The Boston Herald

September 14, 2001 Friday


REAL ESTATE; Cambridge's Final Frontier; North Point project builds momentum; North Point project is building momentum; North Point: Cambridge's Final Frontier

By PAUL RESTUCCIA

BODY:
It may look gritty and grimy today but a 51-acre swath of industrial warehouses and unused railroad tracks is set to be transformed into Cambridge's newest residential neighborhood with the possibility of housing 6,000 to 10,000 new residents, office space and retail shops and a new Lechmere T station all fronting on a connected series of parks and greenways.

The North Point area, located north of the McGrath-O'Brien Highway behind the Green Line viaduct to Lechmere station, has long accommodated industrial, commercial and some retail uses. There is a Bernie & Phyl's furniture store on the site, as well as several warehouse-like buildings that house a packaging plant, a flower distributor, and an Archer Daniel's Midland corn sweetener facility. The former Maple Leaf Franks building adjacent to the Gilmore Bridge, which will be preserved, was renovated into 60,000 square feet of office space in the mid-1980s and houses tenants like Cambridge MRI and Sumner Schein Architects and Engineers.

But the majority of the parcel is vacant land, on which sit unused railroad spurs that extend a quarter mile back adjacent to the MBTA's commuter rail service facility in Boston. Forty-five acres are owned by New Hampshire-based railroad and airline operator Guilford Transportation Industries and a little over six acres are owned by Boston-based Cambridge Company. The Cambridge Company has chosen national residential developer Charles E. Smith Co. to co-develop its parcel, which runs along the front of the site from the Gilmore Bridge to North Point's main entrance on East Street across from the present Lechmere Green Line site.

"I think it's very exciting as it represents the last major undeveloped tract of industrial land in the city," says Cambridge Mayor Anthony Galluccio. "The city council has identified building housing as its top priority. It will require a visionary and thoughtful plan to implement both a self-sustaining and sustainable development that integrates into the rest of East Cambridge."

The Cambridge Company and Charles E. Smith are ready to unveil this fall a proposed market-rate rental complex with somewhere between 700-750 units in a 220-foot tower and several mid-sized buildings, a greenway buffer along the McGrath-O'Brien highway and a total of 35 percent of their site reserved for open space, according to Jeffrey Millman, an architect and former principal of the Cambridge Company who has been representing the development.

"Our goal all along has been to build housing here," Millman says. "This area is crying out for market-rate housing. It's also a chance for us to become long-term owners and contributors to the neighborhood."

But before any shovels are turned, rezoning of the area must be approved. The rezoning of North Point is part of a comprehensive effort to rezone the entire city begun after the Cambridge City Council imposed an 18-month moratorium on development in East Cambridge in February of last year, which ended in July. And while rezoning was approved for much of the city earlier this year, action on East Cambridge was deferred, pending the completion of a $ 500,000 year-long planning study for the area, conducted by planners Goody, Clancy & Associates and a committee of 19 Cambridge citizens, planners, city officials and development interests called the Eastern Cambridge Planning Study (ECaPS). The Cambridge City Council is set to debate the ECaPS recommendations and finalize zoning for East Cambridge next month.

The ECaPS study, endorsed by the Cambridge Planning Board, has recommended a split of 65 percent housing and 35 percent commercial in the North Point area. Galluccio also supports the 65-35 split, with the caveat that some flexibility be allowed in the zoning that would allow bonuses for creating more three-bedroom units that could accommodate families and a commitment to build moderate-income housing in addition to the 15 percent affordable units now required by city ordinance.

Millman, a member of the ECaPS committee, says that the Cambridge Company-Charles E. Smith development is ready to start the permitting process as soon as zoning is approved. He adds that developers will need to build to maximum allowable density in order to absorb the cost of some 85 units of affordable housing.

