--------- z if you want to start recording great okay good evening everyone and thank you for joining us for a design subcommittee meeting of the Boston Civic Design Commission today's date is
Tuesday April 15th and this is session B of the BCDC design subcommittee the planning department continues hosting public meetings in a virtual setting for the health safety and accessibility of Boston residents i am Seth Ryman deputy director of design review at the City of
Boston Planning Department before we proceed with the agenda the open meeting law requires that I notify the public that this meeting is being recorded uh commission staff are recording this meeting please turn off your camera and microphone if you do not wish to be recorded for the record commissioners
present include Commissioner Gilly Smith Commissioner Kim Commissioner Love Commissioner Lubenau and Commissioner Ron and we expect to be joined by Commissioner Manf Freddy at about 6:00 p.m tonight's agenda will include presentations for the proposed project at one Joselyn Place in the Longwood
Medical Area and 181 West First Street in South Boston tonight's meetings tonight's meeting will follow the typical BCDC design subcommittee format beginning with a brief presentation from the proponent comments from BCDC
commissioners and public testimony so starting with one Joselyn Place a proposed project at this location contemplates the development of 495,000 square ft of hospital use and 250 garage parking spaces in a single
building on an approximately 1acre site in accordance with the approved 10-year institutional master plan for BIDMC and DFCI this will be the third presentation of the ADB application for this proposed project to the design subcommittee
following an introduction at the December 3rd monthly meeting and subsequent subcommittees on January f 21st and March 18th the commission previously reviewed and approved IMPPS for the Beth Israel Deaconist Medical Center and Dana Farber Cancer Institute
which set forth the regulatory context for this proposed project this design subcommittee will focus on a proposed reconfiguration of Joslyn Park and the surrounding rightaway it is expected that a future design subcommittee meeting will focus on updates to the proposed pedestrian bridges and
architectural expression of the building itself it is my understanding that Commissioner uh Kim has recused herself from deliberation are there any other commissioners present who attend to recuse okay um and a little more context on the
review uh for this evening um tonight the commission will be reviewing a conceptual framework approach to a potential reconfiguration of Jocelyn Park and its immediate environs as part of the article 80B proposed project
um as part of the IMPPS it was recommended by the commission and encoded into these IMPPS by the planning department that a building facetof face reconsideration of Joselyn Park the surrounding right ofways and frontages of privately owned parcels be part of
the improvements associated with the proposed one Joselyn Place project as a condition of the planning department's approval of the IMP and the one Joslyn Place project the proponent has committed funding and resources towards this effort the planning department staff has convened the project proponent
and representatives from the staff of the Boston Parks and Recreation Department Boston Transportation Department and the Public Improvement Commission to provide input on this effort the planning department's priorities in the design explorations for these spaces
include increasing the quality and quantity of park space expanding programming opportunities within the open space prioritizing pedestrian connectivity accessibility and safety as well as bringing a better balance between open space and vehicular
circulation needs because the rights of way are owned by the city of Boston any changes to them will be subject to the review and approval of the city of Boston Transportation Department and the City of Boston Public Improvement Commission because Joslyn Park itself is owned by
the City of Boston Parks and Recreation Department any changes to the park will be the result of a separate design and re review process led by parks and subject to approval by parks as well as the Boston Parks Commission as the
review and recommendation of BCDC is advisory to the planning department planning department staff will advance the feedback and recommendations provided by BCDC in our ongoing coordination efforts with the proponent and other city departments work thus far
has focused on the feasibility of the changes to circulation and fundamental design constraints such as grading emergency vehicle access and the city's requirements for rights of way the final programming and design of the park will be the result of a separate public process run by Boston parks as such the
goal of the design exercises to create a flexible framework for the future design of the park any specific designs generated by the proponent and reviewed by BCDC are illustrative in nature and suggestive of potential design strategies for the site as such the
planning department is seeking your feedback on the relative merits of the overall approach put forth by the proponent and other considerations for the future design of the space while feedback on specific design elements is welcome please note that the actual design will be generated by the separate
parks department process to engage the community which is anticipated to begin sometime after the article ADB approval for the proposed project also note that the strategy presented tonight involves a reconfiguration of the boundaries of both public rights of ways and arcspace
