Mark Development is holding a meeting this Thursday, Sept 27 at 7 p.m. in the cafeteria at Newton North about its proposed transit-oriented development at Riverside Station. The proposed project includes new office space, a new hotel, affordable housing, shops and community space.
In unrelated news, the Speakeasy Stage Company in Boston is presenting Between Riverside and Crazy through October 13.
Looks like a massive concrete village. Not the optimum place to raise a family, but this is life for future Newtonites. What a shame!
As compared to how it looks now?
@Colleen – no one has to live there or raise a family there if they don’t want to. It’s only life for future Newtonites who decide the positives outweigh the negatives – and, after all, every place has trade-offs. Not a shame at all – anyone who thinks it’s lousy can choose to live somewhere else.
I’m always amazed when people comment on other people’s housing choices. When we were selling our 120 year old house, one realtor went on and on about how it wouldn’t sell because it was “so old fashioned”. It sold in 6 days. I found his commentary to be quite rude.
Some people like to live out in the country, others like a dense housing community. Some people like new houses, others like old ones. I’m all for making this the best development it can be, but keep the people who eventually will live there out of the equation.
What @Jane and @Meredith said. The alternative to mixed-use housing is that Newton is out of reach for young families and future retirees. By arguing against MU housing, one is arguing against the aspirations of people who would enliven our many sleepy villages, keep our small businesses afloat, and make the city more interesting.
My (mild) concern with this development is more pedestrian. Can the MBTA provide enough capacity to get these people to and from jobs in the city? Can the MBTA even figure out how to collect fares on the D Line? My twice-daily ride suggests that they are not yet up to these tasks.
If it were only the housing choices of others about which so many Newtonians felt obligated to opine and, for many activities, ban, then Newton would be far better off. Sadly, Ms. Minaker is all too representative of the mindset in this city.
So about those two office buildings that are pictured in the rendering – one is proposed to be 14 stories and the other 18 stories.
How tall are some of the other office buildings that line a large portion of I-95 in Waltham and further nothbound?
@Greg – Waltham tops out around eight stories, 80-100 ft. Burlington’s tallest is 12 stories, ~150ft, and I believe they’ve approved up to 14 / 160ft. Woburn is in the 80-100 ft range as well.
Quincy goes up to 15 / 180ft and has a couple dozen over 100ft, with a good mix of commercial and residential. Given the size of the city, distance from downtown Boston, and level of transit access, that might be the best comparison, particularly for the Riverside site.
Without knowing anything about last night’s presentation and without judging it one way or the other, 18 stories would be somewhat taller than what we see elsewhere around 128, while 14 stories would be within the peer group.
@Jonathan: Thanks very much for your answer. Very helpful.
I wasn’t able to attend last night either but I’m assuming the visual also depends what its built on, right? For example, many of the tallest buildings in Waltham are up on a hill, whereas the Riverside/Indigo property appears to be somewhat below the I-95.
Another factor, if you’re studying the 128 corridor, is the flight pathways needed at Hanscom, and (as you rightly point out) the hills and space needed for highway offramps and drainage. One of Newton’s assets — and drawbacks — is the roads that are state or federal control and the multiple ways that vehicle traffic and transit capacity hasn’t kept pace with population growth.
Height isn’t everything but helps.
I visited the Riverside site on Saturday afternoon. Every parking stall was filled. People park here for Red Sox games then commute into the game. Where will the hundreds of people park who use the facility to park each day?
This MBTA parking lot is used by many people traveling in and out of Boston day and evening. It is also used by Go-Bus riders. It is NOT an empty lot up for grabs by a developer who likes the location. What are they thinking?
Careful thought should be given to the needs of commuters and others who wish to use the MBTA from Riverside.
As anyone who went to the trouble of reviewing the presentation before decideing it was inadequate would know, this proposed project includes a garage (and other additional parking) to accommodate MBTA users, employees of the new businesses that locate there, residents and hotel guests.
Colleen, I have no reason to believe the normal workday parking situation has changed from this observation:
http://newtonstreets.blogspot.com/2012/03/1065-empty-parking-spaces-at-riverside.html?m=1
I was at the presentation for a little while and then had to leave. I seem to recall the height of the towers being 210 feet and that there would be lots of parking–enough to accomodate 3000 vehicles. (Which raises all kinds of questions about the increased volume of traffic on our already jammed local roads.) I left with the impression of a new, substantially-sized village being inserted between Auburndale and Lower Falls.
They said there will be 3,000 spaces, with 1,000 spaces taken up by existing parking, leaving 2,000 spaces for residential (about 650 or so units) and commercial parking. Although this development had been discussed as being “isolated”, it is very much sandwiched in between two great walkable and already traffic congested neighborhoods. It will cover about 1.4 mil square feet with two towers 14 and 18 stories and a long main street of five floor walk ups. They described how no one would need to leave the new neighborhood because everything anyone would need would be on site. The entertainment would potentially provide a destination for NLF and Aubundale but I don’t believe the parking accommodates these cars. I believe it is designed to encourage families from NLF and Auburndale to bike and walk there at night for the entertainment so there would not be additional parking needed for this traffic. Additional traffic on our already congested streets was brought up by many people.
Debbie: So basically you’re saying that you know more about parking demands, transit oriented development than the developer, his traffic consultants, the MBTA or the investors who will bankroll this project and that if they don’t listen to some anonymous person on this community blog then they all stand to lose millions of dollars.
Your statements are not connected to my comments. I am repeating facts and statements from the developers various presentations and grappling with how this vision for this transit oriented development will integrate into our community. Many in our community are grappling with these issues.
I was at the meeting and Debbie is just reporting what the developer proposed. If the developer’s estimates/projections for parking and traffic are wrong, the “costs” for this mistake will be outsourced to the surrounding neighborhoods and anyone who uses the Pike and 128. For this reason it’s worth making sure the T, local roads and highways can accommodate what will essentially be another village in Newton before it’s built. (Lower Falls has 450 housing units, this will have 650.)
Debbie, did the developer mention how the parking is to be allocated to the residences? Is it allocated with a certain ratio to the apartments or open to all? How about the hotel?
Market rated pricing ought to solve any problems that multi-use does not (e.g. Boston sporting events, which should be completely irrelevant to land use in Newton) and also help make the units more affordable for those who forego one or two cars. As an example of complementary uses, I would imagine that Newtonites visiting the site in the evenings would have an easy time finding a place to park, as that use is complementary to MBTA commuters.
Primarily, this ought to be considered a multi-modal transportation site. Relying on the terminus of a relatively long, slow transit line is not going to be sufficient. The ride downtown is probably close to an hour. Somehow, the developer is going to have to find a way to increase express service by bus or rail for Riverside and the Washington Street corridor. The MBTA is unlikely to do this on its own.
Everything Adam said except let’s not forget that the work presently being done on the green line tracks, which will allow for higher capacity trains, along with signal improvements and a new “smarter” fare collection system will improve speed and reliability. It still won’t be perfect, but it should be much better.
On the whole, this looks like a good addition to Newton’s housing needs. But, of course, it needs fine tuning.
Greg, the city should never just rely on the numbers presented to it by developers or anyone else seeking to do business in Newton. They will need to do their own study of the area of this project as in all projects. No decisions should be made before knowing if the entrance/exit to the highway will be moved, what the developer plans to do about increasing public transportation, knowing a reliable estimate of what the educational needs will be, etc. Painting a rosy picture isn’t enough.
Nathan, a 2012 photo isn’t a credible answer to the questions posed.
Adam comments, “Primarily, this ought to be considered a multi-modal transportation site.“ Definitely. Multi modal including cars as the developer is seeking a new entrance to the highway.
Liz makes a good point about this proposal being essentially a new village – larger in housing units than Upper Falls. It needs to treated as such.
John White states that newcomers ‘would enliven our many sleepy villages’. Did John check to see if residents of the sleepy villages want their sleepy villages changed for them?
Why no updates on this? A lot has happened since September.
Christine, thanks for asking.
The City decided to allow a 10 week visioning process at Riverside. The plan is for consultants to be interviewed and selected next week. The entire process is expected to be completed by the end of March.
Some, including me, are concerned that this short timeframe will hamstring the process: http://newton.wickedlocal.com/news/20181228/some-concerned-over-short-timeframe-of-riverside-visioning-process
This Monday ZAP and Finance will consider the developer’s offer to pay for the Riverside visioning:
#29-19 Funds to cover the cost of a vision plan for the Riverside MBTA property
HER HONOR THE MAYOR requesting authorization for the acceptance and expenditure of funds provided by the Riverside MBTA property developer to cover the cost of independent consultant support for a vision plan for the Riverside MBTA property. (http://www.newtonma.gov/civicax/filebank/documents/93526)
If you want to hear more about community concerns regarding Riverside, as well as regular updates, you can email the LFIA Riverside Committee at [email protected] are a group of Lower Falls neighbors who recognize that the size, scope, density, and impact of the development (as proposed) are major issues for Lower Falls and Auburndale.
One wonders what the city is thinking about the optic of accepting a developer’s check to pay for a visioning process that will try to imagine Riverside as a clean slate – starting with assuring the site will accommodate future MBTA services, meaningfully contribute to truly affordable housing in Newton, provide access to the beautiful green space nearby, and doing all this at a scale of the ‘right size’ for the village motif of Newton. The optics of having the developer pay and forcing the important visioning process into a narrow window of time, suggest already that the visioning may be a act of lip service. The final measure will be whether the vision created and subsequent zoning change voted on by the city council reflect the objectives lists above.
Mbta is not a business. Its driven by political and union needs. Does anyone seriously believe that high demand by an affluent town is going to persuade the mbta to allocate resouces away from underserved/minority communities and big businesses needs in Boston? Dream on…..
BTW – for those who are interested, doing a Google search for “Greg Reibman”, the first hit that turned up was https://www.nnchamber.com/staff/greg-reibman.
A few thought:
– The towers are obviously too big. The developers hope that the people opposed to the plan will be satisfied with knocking a couple of floors off of the towers.
– But what concerns me are the sizes of the rest of the development. I believe the rest of the development is 5 – 6 stories, enough for the space to feel like an urban canyon, not a village common.
– I really can’t believe the city is contemplating allowing the developers to pay for the visioning study. This seems like an obvious conflict of interest
Yikes! My secret is out.
Well, we all have to earn a living, so no judgement implied, but I would take your opinions with a rather large amount of salt. My guess would be that you don’t live in Lower Falls or Auburndale.
Vin,
In my opinion, there should be a large disclaimer under any topic started by greg stating that he is a lobbyist for big business AND a founder of this blog.
His blog, so he gets to set the ‘agenda’… full disclosure on each topic would be helpful.
@Bugek: Although this is not my blog (its a multi person endeavor) my chamber affiliation is clearly disclosed on the “about” page here and when you click on my name on every comment.
Other points: Technically I am not a “lobbyist.” The chamber is a 501(c)6 which allows us to advocate but not lobby. You probably will dismiss the difference but the IRS and state laws don’t. Just sayin’
Also, while most of the region’s largest employers are chamber members, the vast majority of our members are small, not big businesses. By far, our single largest member category are businesses with five or fewer employees.
Additionally, more than 100 of our 900 members are nonprofits (so more than 10 percent), including cultural organizations, colleges, social service agencies, youth and elder service providers, etc.
Finally, it does strike me as ironic when an anonymous participant calls me out for not being transparent.
Greg,
The casual reader is not going to click on the ‘about’ to research a posters affiliation on this website. Frequent readers however are well aware of your background.
Your priority is to bring jobs and commercial activity to Newton which is a great cause…
The following are secondary for your job description:
– schools overcrowding
– property tax overrides for residents
– increase in crime
… its all about the $$, this is your job and you do it well.
@Bugek: Why on earth would businesses not be concerned with crime or higher property taxes?(Businesses are taxed at a higher rate than residents so any override hits businesses harder.). And quality schools are one of the attributes that makes Newton a great place to do business. (For the record the Chamber endorsed the recent debt exclusion overrides that were dedicated to rebuilding the elementary schools because we recognize the value of a strong school system.)
And of course many business owners here are also residents.
So am I. Do you think I should disclose that I’m a resident each time I comment too?
With as many as 700 housing units, even if half the housing have kids (350-700 kids, 1/2 kids per family) where do all these kids attend school? which school has the capacity to absorb these many kids? The developer is trying to turn 14 villages into 15.
Greg,
Businesses have different priority than residents and can absorb the costs of any negative impacts of increased population. Few examples
– a business (including developers) do not care if schools of overcrowded. Especially if sales are good due to the increased population
– business don’t have to deal with crime at night. With increased sales, they can buy security shutters, security guards, camera. Again, as long as sales are good, they can absorb the costs of petty crime. Residents cannot
– Business can absorb the costs of increased property taxes (increase in population = more sales). Residents (and retired seniors) will not have significantly extra income if population increases
I definitely agree that Newton needs more large business to HQ here to address the long term debt issue. I just disagree that building several thousand units FIRST is the way to do it.
-I would focus first on making easy transportation to/from Boston a priority. The key driver for business is the proximity to Boston/Cambridge
– Giving Colleges in Newton the tools it needs to encourage students to start small business here
– Lobby tech/biotech companies to consider satellite offices here for employees who have kids and cant afford 3BR + private schools in Boston…. senior Google,Amazon employees can easily afford Newton
I’m not usually at a loss for words. But I don’t know how to even begin to respond to someone who is accusing Newton business owners or the chamber of not being concerned with crime, higher taxes or the quality of our schools.
Greg,
I did not say zero concern, I said $$ FIRST. The other issues are not even a close second.
I’ll tell you what, lets agree to disagree if you CREATE a new topic and you give real ideas on how Newton will deal and PAY for
– school overcrowding
– possible property tax overrides to support increased services
– increased traffic
– argue for/against the possibility of increased crime (burglaries, car breakins, etc)
-So far, all pro density development was argued that the MBTA will suddenly feel impelled to create new lines of service or increase frequency after being incompetent for several decades.
-They argue that most people moving in will be childless and carless. The new apartments on Avalon show 30% of residents have school aged children, so we can expect this trend to be true for all high density development
– You’ve argued that residents can live a car free life. I agree with the MBTA do something big, but until then its decades of more cars
I don’t know if your job does not allow you to even discuss or entertain the possibility of these negative aspects… lets have a honest topic discussion… I feel this has been ‘danced’ around for the past 2 years and waved off
…if your arguments are persuasive I may even change my mind 🙂 . I want business in Newton too, I just think dumping several thousand units onto residents and hoping for the best is not the way to do it..
@bugek: When you suggest that business owners don’t place a high priority on not being robbed or having access to a well educated workforce then there really isn’t much point for us to keep talking
It is not accusing the Newton-Needhaam Chamber of commerce. Here are some of the facts,
1. Trying to create a 15th village. Lower Falls has ~450 houses and this new development would build aprox 750 units. A total of 1.5M Sft is more than triple the size of current Riverside building that exists adjacent to the MBTA station.
2. Exploiting the Newton School System – Can you try building the same size/kind of project in Waltham. No, you would not build, because of the school system there.
3. The estimated taxes that the Newton City is going collect from this development will not even offset the costs the City has to incur to provide school services. Forget about the costs of all other services.
4. Are we going to put barricades or make Grove St as one-way? Even today the traffic during the school and office hours is terrible.
5. The city Fire Department does not have the capacity to deal with high rise buildings, at max it can currently deal with up to 5 stories high. Beyond that the City has to spend so much money to procure, house and maintain the new ladders. not only that the staff has to be recruited and trained, that adds even more costs to the city.
6. Affordable housing – it is just a false claim. What does it mean? you are going to sell a 2BR and 2 BK for $300K. No way? How much are you planning to sell the “affordable” unit?
With all due respect, we live in the *City* of Newton.
Greg,
As I’m stating for the 3rd time, money and sales is the first priority. When should we expect a topic post from you discussing how to address possible negative impacts? Fair enough if you dont want to discuss further with me but let others chime in….
I’d like to bring the discussion back to Riverside and the visioning process that’s about to begin. Ted’s comment that we need to be sure what happens at Riverside can accommodate current and future MBTA needs is on point. The MBTA is a transportation authority, not a housing or economic development authority. It’s critical that the MBTA and MassDOT plan in-depth for the region’s future transportation needs. I hope visioning will include these agencies. I know many are eager to see something happen at Riverside, but it can only be developed once. It’s worth taking the time to plan and do it right.
Jean Gottmann’s prediction that one day in the not too distant future, the cities between Boston, New York, and Washington DC will become one large Megalopolis, soon realized.
To those who are concerned about possible conflicts of interest, please note that the City Council acting as the Special Permit Granting Authority through its Land Use Committee, hires and supervises the outside consultant, and requires that the petitioner pay for it. Section 7 of the Article X of the City Council Rules (starts on page 30). The Planning Director, in consultation with the City Council, selects the consultant, who must satisfy certain qualifications criteria. The petitioner paying for the consultant’s services may appeal the selection, but only on the basis that the consultant has a conflict of interest or lacks the requisite qualifications.
Ted:
The community is grateful to the city for now agreeing with our request for visioning (and giving the community 2 seats on selection committee for the consultant) something we were told last April 2018 it was “too late” to do.
I think there is a difference between having a developer pay for services required to process their petition, versus paying for what will hopefully be an objective review of multiple options for the site – A Vision for Riverside.
This confusion on your part and that of the city about payment for a process unrelated to an petition filed, together with the very short time frame given to accomplish the task (10 weeks) adds to the fear within the community that the visioning will not in fact influence the decision-makers in the city to use the visoin to craft a new zone for the site, but just fig-leaf to say ‘we listened’ and then ahead to do the developers bidding.
As I said, this is fear speaking, hopefully it is not a reality. But optics are everything, and speak louder than bland reassurance. We will know more when we experience the process of choosing the visioning consultant, whether the community is also given a seat on a steering committee to usher the visioning process, what the vision is and finally whether it is reflected in the zoning ordinance filed by the city council. These are the tests of the validity of the process.
Thanks,
@Ted
Hmmm. How come the city paid for the Principle Group?
The Hello Washington Street “visioning” process, as far a I can tell, hasn’t amounted to anything, especially when one looks at the ne2 zoning regulations. So I say, forget the visioning. It’s a tactic to let the public blow off steam / feel like they had some input. But it’s a scam.
Marti,
My estimates of unused Riverside parking are credible. Yesterday after 9 am I counted 425 open spaces at Riverside, and I conservatively estimate that between the T lot, the nearly empty Indigo lot, and vastly underutilized parking at Riverside Center, there were likely more than 1,000 total unused parking spaces during a workday. I came back around 3:30 and counted 386 open spots in the MBTA lot and 169 open spots at Indigo. This parking vacancy is about the same as when I last counted in 2012.
Also for those who will bring up Red Sox parking in the public meeting tomorrow at Williams School: in 2019 there will be a grand total of 6 home red sox games that occur during weekdays during work hours. Red Sox games are not a reason to maintain or increase the parking glut at Riverside (as if that were the community’s obligation anyway).