectural use of the otherwise blank face.

I think this area's proximity to Fenway Park actually kept it from developing for some time. In the early 2000s much of the area was parking lots, or gas stations that turned in to parking lots on game day, or a BK that had a nice side business parking cars on game day. 80 home games, $30 or $40 or more for parking, that's $3200 in ancillary income per space. Oh, and it comes in in cash. So there was a calculus that these properties made decent money without having to be developed. Of course, it was this bizarre suburban strip mall scar right next to one of the densest neighborhoods in the city.

It's good to see it change. The dense housing is good for two reasons. First, every time a brogrammer decides to splurge on the $1800 per month apartment that they can afford, it's one less person driving up demand, and prices, in older, cheaper housing stock elsewhere in the city. (In theory, anyway; in practice, there is so much latent demand that it doesn't make a difference, but you have to start somewhere.) And one has to assume that these don't get through without having some affordable units, and paying something in to the affordability fund, or however that works. They're not displacing any existing residents, or really any useful businesses (no, decaying garages aren't exactly useful). And they're filling in a pretty big hole in the cityscape.

There are still some properties in that neighborhood that could be developed, but it's good to see it go from a wasteland to something useful. Even if I might not be able to afford it, it should at least relieve some pressure on the housing market overall.

First they came for D'Angelos, and I shrugged.

Then they came for the Burger King, and I shrugged.

Finally they came for El Peon and there was no where left for me to go to lunch.

These places aren't affordable so who is the customer?

You answered your own question.

They're clearly affordable to someone.

Put in some improved and extended rapid transit.

Just make sure you plunk down lots of police stations right around it. Automatically makes crime go down. Parks are cheap, too, and raise desirability.

What's sad is.. a Boston as a region in SimCity 4 (yes there is one to download here & here) doesn't work well for gameplay. Both the road layout and the transit systems (if built like they are currently) are horribly insufficient for the game. (Maybe the game is trying to tell us something? :-) )

In order to make it work you end up having to build a Paris-style subway system (that goes everywhere underground), upgrade many roads to boulevards, and add more highways. OR just abandon the idea of copying the current road/transit layout and build your own from scratch. (This works out the best)

(And yes, I've tried to build a "Boston" region a few times..)

then this developer came along and wanted a tower 2x the height of other buildings on that stretch

Seems a bit excessive. But hey, of course since somebody from somewhere changed the zoning to allow it, it's all good, right?

So the land isn't actually sinking - or at least it isn't because of large buildings. Settling is common for areas built on tidal flats or marshlands - which the Fens used to be, with the exception of Sewall's Point around Kenmore Sq - but the Back Bay in particular is stacked with an array of timber pylon supports that prop up all the buildings. If those supports are submerged in groundwater they are essentially permanent - they won't deteriorate at all. It's when the groundwater recedes and exposed portions of the pylons rot that settling occurs. This has been an issue previously with construction in and around the Back Bay dewatering nearby areas - though construction engineers today are very good about monitoring the water levels to ensure surrounding pylons are not disturbed.

All new builds, including the high rises, must include groundwater recharge systems and water table monitors, there's also the groundwater trust which monitors the water table as a whole in the area. It is a bit imprecise, we don't actually know where are the pylons are and how tall they are - once building may have pylons that extend and extra meter than the neighbor's - because the plans for the area burnt in a fire. Even if the pylons rot, it's possible to save the building - all it requires is to dig down to preserved portion of the timber, cut out the rotted section, and install a steel support structure. It's expensive, but not that difficult from an engineering perspective. This happened to a few townhouses on Brimmer St for example.

So, yes and no. There's no immediate threat to settling from these new buildings, but the water table must be monitored constantly to ensure that it's at appropriate levels to ensure the pylons don't rot. This winter will actually help that as snow melts and recharges the water table. I'm not sure if this section of Boylston is propped up by pylons to the extent that the Back Bay, but settling is certainly an issue in this area so I'd imagine the BRA wouldn't be approving such developments in ignorance of that threat.

If only you remembered his name...

Is that a New England thing to change "ar" to "er", like adding "er"s to "a" and vice versa? See Jerry Remy's butchering of Carlos Baerga as Cah-los Buy-ay-ger, etc.

From what I can see, the old-line fast-food burger places (McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's) are being slowly replaced, about one-by-one, by the new-style UBurger, Tasty Burger, Boston Burger Company, Shake Shack, Five Guys, etc.

KFC has also pretty much disappeared from our area ... but we now have Popeye's (again)

There's a BK between Packard's Corner and Union Square. Drive-thru and everything.

Open kind of weird hours, being in a very 9-to-5 neighborhood.

Don't even get me started on how you need a sled team and three weeks of provisions to get to the nearest Arby's.

It's on Washington at High Point Village. And I believe there is also one in Dorchester (Columbia Rd.)

From my perspective, having it be a "sleepy little place" was a major feature, not a bug. The neighborhood had a few decent and affordable restaurants, a supermarket and a pharmacy. Who exactly is all the "non-sleepy" development for? Tourists, that's who. I loved coming home, dropping my stuff in my apartment and going for a walk in the park. It was nice, it was green, there were birds and trees and all that good stuff. I loved it. You can keep all the UPTOWN BOSTON crap.