and thus subject to article 97 authority which means that any changes will need to be uh to the boundaries of the park will need to be approved by the state legislature consistent with a recommendation of the BCDC to consider a building facetof face improvement to the
space the planning departments believe there is merit in exploring solutions that adjust park and right-of-way boundaries however the decision on whether or not to pursue adjusting those boundaries will be decided uh by other city of Boston departments and
commissions and ultimately the state legislature before beginning uh before the proponent begins the presentation I would like to see if there are any questions from commissioners and any questions from the public will be addressed during the public testimony portion of the evening
okay seeing no questions from the commissioners and after the longest preamble I think I've given to a project so far I would like to turn it over to the proponents to get to the good stuff um a reminder uh that uh you will have uh
presentations are limited to 15 minutes and we will give you a halftime and one minute warning and with that I invite the proponent to uh share their screen and begin presenting whenever ready thank you very much Seth good evening everyone uh again my name is Michael
Hinchcliffe uh principal at Payet here in Boston i'm joined by my fellow principal uh Kevin Sullivan as well as Chris Donahghue uh from Michael Van Balkenberg uh Landscape Architects who will be sharing the majority of uh the information tonight uh so thank you uh
Seth for uh that incredibly uh detailed introduction uh as you as you said we will be focusing tonight on Jaws Park uh for uh immediate context uh uh this will our presentation will focus uh as Seth said on uh the park itself uh and that
building facetof face approach uh we will return uh again hopefully very soon uh to to give you an update on the hospital connectors and the overall building design uh as Seth said uh we we talked a lot about uh Josen Park uh through the IMP
process and the many times that we met with you uh dur committee and subcommittee for the IMP uh and then again the summary of when we've met uh for the specific context of the park what we wanted to do is say is say that through all of those meetings uh with
you uh we heard quite a number of times uh that we needed to think comprehensively uh about the urban realm from building face to building face uh and the true uh pedestrian experience uh and vehicular experience uh in the whole district as it impacts the future cancer
hospital the Rosenberg building which is the home of the emergency department uh for Beth Israel Decast Medical Center as well as this very valuable public asset of Joselyn park at its heart uh we uh we've taken those to into consideration and as Seth said the opportunity uh to
re-evaluate circulation uh and the park boundaries uh was one that we welcomed with open arms uh and Chris has some very interesting things to share with you in terms of the development of Joslyn Park uh as a reminder of the scope uh here we are uh at uh in
Longwood Medical and Academic Area to refresh your memory the future cancer hospital uh is located between Brooklyn Avenue Pilgrim Road uh just to the south of Longwood Avenue today we'll be talking about Josland Park uh which is currently two one-way couplets of Jaws
Place uh which heads west and Deaconist Road uh which heads east uh at the institutional master plan uh we really talked about the need to evaluate as I said earlier building face to building face so when we look at the front facade
of the cancer hospital on the right all the way to the existing front facade of uh an entry to the emergency room Rosenberg uh how much leeway do we have there to think more comprehensively about the parklands uh with this overhead view uh and Chris uh let me
know when you'd like to uh take over we see that the existing park today is u is similar to parks that you find uh in the south end or other older areas of the cities uh that is really a very linear park uh with static boundaries and edges uh that uh has many opportunities uh
when viewed from its approaches uh for a more dynamic envir environment so Chris let me hand it over to you uh to talk about some of the design principles uh that underly uh the studies that we're presenting today sure thanks Michael and thank you all for um being here tonight
uh as you all know um you've encouraged us to look at the park more comprehensively and and especially how it engages with the larger public realm it is as Michael said a very linear narrow site and and the way that it's framed by four streets um makes it a bit
disconnected from the larger you know urban fabric and so the opportunity to color outside the lines a little bit has been quite liberating um and a lot of fun for our team to think about how this park really could engage the neighborhood at a much larger scale have a larger impact um so we've gone through
this study um with some principles in mind principles that have formed out of conversations with you all with the planning department PIC parks etc um these are are you know sort of high level but have have been the underpinnings of all of our studies to
date um at the core this exercise should improve accessibility to from and through the park um it should eliminate eliminate unsafe crossings um pedestrian crossings by redirecting existing desire lines that are often in conflict with uh vehicular traffic um it should increase
capacity for programming at the park um and in doing so it should elevate the park as destination landscape within the city um whatever we do from a landscape perspective should support Boston's urban forest plan and initiative to provide more urban canopy um and then at
