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Latest South Boston condo proposal would remake major intersection - and eliminate a Dunkin' Donuts
By adamg on Wed, 03/09/2016 - 2:28pm
Architect's rendering.
The owner of Perkins Supply on West Broadway, where it turns into East Broadway, has filed plans to tear down the building and the neighboring Dunkin' Donuts and replace them with a five-story condo building with an underground garage and first-floor retail space.
In a filing with the BRA, Frank Sorrenti proposes 18 condo units - 2 of them marketed as affordable - and a garage with space for 21 cars and numerous bicycles. Sorrenti would also make an unspecified payment to the BRA's fund for building affordable housing.
The building skin will be a composition of brick panels with large floor-to-ceiling glazing covering the majority of the exterior façades, with accents of metal panels. The materials and façade details are intended to visually interrupt the massing of the building along its elevations in order to better integrate with the West Broadway and Dorchester Street streetscapes.
Sorrenti hopes to begin work on the $8.4-million project in mid-2017, with construction expected to take about a year.
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Comments
Remember when architects
Remember when architects could draw beautiful renderings?
Architecture has been reduced to ClipArt by cheapskate developers and the digitization of the profession.
Cheapest
Option to built that still has the appearance of being modern and sleek. Actually just looks pre-fab. Then turn around and sell the place for a ridiculously inflated price. Haven't seen a project in Boston (especially Southie) with actual character in years. Yay capitalism!
Renderings
Agreed, but the actual design is the problem. The finished building will look identical to the soulless renderings. Probably just more mechanical units making it look even worse.
Yes!
Where are the glorious brick arches of yesteryear. No columns? Ornate stained glass? Booooring.
It is sad state of affairs
It is sad state of affairs when 19th-20th century tenement buildings built for the poorest of the poor have more character and quality in their appearance than today's "luxury" developments.
Stained glass!
It amazes me that utterly boring, pedestrian triple deckers in our older neighborhoods almost all incorporate decorative stained glass windows, often in the stairwells. These weren't luxury housing, just rentals for working families.
If I recall correctly
fancy glass like stained glass or patterned glass was often made of lower-quality glass than pure clear glass. It was scrap glass that had color added, or recycled glass that had been originally colored.
Really I have seen some of
Really I have seen some of it and it was beautiful stuff , got one myself. Guess one man's tuna fish is another man's caviar.
Dear Owner and Developer
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
This intersection is disgusting because of all the degenerates that Schubert's (the convenience store) attracts. There area outside has cigarette butts and scratch tickets thrown about.
This development is exactly what this intersection needs. I hope a nice restaurant will go in the retail space.
-The Original SoBo Yuppie
I mean..
What did you expect when you moved to Southie? Should've picked Back Bay or The South End
This development is too far
from Broadway or Andrew Station so it cannot be called transit oriented. That being said, this does not have enough parking spaces.
Are buses not considered mass
Are buses not considered mass transit or is it just trains?
busses in Southie....
Lack of busses in Southie is a HUGE issue from years ago, the T won't put more on because they say they have no where to store them.
Have you taken the bus lately?
Especially in Southie and especially at this intersection. By the time either the Copley or Dudley goes past this spot it is so jammed with commuters you don't have a chance of getting on.
So to answer your question, this isn't mass transit.
It's like 3/4 mile from
It's like 3/4 mile from either stop (maybe a tad longer to Broadway) and on bus lines to both. 3/4 mile is what, a 15 minute walk? That's not bad.
Also, 21 parking spots for 18 units is definitely too much parking in 2016.
Yes
About 3/4 of a mile to the Red line and 300 feet to a bus stop.
There's also a Hubway station
There's also a Hubway station right there.
When will it end?!
When will it end?!
Probably
when all the crappy old buildings have been knocked down and the space put to use efficiently.
What??
You don't think a 1 story building in a prime commuting area is being well-utilized when it consists of a plumbing supply store, a Dunks, and a place to buy lottery tickets?
Much more realistic if you
Much more realistic if you read that with the earnestness knob set to 11.
it is being put to use
it is being put to use asshole!!! people live in southie< not just scumbag yuppies coming to gentrify all of us out.. you all need to be ashamed.... how would you feel if youir families were erradicated from their home town with nowhere to go and living in southie they whole life>> i hope you all become homeless and unwantedly become transplanted elsewhere and die from a rapist or mugger
It'll end when the housing
It'll end when the housing shortage abates, either because people have built enough housing or because we have turned Boston into San Francisco, with its hills of multimillionaires and hoovervilles under every overpass.
To me this development is too much parking and not enough houses. 1:1 cars to homes is plenty.
A lot of the demand is for
A lot of the demand is for investments which is not a specific amount.
Huh?
Let me guess, Saudi princes are buying Southie real estate and just sitting on it as an investment. It feels silly to ask, but have any proof of this? All of the condo developments near me sell easily (usually above asking price) and people move in as soon as they close.
Now, if you're saying people are buying them as investments and them renting them out, that shows there's still demand.