City officials say that this North Point development, which is far smaller and less complex than the Guilford site, should have easier sledding, as it will be, except for some tenant-related retail, exclusively residential, in line with neighborhood wishes. At issue will be how much commercial development will be allowed in the rest of the area, all of that to be built by Guilford and Spaulding & Slye Colliers, as well as how much total density will be allowed.

"The reality is if you want to create a neighborhood, the development recommendations of the ECaPS committee is what is needed to create an economically feasible project with amenities like open space and improved transit that is dense enough to be a lively place and support the retail and also creates enough value and return to its developers," says David Dixon, a principal at Goody, Clancy and Associates.

If area zoning is enacted as recommended, Guilford would be allowed to build some 3 million square feet of residential development, somewhere between 2,500 and upward to 3,000 units with zoning bonuses, of which 15 percent would be affordable under the current city ordinance. Guilford would also be allowed to build some 2 million square feet of commercial space, a combination of office, research & development labs and up to 100,000 square feet of retail. The total square footage allowed would be based on a complicated formula of allowable density based on bonuses for creation of certain housing types, transit improvements and ways to reduce the expected vehicular traffic in and out of the site.

"We want to build a great neighborhood here," says Spaulding & Slye Colliers principal David Vickery, who agrees with ECaPS recommendations, stressing that plans are in the early stages. "We want people who come to live here to stay on long-term, by providing housing that can accommodate their space needs over time, as they marry and raise families." He adds that the developers are committed to improving mass transit access to both the Green Line and the nearby Orange Line Community College station close to the rear of the site. And as Spaulding is now doing at Fan Pier, Vickery says that the plan will be to hire different architects for each building, through limited competitions, to make the development a more visually appealing destination.

The proposed zoning would allow three taller towers on the entire site, ranging from 20-22 stories, two on Guilford's property and one on the Cambridge Company site that would have to be spaced 500 feet apart. In between would be commercial buildings of no more than 150 feet and mid-sized residential blocks of around five to eight stories that would have the density of the South End and Back Bay.

"I'd like to see townhouses for working-class families there," says Cambridge City Council Member and State Rep. Timothy Toomey. "I don't want people put in big boxes without any yards. And I would go as far as to suggest 30 percent be set aside for affordable housing, double the required amount. On such a large piece of land, the developers should do more than is required." Toomey agrees that some height should be allowed to create more open space. The zoning recommendations call for putting taller buildings toward the rear of the site along MBTA property and beside the Gilmore Bridge.

"The idea of the rezoning is to keep the higher heights away from the neighborhood scales of East Cambridge," says Beth Rubenstein, Cambridge's assistant city manager for community development. "We don't want a wall of towers there."

As part of the development, the Lechmere Green Line terminus would be relocated from its present location at the corner of Cambridge Street and the O'Brien Highway across the street into North Point.

One area of concern in moving the station will be maintaining easy and safe access for pedestrians. The heavily traveled O'Brien Highway presents a six lane barrier of traffic. Proponents of the move cite the potential of a relocated station to spur the extension of the Green Line to Union Square in Somerville and eventually to Medford.

But the proposed station move, along with the proposed 65-35 split, is encountering opposition from a coalition of 23 neighborhood groups known as the Association of Cambridge Neighborhoods (ACN).

"The Lechmere station shouldn't be allowed to move until officials can demonstrate funding is there to extend the Green Line," says Stash Horowitz, ACN vice president. "And if the city allows too much density up front in exchange for transit promises that may not be kept, it will be very hard to take back those bonuses 10-20 years down the line."

ACN has called for an 80-20 residential-commercial split with reductions in floor-to-area ratios (FAR) that would, at full buildout, allow a total of 3 million square feet of new buildings with 1,100 to 2,500 new parking spaces and up to 7,500 new residents and office workers, far lower densities than recommended by the ECaPS study and the Cambridge Planning Board. ACN would also like to see land set aside on the Guilford parcel for civic uses - community centers for youth and elderly and a neighborhood clinic - and is pushing for ways to better connect the North Poit area to the rest of East Cambridge.

