Many Newton residents consider the Boston Sports Club of Newton, located at 135 Wells Avenue, an essential part of everyday life. Like many others, I go there several times a week for exercise and recreation. Some of us play tennis or swim; use the machines and free weights; attend exercise and yoga classes. Some people are undergoing rehab for various injuries. All ages are represented, from nine year-olds taking tennis lessons to octogenarians taking an exercise class in the pool. Staff members, from tennis pros to personal trainers, are friendly and skilled. I must also mention the excellent whirlpool to soothe the muscles and relax the mind.
The club’s continued existence remains in peril, however, because it has been targeted in recent years for redevelopment. The trouble started when the residential megadeveloper Cabot, Cabot & Forbes purchased the property in June 2014 for a reported $16.4 million, as reported in the website BLDP. C,C & F dreamed big: it submitted plans to demolish the club and construct a 334-unit mixed-income development on the site.
Many of us shuddered at the thought, and not only because the plan jeopardized our home away from home. Wells Avenue already faces daunting traffic challenges during morning and afternoon rush hour. It is a loop route with but one entrance/exit. Its access road, Nahanton Street, slows to a crawl twice a day, with long lines of cars stretching from the Winchester Street and Wells Avenue lights. Building another access road to Wells Avenue would be nearly impossible, with wetlands and the Charles River hedging it. Finally, placing residential property on the site required C, C & F to petition local and state authorities to waive various zoning rules and deed restrictions.
The challenges notwithstanding, C, C & F pressed ahead, elaborating monumental plans and presenting them before various Newton City Council committees. It also offered to pay for road improvements on Nahanton Street and to offer limited shuttle bus service to the Newton Highlands T stop. The developer portrayed future residents of the 334 units as Millennials uninterested in owning cars! By that calculus, their automobiles would equal in number the seventy or so cars occupying the BSC Newton lot at prime time- a zero sum game.
This claim rang hollow. Neither city councilors nor residents believed that those living in a remote location like 135 Wells Avenue could make do with shuttle buses and Uber. The nearest supermarkets and shopping areas are miles away; many young professionals commute to workplaces all over eastern Massachusetts, and the D-line portal could hardly meet the need.
Even so, the City Council seemed willing to approve the development if only C, C & F scaled it back to, say, 250 units. So certain were the councilors that the developer would agree that they were shocked when its legion of briefcase-toting lawyers rejected the plan and walked out of the City Council meeting. Apparently, the project required at least 334 units, in the developer’s calculations, to provide a sufficient profit margin.
Legal battles ensued for several years until C,C & F threw in the towel and sold the property in late 2017 to G&Z Real Estate Investment LLC for $15 million. Throughout this time BSC Newton has remained in business, and its lease runs through 2023. It could be evicted, however, at any time with six-months’ notice. In this atmosphere of uncertainty, club management seems hesitant to make needed renovations to get the club up to speed.
Undaunted, hundreds of us still visit BSC Newton almost every day to pump iron, play tennis, log minutes on the ellipticals, and swim laps. We also run into friends there, and in my case, former students and tennis team members. Newton should treasure this community resource and help to secure its continued existence.
The reason Cabot, Cabot and Forbes proposal never came to fruition was because they didn’t put forward a responsible plan that would benefit the city as much as the developers. Their plan should have designated 30% of the units as affordable and included funds to mitigate the impact on local schools. But CC&F tried to buy their way out of a deed restriction on the cheap, by offering just a modest proposal for traffic mitigation. The City Council did the right thing fighting the waiver of the deed restriction.
However, the lack of negotiating skills within our city government is a real problem for Newton. We just don’t have the expertise to properly extract the most public benefit from large scale developers. The City should have offered a comprehensive counter-proposal for the development of the BSC site on Wells Ave. Maybe CC&F would have increased their proposal, maybe they would not have. But the Mayor and City Council should have explored that possibility much further than they did.
I would suggest preemptively doubling back now and entering discussions with the new owners of the property. They paid $15M to acquire that building, which is much more than the existing building with its BSC lease is actually worth. The owners have also had a couple of years to look at new ways to push back on the deed restriction. They clearly have something in mind. The City had best be proactive, before we get whacked with a real surprise.
Sorry for the extra snark on a Friday afternoon, but am I the only one who sees the irony of people stuck in traffic going somewhere so they can get on a treadmill?
From my reading of this post, the development still requires a deed waiver. IMO, that’s not a good precedent to set. A deed has to mean the same thing to large developers as it does to the rest of us.
@Bob: I’m a Wells BSC member too. It’s inexpensive and rumor has it that they clean the place a couple times a year, whether it needs it or not. But your facts — and Mike’s — about the Cabot Cabot & Forbes project don’ t exactly sync with my memory. For starters, had that project moved forward, CC&F had purchased a parcel less than a mile away where it planned on building a new BSC (alas without tennis). And Mike, it wasn’t that the city did a bad job negotiating a better deal there were no negotiations.
CC&F btw, no longer owns the parcel.
True, the club has its shortcomings, but so does Welles Avenue for residential development. It would need another access road for safety’s sake, some sort of mass transit, and a much improved access road in Nahanton Street. Business uses for Welles Avenue make more sense to me, especially with the new exit on 95 nearby.
Sadly, note the many half-filled buildings on Welles Avenue. Who will occupy that just-completed mammoth new structure near the entrance? I imagined that the developers had a customer in line when building it.
Another point: Needham has lots of recently built residential housing about a mile a way on Second and Fourth Streets. For some time those buildings have been advertising for more tenants. Is the market for such apartments glutted? Are the units overpriced?
Lord knows, Newton-Needham needs affordable housing for seniors and those of modest means. The devil lies in the details (and the location), of course.
@Greg– Exactly my point. There were no negotiations, but there should have been. City leaders should have aggressively pursued a more beneficial outcome. They should double back and do that now with the new owners.
In my opinion, these new owners did not buy that property to keep it a fitness club. The dollars don’t make sense. They’ve also had two years to contemplate a different legal strategy that might circumvent the deed restriction. The City should recognize what’s going on here and seize the initiative.
What an obnoxious comment, Adam. Gyms serve more purpose than that.
@Bob Jampol-
The Stop and Shop on Needham St is 2.4 miles from the Boston Sports Club on Wells Ave as are various other shops up and down Needham St.
When the Northland Development
which will be further up Needham St, hence even closer to the Boston Sports Club and Wells Ave is built, Needham St will have more shops, restaurants and housing. The JCC is within walking
distance of the BSC, and the Newton YMCA is an under rated resource for all or most of the activities you mentioned. There have been many uncomfortable, inconvenient changes on the south side of the city over the 40 years I have lived very close to Wells Ave. The Kendrick St exit off of Rt 128 makes Wells Ave an easily accessible destination, so i think it’s only a matter of time before housing is built there and it may be as good a location as any. I can empathize with you and feel your pain however. My brother in law from Manhattan has loved going to the BSC on Wells Ave for years when he has visited,
and I know that he would really miss it if it isn’t wasnt there. I play ball hockey at the Valero center next door to the BSC,
and it may only be a matter of time before that place is toast as well. These
habitual places that we go to become a part of the fabric of our lives and it is disruptive and unsettling when they aren’t there anymore.
Sorry that went over your head, MMQC.
I remember back in 2015 when an 82-year-old female driver was pulling into a handicapped parking space with her husband and drove through the wall.
Fortunately the wall was made of stucco so neither was injured.
“In this atmosphere of uncertainty, club management seems hesitant to make needed renovations to get the club up to speed.”
I just don’t understand this sentence. It is not the physical building in need of repair, but the fitness equipment that is in desperate need of updating. I think I have been going there for over 5 years and those treadmills were old then yet still haven’t been replaced. And 1 of 4 Arc Trainers has been out of service for nearly 2 months. And it seems rare for the TV at the machine to be actually be fully functional.
I know it isn’t a fancy club like Equinox or Lifetime but it still seems like given the amount of money a monthly membership is they could maintain their equipment better. And if they lose their lease they can just move the equipment to their new location. At one point there was a rumor they would be moving to the old Coca Cola plant. The uncertainties with respect to development should not have any bearing on BSC keeping the equipment up to date.
I was a member there for a few years, starting when it was Wellbridge and then it was unfortunately purchased by BSC. I played tennis 2 nights a week. I started getting phone calls at my office, and since the caller Id was blocked I didn’t pick up. One day I picked up, and the person on the other side claimed to be from BSC and wanted my credit card. I refused and eventually found out that my credit card had expired ( for incidentals, as I paid my membership by check) and they had turned me over to a collection agency. Even though I was signing in 2 nights a week, the underpaid staff there couldn’t tell me. The place was also becoming a pit since purchased by BSC. So I switched to Mount Auburn Club. Better run, nicer courts. But soon, the 2008 recession took its toll and the talk was they were going to eliminate the 3 indoor courts to create more treadmill and group excersize space. Tennis on a per square foot basis is expensive. But apparently that didn’t work out ( thankfully) so they improved the courts, and raised prices. I guess my point is, gym real estate, especially for indoor tennis, is a tough racket ( pun intended) and you get what you pay for. Getting turned over to a collection agency while still being an active member was the last straw for me. The mold in the showers didn’t help either.