Seeking Relief
They're actually seeking relief for insufficient off street parking. So they're already lower than what Zoning requires. I'd say they're more in line with your wishes than you realize.
New concept,
condo's in South Boston. They ought to put a hot dog stand at Castle Island next.
What
would you propose go there instead?
Irish pub with a secret
Irish pub with a secret gambling den and a pill dispensary? It could also share space with an ATM, cell phone store, and nail salon.
A fake Irish
Bar that serves Starbucks.
taking a dunkins away
is a step too far.
not to worry
when their 'retail" space lies dormant for a year, they'll be happy to have DD's back.
Are you serious?
What retail space, anywhere on Broadway (big OR small) is empty and not under construction today?
D and West Broadway
Although, I understand there is a new five/six-story similar building planned. It's just a matter of time and we'll see the (terrible) Burger King and gas station lots redeveloped as well.
You're kidding?
Visit Southie some time and walk East Broadway between L and I Strrets. There are no fewer than five storefronts empty. Some are boarded up and most have been vacant for more than two years. So please knock off the BS.
Sorry, no
I don't have to visit I St, I live there. Maybe you should come back from the riviera sometime. Maybe you mean Linehan's would-be campaign headquarters? He can keep it, but its not boarded up.
PS Coffee
Everyone goes to PS Coffee anyway. You'll see those "Home of the Bucket" cups littered all over Southie.
Speak for yourself.
Aside from the sugary mess they call coffee, it's always full of marble mouths pushing baby carriages who can barely keep their eyes open.
That just cant be true! Haven
That just cant be true! Haven't you see the "This is a drug free zone" sign on the door of PS.
Meh that Dunks sucks anyways
Meh that Dunks sucks anyways
Construction finishes in mid-2018 and
complaints from the new tenants about the noise outside of Junction at 2AM also start in mid-2018. What a coincidence..
Ask the folks at Ironsides in Charlestown about how that worked out with the old bat across Park St. They can't ever open the windows on that side.
The Junction
Closes at 1.
Extinction
Add getting plumbing supplies to the list of things you can't get in Southie anymore. Along with roast beef sandwiches, vehicle inspection stickers and pretty soon gasoline.
Liberty Bell
Really miss that place
Remake Major Intersection?
How?
There's nothing in that proposal about remaking that intersection. The street alignment will be exactly the same as now.
Sorry, was talking more about the, um, cityscape
You're right - the traffic patterns will remain the same, and the project is small enough (really, just 18 units) that they didn't have to file a voluminous traffic study.
But given the prominence of the location in that prominent intersection, I thought replacing a couple of single-story buildings (well, the plumbing place does have a two-story section) with a five-story structure would make the square look somewhat different - and wondered if it would lead to even further development like that.
Dorchester St is a mess
Traffic is already backed up on Dorchester St SB way beyond Stats to W 3rd because the geometry of the B'way/Dorchester St intersections requires each traffic phase to be split as well as an all-pedestrian crossing, resulting in long traffic queues. This intersection needs a good redesign to find solutions to unsplit traffic phases and allow peds to cross with concurrent traffic movements (i.e. relocated the crosswalks).
You're talking about a 10 car
You're talking about a 10 car "backup" at a red light. My solution is to not go that way.
It had to happen
It was inevitable that this property be developed. But the proposed replacement is beyond terrible. I love modern architecture, and although most of what has gone up in Southie has been marginal at best, to beyond bad (the ersatz throw-back to yesteryear, like next to Rite Aid on E. Broadway), this is so bad as to represent the worst kind of clip-art architecture one can find on Google images under "generic nondescript visual violation." We have one chance in decades to remake this significant intersection. Is this really the best we can do?
Suburban Office Park
Why would anyone pay $ to live in what looks like a suburban office park building? It's depressing.
Application images
The 3D images in the application show a little more life than what the flat elevation shows above. Granted it's still block-y and bereft of of those details we'd love to see, but it's not as completely lacking as the comments above imply.
The hard part is the construction industry, hand in hand with developers, has lost the skills that would allow for the prized handwork we so desire. We don't have masons so much as we have bricklayers. We don't have woodworkers, we have rough carpentry. Stonework is the same. These critical skills are gone because they cost more and developers aren't paying for it, and thus training doesn't cover it. Unless the student feels so moved to seek out serious training. And that is few and far between.
More of the Same
More cheaply built boring, bland crap polluting our neighborhood. it's time to kill the BRA. While what's there no has no historic or architectural value this bland 1960's throwback has nothing in common with it's surrounding neighborhood. The Broadway elevation looks like a rip off the Boston Globe on the Blvd! We should demand much better than this, but we as a community have turned our back on historic preservation-a powerful tool we could have used to save our neighborhood. Each one of these "just small enough" developments is radically altering the fabric of our neighborhood, creating a mini-downtown that will most like wither when the SB Waterfront is built-out like the South End did when the Back Bay was developed. Without traffic studies or transit upgrades in place BEFORE development we are bequeathing our children a diminished neighborhood.
We will pay a heavy price in fifty years or so as all this cheap construction ages. And the next generation of politicians will still be spouting excuses and rationalizations.