Two developers are telling the BPDA they will shortly file detailed plans to create an biotech and life-sciences R&D park on either side of Western Avenue, at the edge of Harvard's vast Allston holdings, where the university is planning its own large R&D development. Read more.

The Bus Stop Pub on Western Avenue has its last last call on Saturday, as the development wave continues to crash over the neighborhood. The Lincoln Tavern down the other end of the Guest Street corridor in Brighton is slated to be replaced by condos.

Via Boston Restaurant Talk.

A fire that broke out in a second-floor apartment at 1 Western Ave. shortly after 7:30 p.m. went to three alarms before it was knocked down by Boston firefighters. Read more.

Mayor Walsh and Harvard President Drew Faust get their ceremonial shovels out today to officially launch a $6.5-million upgrade of Smith Field that will include a street-hockey rink, a splash pond, new walking paths, an amphitheater for public performances and upgrades to the existing playground and playing fields.

The ceremony starts at 4 p.m. at the park off Western Avenue.

Designboom gives us a tour of 273 Western Ave. in Allston, which a pair of Baltimore artists used as a canvas. The house in more boring days.

Earlier:
A different breed of house painters in Jamaica Plain.

The Boston Licensing Board voted yesterday to grant a beer-and-wine license to the Trader Joe's under construction on North Harvard Street at Western Avenue in Allston. Read more.

Transit Police charge a man who'd parked in such a way to block an Allston bus stop just could not deal with the fact that forced a bus driver to block him in to let passengers off at the stop, so he went up to the driver's window and punched it hard enough to shatter it, showering the bus driver in glass shards, some of them possibly landing in his eye. Read more.

The long stalled Harvard Science and Engineering Complex started in 2007, then stopped in 2009 when the economy did a number on the university's endowment.

The revised center along Western Avenue will feature offices for dozens of professors and hundreds of researchers and will have its own power plant. Read more.

The Boston Fire Department reports the former and long unused MDC police barracks at 525 Western Ave., at Soldiers Field Road caught fire overnight.

The two-alarm fire at what was originally the administration building for a horse track that used to run along the Charles, was reported around 3 a.m. and did an estimated $250,000 in damage. No injuries were reported. Read more.