Remember the big brouhaha about the facade facing Boylston Street/Route 9 at the Chestnut Hill Square. Well this morning — two days before Wegman’s grand opening — I noticed workers who appear to be adding those promised decorative touches.
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Greg, these are not mere “decorative touches.” The Route 9 CHSq facade was a design element that was part of the approved plans. A meeting has been scheduled between some of the aldermen, the planning department and the developer to go over the plans for compliance with the special permit. And we will be paying close attention to future projects as well, such as Riverside and Austin Street.
Anyone interested in Austin Street, in particular, should also be paying attention to design. The Board of Aldermen invested a good deal of time and thought into the details of the massing and facade of the building for that site when we passed the zoning ordinance. In particular, the first floor retail must have transparent windows, multiple entrances that open onto the sidewalk and other design elements intended to promote pedestrian vitality at the street level.
Those who have lived in the Boston area a while may remember what a barren wasteland Lafayette Place was when it first opened. That was because instead of windows and multiple doorways into stores on the street level, the building was constructed to look like a fortress with a single main entrance. As a result, it failed to draw customers into the stores and revitalize that area of Downtown Crossing, which was a big part of the reason the mall there flopped.
All week there have been flashing signs on Rte. 9 warning “Mkt opening” on Sunday, “expect delays.” Amazing that the opening of a supermarket should require such warnings.
I’m glad my Newton Serves locations won’t require crossing Rt9! When is going to the the non-busy time to check out Wegman’s?
Lipstick on a pig. A phony design element for a development that has no meaningful interaction with the street or the surrounding neighborhood. Nothing to celebrate here.
Mere window dressing. Literally.
@Ted– I just want to thank you for the wonderful leadership you showed representing the city in guiding this project. My family and I have already been frequent visitors at Equinox and Brio. Like half of Newton, I’m super excited about Wegmans opening. Thanks in large part to your efforts, Chestnut Hill Square is a great example of commercial development done right. The city and its residents will benefit for years to come.
Thanks, Mike. I am proud of the work the board of aldermen has done on CHSq and now I want to make sure we finish the job.
Just to be clear, Bruce and Adam, the facade is not the only issue of concern with compliance with the special permit for CHSq and Capitol Grille. Some of these concerns could have a profound impact on traffic and parking, and it is important to get it right as soon as possible. Trial parking restrictions in the surrounding area have already gone into effect in anticipation of the opening of Wegmans. While this may be an exciting time for customers, there will be inevitable headaches for neighbors and I for one want to make sure that we have done everything we can to avoid unnecessary problems by ensuring that the conditions of the special permits are satisfied.
With respect to the facade, I understand why critics may think we are applying lipstick to a pig, even though I do not necessarily agree. But there is also a fundamental underlying legal and policy principle at work here. On this blog, there was a hue and cry about the applicants who ask for forgiveness rather than permission when seeking special permits for projects that are already started or completed.
Having been intimately involved in the review and approval process for CHSq, Riverside, Chestnut Hill Mall and The Street, my colleagues and I want to be darn sure that the developers are fulfilling their promises and satisfying their obligations. When these concerns were raised the other night in Zoning and Planning during budget discussions, the ISD Commissioner acknowledged the difficulty and complexity of ensuring compliance in dealing with developers of these large projects, even when everyone is acting in good faith and with the best intentions–and even more so when they are not.
So we will continue to follow this and other major developments closely to ensure that the best long term interests of the city and its residents are being met.
Ted, thank you for seeing the special permit through. It’s not clear there ever really was an issue enforcing the plan, nor did there seem to have been any overreaching or zoning violations, but it’s always good to keep tabs on the developer. I, too, will shop at Wegmans and my family will undoubtably shop at the other stores. I’m happy that the city will see much needed tax revenue. But CHS is a cookie-cutter mall, not an exciting place to visit. I don’t think a few awnings on the façade mooning us as we pass by route 9 will change that.
The Street is a great example of commercial development done right. Kudos for that. It’s a vibrant place on site with challenging constraints. CHS is a lost opportunity to create a place with a neighborhood feel. I predicted that traffic mitigation would be a nightmare, and it already is if you look at how the traffic has been displaced, but hardly mitigated, 0.5 to 1 mile away from the development in either direction on Route 9. I just hope once the site is fully operational the traffic problem doesn’t back up further on to neighborhood streets as I feared it would when I commented on the DEIR. I’m still stunned that the city process basically gave the developer the power to redesign public roads for its own benefit with so little oversight. It’s not encouraging that the DPW has effectively posted signs advertising that the development is going to cause major traffic issues. We shall see.
I’m curious as to what traffic conditions are still in question. I’m guessing they relate to the direct abutters, not to the rest of the city. Perhaps there’s still some opportunity to retime the traffic signals, but how much more can they squeeze out of existing intersections?
I’m waiting to see the beginnings of the remediation promised. So far NOTHING !
The city approved retail store fronts, with awnings, windows and landscaping, fronting Route 9, Boylston Street. It’s not clear to me just how those retailers, now in place, with storefronts facing the interior parking lot, will adjust their leasehold improvements, to allow this to happen. I seriously doubt that this will ever happen.
It is obvious that there has been a serious lapse of the review and application of design approvals, and the construction documents that were subsequently produced, building permits issued, ISD inspections and compliance, all or any of which resulted in what we see there today.
Surely those responsible for this fiasco are all hoping that with the passage of time, and familiarity with the image of what got built, will cause memories of what was originally proposed to fade like a dream.
This sadly is what seems to happen with all too many projects city officials and Commissions get involved in. Developers ( city officials ) know that they can just cover it up and it will get forgotten.
I do think there was a bit of bait-and-switch going on with this project. The drawings submitted with the special permit appear to show stores fronting on Rt 9. As built, the wall facing Rt 9 is the back of the store without store entrances and windows.
The awnings being put up now will make the Rt 9 facade look like the drawings without there really being anything facing Rt 9. I suspect that aldermen who voted on the special permit thought that they were voting on a design with store fronts facing Rt 9.
Does it matter? Not to me. I don’t think fronting on to Route 9 would have made too much sense. It does appear though that attaching awnings to a blank wall is a bit of a deceptive weasel move.
Jerry,
The “weasel move “, was apparently the original architectural rendering showing store fronts awnings etc. Sadly the folks at city hall either didn’t review plan drawings, can’t read plan drawings, or ignored plan drawings at one stage of the project or another. City hall dropped the ball. The developer pulled a fast one, and of course he’s now gotten away with it. Awnings are the proverbial “ivy” covering up a big mistake ( Lie ??? ), and an yet another, inexpensive “weasel move”, to get off almost scott free!
Strong words, blueprintbill. The drawing shows a fake facade, and they’re building exactly that. What evidence do you have that anyone was negligent?
Jerry, “The Street” fronts route 9 in a very effective way. I seem to recall discussion about real storefronts, wider sidewalks with landscaping, and second floor cafes during the CHS deliberations, but I do not recall NED promising anything but a fake facade facing route 9. Perhaps Ted can confirm.
The Street is nicely done, except for blaring music outside. I don’t know what makes them think they need to give a mall ambiance outside – I have no wish to listen to bad music while waiting to get into Legal’s.
Adam, we spent a significant amount of time in working sessions in committee and on the floor of the board deliberating over the Route 9 facade, which is the gateway into Chestnut Hill Square. In particular, we spent a lot of time talking about pedestrian access to the site and the walkways along Route 9 and how that side of the project would promote pedestrian vitality. A lot of residents access the site from the Chestnut Hill Towers and the other residential developments in the area, and we wanted to make the project as welcoming as possible to pedestrians as well as those who get to the site by car.
Because of the challenges that the site presented, as well as the desires of the prospective tenants and the developer, we did not expect that all of the stores would have entrances onto the Route 9 sidewalk. What we did expect, and what the plans incorporated into the special permit show, was a transparent facade that would be inviting to pedestrians as well as people who drive to the site.
What was presented to us, and incorporated into the special permit, was not what was built. Those of us who spent many hours discussing this project were looking for something more along the lines of Linden Square in Wellesley, and what we got looks more like Lafayette Place in Downtown Crossing. We want to know why, and what the city and the developer are going to do about it.