"Unless you find a safer way to get pedestrians across the O'Brien Highway, North Point won't be integrated into the rest of Cambridge," says ACN president John Moot. "It's like having a thruway through the middle of the site."

But city officials and developers say while a highway underpass or overpass would not be economically feasible, alternatives are being floated for a possible pedestrian connection over the highway either through a new station headhouse on the south side of the highway or a pedestrian overpass through proposed development on the present Lechmere station site, which would become available for mixed-use development, possibly including a small hotel.

But if the parties disagree on density and T relocation, there is general agreement that North Point will primarily become a residential neighborhood with significant open space - a large public park of and a greenway that extends through the entire site.

Plans call for at least a two-acre public park along First Street, which would be extended across the highway into North Point, with a new T station across the street.

"We want a significant park close enough to the front of the planned development so that the use of it can be shared with all of Cambridge," says Stuart Dash, the city's director of community planning.

Sasaki Associates, which is doing the master plan for the Guilford site, envisions an infrastructure of street, public parks and greenways that will accommodate residential and commercial buildings expected to be built over the next 10-20 years.

"We're looking to create a variety of different housing types, with many doorways that front onto streets," says Sasaki principal David Hirzel. "What you don't want is just housing for yuppies who want to come home and go up into an apartment tower and not get involved in what's going on at street level."

In addition to the large public park on the Guilford site are plans for a sequence of connected open spaces through the site, smaller parks and a greenway that will accommodate a project bike and pedestrian path that will eventually extend underneath the Gilmore Bridge and connect with proposed green space behind the Museum Towers residential complex and a building that houses E.F. Education. The eventual plan is to link all of North Point with a greenway and bike path from the Guilford site all the way up to the proposed MDC park on the Charles River across from dam near the Museum of Science.

Sasaki is also arguing on the developers behalf for structured parking on 2-4 levels along the entire rear of the site, which extends to the Somerville and Boston borders to act as a noise barrier from the T's train facility. The proposed garage that would contain several thousand spaces would be masked in fronted by residential and commercial buildings.

But still to be determined is whether the proposed structured parking would count against the total amount of development allowed on the Guilford site. Activists are pushing for the parking penalty, while Hirzel counters that the garage could also accommodate a pedestrian passageway up and over to the Gilmore Bridge that would create reasonable access to the Orange Line, offering another transit option that will discourage driving trips into and out of the development.

Other design guidelines that came out of the ECaPS study urge breaking up building masses with setbacks and creating create townhouse entryways on the proposed streets to provide more of a neighborhood feel. And up to 100,000 square feet of retail space will be on the ground floors of new buildings, providing neighborhood services and preventing empty building lobbies from facing the street.

And while parties disagree on density and how space is apportioned, the goals of all sides are to create a vibrant place.

"This is the biggest opportunity in 50 years to create a new neighborhood for Cambridge," says ACN's Stash Horowitz. "We have to do it right because it's the only chance for the city to get the development it needs."

If North Point offers a major opportunity to provide sorely needed housing of al types and allow high-tech and biotech companies to expand in the future, the social and economic benefits will come with a price - increased vehicular traffic an area that is already clogged during rush hours. But planners are optimistic that new traffic from the development of North Point can be managed and that transforming an underutilized area into a vital new neighborhood is important to the future of Cambridge, where long-time working families are being forced out by escalating housing prices and conversions of moderate-priced housing into high-end condominiums.

"If done right, North Point could become a really lively place where a pretty diverse group of people can live, go to parks, maybe even study," Dixon says. "You'll have a range of ages and family income, housing that's attractive to downtown and East Cambridge workers but also to local families. It has the potential to become a good role model for a diverse urban district for the rest of the country. The ingredients are all there for North Point to become a terrific place."

Caption: MAPPING THE FUTURE: Cambridge Mayor Anthony Galluccio says North Point, above, "represents the last major undeveloped tract of industrial land in the city." - COURTESY CITY OF CAMBRIDGE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT