The Newton City Council unanimously approved the Riverside Station project, 24-0, last night.
The years-in-the-making project will include 582 apartments (including 103 affordable units) along with 253,827 square feet of office space, 150 hotel rooms and 38,895 square feet of ground-floor commercial. The Riverside project would net the City of Newton $1.65 million annually in new tax revenue.
Wow! Unanimous vote for progress in Newton. I’m proud to live in a vibrant and progressive city that accepts much needed change. Can’t wait to see this beautiful new part of my hometown.
I hope to see, as part of this change, dedicated bike lanes to and from the development, as was originally conceived. Far too often, safe passage for those on bicycles disappears from the final plans of such projects. If we want to encourage people to bike or walk instead of drive, we need safe infrastructure.
I strongly agree with Bob – Riverside Station is such a foreboding and inaccessible corner of the city for cyclists and pedestrians, between the two interstate highways and their acres of high-speed ramps, the Commuter Rail and Green Line tracks, and the golf courses.
In addition to bike lanes on Grove Street, I especially hope that the Two Bridges Trail and the path into Lower Falls will be finished/improved –
https://newtonconservators.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/17_12_two_bridges-1.pdf
…as well as the path behind Riverside along the river, the Lasell boathouse bridge, and the fenced-off tunnel under the train tracks at the south end of Charles Street.
I presume that all of these improvements were required for approval of the project?
The artist’s rendering seems to depict a more car-centric environment than say, Northland, which chose to underground the cars. I don’t understand why any new development would want to waste a single square foot of space on automotive asphalt in the 2020s.
This project is a significant game changer for Newton and abutting communities. Although there will be welcome positive outcomes for new arrivals to the area. I hope that government leaders are fully prepared to handle many of the unforeseen consequences both long and short term which will emerge over time. Dense housing developments are quite different from single dwelling communities. Impacts include police force needs, school needs, social service needs, healthcare changes in taxation policy and many more.
Only time will tell if Newton is up for the task.
Have no fear @Bob and @Michael. Bike accommodations are written into the Council Order including $3 million towards the Riverside Greenway which includes design of the Two Bridges and building the other connecting trails. This will be a game changer for transportation and recreation in the area.
Map is here: https://riversidegreenwayma.wildapricot.org/resources/Documents/190911%20Riverside%20Greenway%20Network%20Vision%5B2%5D.pdf
More information on the whole project is here:
https://riversidegreenwayma.wildapricot.org/
Very good progress and heartening to see such a consensus on the City Council. Just wondering (not as criticism, but for accuracy’s sake), when you say that it will net the city $1.65 million in annual tax revenues, it is really a net figure (i.e., after additional expenses for schooling more kids and other costs mentioned by Colleen), or a gross figure?
Also, does anyone know what the ripple effect revenue will be? More Newton residents should yield more folks eating at our restaurants, paying excise tax here, and to some small extent buying pot here. I’m certainly not saying it offsets the cost of educating students, but it should amount for something.
It is really heartening to see the council come together to find consensus for a project of this scale, that has significant environmental, economic, and affordability components. Hopefully a model for the future.
Paul, in his NN Chamber newsletter (highly recommended), Greg Reibman wrote this morning:
Obviously the forecast of costs incurred by the city is highly subjective, but a back-of-the-envelope calculation of total tax revenue based on the comparables in the strip along 128 in Needham (probably less desirable since it’s not served by transit) would seem to confirm total Riverside revenue that would be significantly higher than $1.65 million.
Riverside residential apartments = 582 units of which 17% affordable; Charles River Landing in Needham has 350 units (25% affordable) which are assessed at $90 million, implying that the Riverside apartments (582 units of which 17% affordable) would probably come in at an assessment of at least $150 million * Newton’s residential tax rate of $10.44/thousand = $1.56 million tax revenue.
On the commercial side,
– 253,827 of office space in Riverside: TripAdvisor HQ in Needham is 290k sq. ft. and is assessed at $26m = $520k in Newton taxes
– 150 hotel rooms at Riverside: Needham’s Homewood Suites has 134 rooms and is assessed at $11m = $220k in Newton taxes
– Who knows how 38,895 square feet of separate ground-floor commercial units in Riverside would be taxed, but Staples/Petco in Needham is about the same total square footage (39,960) and is assessed at $10.1mil = $200k in Newton taxes
…so I get gross tax revenue for the whole project of at least $2.5 million.
Does anyone know the other tax estimates that have been floated around? I did the math in one pass so it could very easily be off.
Alicia, that’s great news! Improved bike and pedestrian access from Lower Falls and Riverside to Waltham and the Paul Dudley White Path into Boston would be a dream come true for a lot of people.
Hopefully this will also spawn cycling improvements in Wellesley and Weston, who could be significant beneficiaries of this if they play their cards right.
Over here in Needham I’d even be tempted to use the Riverside Greenway to get into the city instead of having to cycle across the deathtrap of Exit 19/Highland Ave. to get over to Beacon Street (thank you very much Needham Select Board for your complete uselessness on this issue and obstinate refusal to connect to the Upper Falls Greenway, even as it makes more and more sense).
I’d love to learn more about the proposal (implied on the map) for pedestrian and bicycle access through the Leo J. Martin Golf Course – public pathways should be a requirement of all golf courses (not just DCR-owned ones).
Congratulations to all – particularly the neighborhood association who worked tirelessly with the Developer and the City Council to ensure this development will work for all!!
I don’t know if Riverside will actually end up looking like the rendering, but I very much like the aesthetic. Such an improvement over the vast parking lot that is there now. Can anyone say if they have retained the same number of parking spaces for commuters who use the Green Line? Also is it Riverside or Northside or both that limits the provided parking to one space per unit?
Riverside has always made so much more sense to me than Northland in regards to the concept of transit oriented development. I have had serious concerns about adding so more potential Green Line ridership, especially with the need to bus people to Newton Highland station. Of course with the onset of Covid, that impact is really unknowable going forward.
But I think the city should put a pause on making zoning decisions based on creating any more transit oriented development until we understand that impact
@Claire: Parking questions:
1. Yes, same number of commuter parking spots. That was a requirement of the MBTA
2. Yes, one parking spot per unit of housing, and like Northland and Austin St. and Trio, the parking rent is separate from the housing rent; car-share and bike-share are available on-site; transit passes are available at a discount and more–owning a car should be less attractive here for most who will rent here.
We all benefit from a more robust MBTA, and should be concerned that it is currently losing revenue and not getting extra outside funds to retain service. I encourage everyone to lobby their representatives to save the MBTA’s operating & service lines as well as its capital budget.
Those of who have noted my many prior comments opposing the Northland project, may be surprised that I am now offering congratulations to the Riverside project (congrats everyone!). Why?
Because everyone agreed. The neighborhood, the developer, the ward 4 councilors, all rolled up their sleeves and hammered out a deal. Great, right? And then this happened…
Just before the unanimous vote Mon night, Councilor Downs (with Councilor Bowman cheerleading) introduced an amendment that would add a few more trees to the project to make it a bit more scenic. The debate starts at the 2:14 mark and goes for over 45 mins.
https://vimeo.com/469961662
45 mins of the other councilors countering that a hard fought deal has already been agreed to. 45 mins of a few councilors sticking to their guns that these trees were more important than people of Lower Falls, who was fine with the deal as is.
And herein lies the hardest pill to swallow when it came to Northland… I can understand why the broader Newton and region was in favor of Northland. But those of us who live closest have valid concerns, fears and anxiety. Yet our Ward 5 councilors felt that their own areas of interest – biking, green space, architecture – were more important than ours. This is not to say that all Upper Falls residents opposed Northland but nearly 50% did and deserved representation. Yet not a single meeting about Northland was held up for 45 mins by a Councilor in support of Upper Falls. There was even the Councilor who “Karen’ed” out someone at Whole Foods for legally collecting signatures opposing Northland (no apology ever issued).
Nope, we were the casualty of progress. If only we were trees and a bike lane, instead of people. Perhaps we would have actually been represented by our elected representatives. We deserved at least the same 45 mins some unplanted trees received.