the end of the day whatever comes out of this exercise should be at at the very least a net neutral um but hopefully an increase to the square footage of Joselyn Park um so that it can be not just experientially greater but physically greater in size
um I'll go through this part quickly because I think we've we've looked at this with you with you all uh but we went through the exercise of a very rigorous study of the existing conditions including the existing canopy the existing understory um hardscape and materiality um the existing site
furnishings and the role that they play in how people occupy the space um and then the role of shadow um both existing shadow and proposed or or net new shadow from the proposed building project adjacent um we also looked sort of
qualitatively at at what makes this park a good place to be you know a good urban park um the the role that planting plays in creating a sort of garden frame um in an otherwise very urban and institutional scale environment um the
role that an urban canopy plays in providing comfort and carbon sequestration in the city um and the role that ample seating plays in providing a welcoming and accessible environment for people um but then we also looked at the existing opportunities for improvement
um that linearity of the park only sort of exacerbating the the scalar issues right um it's incredibly narrow and by having just a single path with um open lawn adjacent to it and a single frame on either side um it's quite limiting in terms of how the park might be used and
the experiential range that you can get from it um that lawn that frames it because it's just a single narrow path is often quite beaten by people walking off the side of the path to go around one another um and that as I said the the role that the four streets on on
every side of the park play in really disconnecting it from its context and and making it somewhat difficult to access and and use comfortably um as I said we looked at the occupancy we looked at how people travel through the site um took a quite
detailed mapping of you know who's moving through the site when at different times of day and different conditions um weather conditions etc um we took stock in in terms of what people were were doing there programming was you know really limited to people coming
to eat lunch um smoke a cigarette or uh you know make a quick phone call hoping that whatever we do at this park can help to amplify and increase the programmatic range um we distilled that diagram of of pedestrian circulation down to a sort of
what does this all mean um and noticed that you know as I said quite a lot of people are crossing at places that are not intended for for pedestrian crossing they're crossing you know stepping out between parked cars illegally parked cars um and into traffic on on very by
roads so thinking about how we can improve that condition as well with this study um there's you know a as we all know from working in Boston just like any other um urban street there are lots and lots of utilities that run through the park through the rightway um some of
them are quite shallow including the tunnel that runs underneath right down the center of the park um there's also existing chilled water lines an electrical duct bank that runs along the sort of north end of of the park um and then steam and water lines that run through the street as well as sanitary
sewer um and that there is that existing tunnel ventilation tower that also doubles as signage for the ER just across the street um and so we went through uh you know this exercise of as I said something that's been quite a lot of fun uh this
this idea of a strategic redistribution of the park space something that um simplifies vehicular um simplifies vehicular circulation makes pedestrian crossings safer hopefully um and also at the end of the day increases the size of
the park um this diagram suggesting approximately a 13% increase in the square footage of the park through this proposed realignment you can see the the yellow line um the faint yellow line on the the diagram on the right um suggesting the existing property line
relative to the new proposed park area um I saw when I was preparing just a minute ago that the these diagrams are mislabeled that's my fault um but noting that there's there's lots of ways to look at this and so we've looked at how to how to manage pedestrian crossings
and and vehicular circulation dozens of ways i've sort of distilled this down to four highle exercises to for for clarity um but looking at the first one a series of perpendicular crossings um across both Jocelyn Place and Deaconist those
one crossings marked in orange would be new um Chris you're at about halftime okay great uh additional midblock crossings on top right uh bottom corner um suggesting the crossings happen at the corner in this new reconfiguration of Joselyn Place and the last one being
a single midblock crossing that sort of focuses pedestrian circulation between the two park networks um I'll focus on that last plan and and how it's developed just to talk about uh the park broadly um the idea was to create something that had quite a
lot of connectivity through it connectivity to the adjacent public realm and to the adjacent buildings connecting to Brookline Avenue and and from Pilgrim Road um but really most importantly that in the you know what initially felt like bifurcation of an already relatively small park that we're
actually making it even more well connected to the urban realm and and that these two park networks become really well integrated and quite diverse in how they offer um a range of experience for people in the city um the result is a sort of series of of
terraces that gradually step up from Brookline A to Pilgrim Road um so sort of uh east to west in this drawing orientation um stepping up off of Brookline for sort of elevated terrace um and then a network of pathways if you
go to the next slide please um that weave these spaces together we've turned that gradually sloping lawn with a single path into a network of accessible garden rooms or event spaces um that are connected by a really robust and diverse
um set of meandering paths through the through the park um looking at it in plan but also in cross-section how this park then connects to um the future cancer hospital on the right um that lobby garden that we've talked a bit about in
in past meetings with you all and will continue to talk about um how that plays a role in connecting to the exterior landscape um looking at how this elevated garden room this is the east section adjacent to Brookline um creates a a sort of terrace above the street
level sort of just above your eye level above the the cars and frame by planting rather than vehicular traffic um accessible pathways that meander up and through and then how other smaller scale garden rooms also occupy um the park as you move further west again registering
that existing tunnel that um in this section is is down a bit far but in other places can be quite um quite shallow in its depth and looking at how the park sits relative to the existing property lines expanding upon that a bit um early in
the process so using landscape precedences to talk about the qualitative aspects this is Teardrop Park one of MVVA's um relatively well-known landscape a landscape that is small but also sort of separate into garden rooms and in a way makes itself feel much larger than it is because of
that distinct separation of rooms rooms that are quite immersive and natural um it negotiates quite a lot of grade change as well and does so intentionally to break up the scale um and uses that grade grade grade change to create places to occupy um amphitheaters natural stone outcroppings um and that
they become becomes a really active landscape as well um looking at the quality of these landscape rooms that I've been describing um we're thinking about a planting strategy that has continuity all the way from Pilgrim Road the sort of narrow circles um a layering of
fistia trees that that runs through the entire park and registers up against the Pilgrim Road connector um but then that these rooms each have their own sort of identity of you know a particular flowering tree that um registers throughout the season as spring emerges
um this is we're all seeing as pretty fantastic time to be in the city right now um with the magnolia and red buds and things that are coming on right now in the cherries um thinking about how those landscape rooms or those garden rooms can also be programmed and activated um
they're not very large but they're large enough to be pretty impactful in terms of gathering people this showing a series just a for instance of 10 x 10 and 10 x20 tents that could be used for farmers markets or um you know a sort of networking event for the LMA um lots of
ways to think about how we could use this space and it becomes more of a destination within the city um those rooms framed by as I said a series of garden meanders that are framed by planting um allow for a more robust urban canopy um and lots of ways
to move through this in a very accessible way um and that some of that negotiation of grade it becomes o they become opportunities to uh create gathering places amphitheaters stone outcroppings places for people to sit and eat lunch
and gather together um those rooms framed by layered planting understory midstory canopy trees um those of you who know our work know we're really into planting and creating really robust urban
environments um and then looking just again at this plan if you go to the next one and how it all comes together into Chris about a minute left yep great thanks uh this showing the propo the the existing park area about 13,37 square
feet um the proposed park area shown in orange just over 15,000 square feet so a new net park area of about 17,3 or excuse me 1734 square ft um roughly 13% increase in
size and showing how that still negotiates and helps to simplify some of that really um important you know traffic that comes with the medical facilities in this in this area as well um creating a or creating a new visitor patient dropoff area for the cancer
hospital and a valet or patient drop off for the for the emergency room at Rosenberg um and we can leave it here just for conversation I think um but the idea here or the opportunity is is a park network that's really well connected brings people into this park
not just for you know a quick phone call but places to gather places to spend time um ways for the LMA to gather as a community and outdoor public space and and to significantly create or significantly increase the the park's capacity for programming and for
accessibility thanks Chris that concludes our presentation all right commissioners and Marie I think you're muted we're good thank you sorry about that uh
thank you for the presentation i just um have a question could you talk a little bit about circulation through the site um in terms of how patients or people who are there with family members would
move through the site because I I don't have I think when as we've reviewed this project I know um a consideration has been the movement between buildings you know there is pressure on internal circulation to be able to move between the buildings and
I'm Just wondering when I when I look at this plan it um the circulation as you've outlined looks a little bit ciruous i'm just curious you know what if I'm in one building is it likely that I will be moving from Rosenberg to the
future cancer hospital just help me a little understand a little bit um the typical movement between buildings on the site sure so maybe I'll start and then Michael you can jump in but um right now there is a little bit of an existing desire line between Jocelyn
Diabetes Center and Rosenberg because there's some staff that move back and forth between the two occasionally um we see a lot less of that probably with the future cancer hospital and the emergency room um being that they will be largely
two different institutions i think I said jokingly with planning department the other day if you're if you're going between those two buildings in one day you're probably having a pretty bad day right um and I I just don't think it'll be a desire line that happens all that much um and to the point to the the the
or to the event that it does um a little bit of a meander through the park might be a nice reprieve actually in in the middle of your day um we've wrestled with as I as I showed in that initial diagram lots of ways to look at this and whether a connection directly across the street from um the cancer hospital or
Rosenberg was appropriate or safe from a vehicular andor pedestrian standpoint um in both cases worried about the conflict that's created between people arriving in cars either for at an emergency room where your focus is elsewhere um or
similarly where you're arriving at a car for um an appointment at a at a cancer hospital um encouraging people to cross exactly at that location in our conversations with BHB and with um BI and Dana Farber felt like a conflict
that that could potentially create an unsafe condition so pulling those two layers of sec circulation apart through a single crossing that that provides greater connectivity between the two parks felt like the safer option um still something we're developing though
uh Chris I can think of a few things to uh to to clarify there in your description uh so yes Emory is it is the patterns that we see today will change and as Chris said there will be very little cross connection between the two and this idea that uh when the the drop
offs also function uh in their totality so as Chris said for pedestrian safety they really are uh units that are accessed from either side and this idea of moving to the to the edges into the park uh from an occupancy standpoint makes a lot of sense from the healthcare perspective and I I guess I'm curious i
want to turn off over to my colleague colleagues but I'm just curious about the sight lines because it it just uh you know it just it seemed to be frank it just seems a little counterintuitive to me because I'm just sort of thinking imagining being on the site and looking
for building entrances and my instinct is how do I get some you know get from one place to another as quickly as possible with the understanding about the goal of creating a place for respit i I know that's very much been a part of this conversation so those are just some of the the questions and concerns that
that come to my mind thanks thanks Ann Marie shauna thanks very much for the for the presentation uh Chris and Michael there's a lot I really love about this i think the the grading strategy of the
terraces is actually really nice in that you particularly when you were showing the section where the lobby was at the same now at the same height as the terrace i think the abundance of green space is super is really nice too
um quite and and the overall character I I also I also really appreciate um I do have a question maybe at the end you can explain the traffic circulation i and I know that this is a a a pretty early version i think I think
it's a strong very early version there's a couple things and I know you may not given um given Seth's introduction that this may not be something that that um how this is taken much further at this
point um but there is a level of well of sameness to each of the different spaces at this this point in the project as as lovely as they are they're um sort of very planted spaces terraces with rockout ccroppings and I think the
circulation is a little bit um as Anarie suggested a little bit potentially confusing particularly for the mobility impaired i think they could get to a dead end and have to back up again um again this is something
going forward it doesn't um as as a foundation I still think this is very strong and then the one other thing that I wanted to mention uh is that Tudtor Park is a is a lovely lovely park but I
feel that it is very much about being separate from the buildings and I think in this particular case with the amount of effort that's being put into the lobby and to kind of the big the big sculpted
um eyebrow of the of the lobby that the planting strategy feels like it's isolating and the outcrop strategy feels like it's isolating the park away from the building and I think that that particularly the the particular planting
strategy the heights of the trees and the amount of opening between visual opening as well as physical opening between where we're seeing the big 43.5 and the lobby space I think is something that um that I would look look
at going forward w with whomever is going forward with this to um to understand how that could be embracing the whole verticality of the lobby the eyebrow the indoor and outdoor space it is still providing a respit in in these
little terrace rooms but not I feel that if you're in the garden room right now it may be too separate from the experience of the the architecture and the the lobby um again though I think it's it's a really exciting from my
perspective a very exciting um and and dramatically different um approach and it doesn't feel like a singular um strip of green in the middle of the the traffic so so I am very impressed and
excited by the developments so far maybe I'll I'll chime in because I'm going to echo what Shauna said i I think this is very exciting um I don't think we imagined that it would be so transformed but what's really strong is
that connection between the winter garden lobby to you know now the landscape and this entry point in my mind really rationalizes where your entrance is to the building remember I
was always a little bit you know challenged by where that entrance is and now I think it actually almost postrationalized maybe you knew it was going to happen the whole time but I had didn't have that insight um so I think um it's really strong i do have two
questions there is that one sidewalk that's labeled well between the winter garden terrace and the you know terrace that's labeled 435 there's that sidewalk at 5% you know it kind of feels like it's taking you to nowhere there's not really
a crosswalk and so I'm just curious about what happens up and down that street if if if that not suggesting it goes away but it just feels like there's no destination for it so something might be considered
there and then the other question I have is you know because emergency vehicles are getting to the Rosenberg building I trust that you've worked this all out but it feels like there's almost a pinch point and I just you know want to make sure that all of that discussions have
happened with BTD to make sure that that's not going to slow ambulances from getting to the Rosenberg building but overall I I think this you know I echo what Shauna says very exciting thank you Mimi
and Michael you should and Chris feel feel free to respond to Mimi's questions sure Chris uh do you I'll leave it to you to start Chris sure so um the the first question about that sidewalk it is it's something we've been struggling with actually is how to make that feel
as if it's part of both the um sort of part of both the park and just the broader context in the in the public realm people coming from we see that as sort of a sidewalk that um hospital staff will likely go use to go out into the neighborhood get something for lunch
or dinner or whatever and and walk back it's a shortcut into like the broader you know urban realm and into the you know where that retailer area is um just north of where this drawing is cut off um so I think to to that end it's a
little bit of a shortcut along the side of the park that gets you out into the city a little bit quicker um it's also just part of that that public way we look did look at ways to bend it into the park so it becomes a little bit more part of the park um but the the
the comment just a minute ago about maybe connecting the the interior lobby garden to the public realm a little bit better does make me think about that sidewalk and how the sidewalk and terrace and all those two might work together to be a little bit more porous um so I think how we look at that
sidewalk is definitely something that maybe should be more than just that that shortcut that I I've described it as just now um and and I think if I can add Mimi one of the the challenges that the city was having um that we were looking
at was how to how to create synergy with that portion of the park and and the lobby right because I know that was such a a huge point of conversation during the IMP right that corner and and what that was going to be and how how does that how is that going to feel public um
and so in some ways this this really does do that by creating you know public park right there um but our concern was also how do we make sure that that park feels truly public and truly distinct and yet has synergy at the same time and so I think that's the the needle we've
been trying to figure out how to thread yeah no I appreciate that uh I'm going to pull up this comparison Mimi uh of the current situation to the proposed uh to respond to some of your comments about circulation uh we think that this change uh does eliminate a
very confusing situation in the city uh where the residue of a residential neighborhood uh is a relic in a very busy urban situation that the the couplet of one-way circulation around Josland Park with the two closely spaced intersections uh was one that we
struggled with our traffic engineers to to resolve uh and make safe uh for building entry uh for wayfinding and for overall circulation so the new conf configuration on the on on the right uh we're working very closely to see how now from this initial concept how can we
better design that intersection uh it does join JSON place and Deaconess into a single uh intersection which shortens uh the pedestrian crossings allows better turnings uh into uh into the arrival sequence and creates a more intuitive uh uh rotary uh circulation
around the park for people that are coming off of Brookline to the Rosenberg uh drop off but also again that intuitive alignment of of Joslyn Place with the entry to the cancer hospital uh as well emergency vehicle traffic uh will likely be focused on Pilgrim Road
uh so ambulance traffic uh will be moving from Longwood to Pilgrim uh and really won't make this uh this circulation much uh much very frequently uh but we are looking uh at ways for emergency vehicles like firet trucks uh or other other things at the turning
radiuses from uh from Brooklyn onto Josland uh to see if we can make that uh that that uh the throat between those two combined streets a little narrower uh so that that north south crossing feels a little bit more natural uh and and and kinder in scale but in general this uh there are some significant
improvements to the overall circulation but we did want to be very uh cautious uh as well there's the current situation of double parking uh that's illegal on uh on on both streets uh so that the drop offs are are intuitive uh they're
well defined they encourage a good flow of traffic around them but that they're also uh well placed and safe uh and make sense with where we're sending the visual cues of the building entry entries to those drop offs well could I just ask a couple questions on that first of all I hadn't I hadn't
recognized the um expanded pedestrian cross crossing area which which I think is is is pretty nice the way it collects it um could you explain the sort of one-way drop off as well as the drop off on on the park side just just for our
under full understanding is it one lane with you know sure just being really specific about everything oh yes uh very specifically uh the the width of the redirected draws in place is one 20 foot way uh l one single lane of travel with no parking on either side 20 ft is the
minimum for emergency vehicle access uh so the single lane continues as a single lane of travel throughout Joslyn Place uh that defines a a distinct drop off uh that is organized into accessible drop off and regular drop off underneath the
canopy uh of the hospital uh entry uh so Jos Place really is intended to be one single lane of one-way travel from Brookline to Pilgrim Road with a distinct uh defined drop off with no parking intended on either side uh for it for its length deaconess uh is
similar uh it is also sized as one uh 20ft travel lane with one singular drop off uh that is organized for uh for both valet and emergency drop off at the future cancer hospital we'll have valet parking uh and service inside the garage
at Rosenberg here it's still a very very busy mixed entry but the proposal is for one lane of eastbound traffic we are holding for discussion purposes a separate layby here uh that could be used for a shuttle bus stationing it could be used for overight transport
vehicle parking sometimes chair cars and other uh other uh patient transport vehicles aren't large enough to enter parking garages so this serves as a kind of layby staging area for those cars that may be bringing people to the to the emergency department at Deacons now
after the crosswalk located here uh Deacons does split into two turning lanes uh so a right and left turning rain uh turning lane onto Brookline Avenue or straight through travel uh to Jimmy Fund which is a two-way street the
overall circulation does improve as well with the opening of Pilgrim Road to two-way circulation so in a in a larger district scale uh uh people are still now able to enter from the riverway in a two-way fashion onto Deacons but they're also able to make a Uturn from Deaconess
onto Joslin Place uh for secondary entry to uh to the Luke of the Cancer Hospital so there's there we tried to simplify but the intentionality really is one way one lane travel on both roads um thank you that's very helpful
um uh this is Bill U Michael um or anyone can answer my question this kind of follows from um uh a couple other questions uh that have been raised
um I'm looking at the u uh buildings on the east side of Brooklyn Avenue and imagining people from those buildings wanting to use this park space and I realized uh there's real advantage
to having consolidated traffic coming uh onto Brooklyn Avenue from either side uh that's that's a positive that's a very positive thing but I am struck by the
fact that there's not kind of through a passageway from those crosswalks from from the east side of Brookline Avenue from those crosswalks into the park and I'm curious um why
that is chris do you want to respond to that let me know if Yeah let me know if there's a different uh slide you'd like me to bring up Chris to this no this this is a good one um it it's definitely something we're we're still wrestling with um I
will say that the the negotiating the 10-ft grade change from east to west um plays a an enormous role while while also trying to stay above that existing utility tunnel um plays a very challenging and but enormous role in in trying to weave these navigable pathways
and accessible pathways through um so I think we're still trying to get the desired lines exactly right and and you've identified a good one for us to to focus on as part of a next study um but the I think the idea is that coming from that that intersection that you've
highlighted um people would either walk along the sidewalk um that that runs along the the sort of that new slanted portion of Joselyn Place or realigned portion of Joselyn Place or or just go
um you know a very short few steps to the to the north and up into that terrace or through that that meandering pathway um at times this diagram I think is almost deceiving in in scale um if you consider how how large this this
plot is that something that feels based on these you know blue arrows that meander through the space um if you if you put yourself back into how large the space actually is you're reminded that you know that is truly a
few steps to the to the right um rather than a you know quarter mile loop through um through the park to to find a different space yeah that 46 foot dimension is an important one so so while maybe there isn't a direct shot just yet in this diagram um I don't
think that uh it's a terribly far journey to get into the park from that intersection and and we can continue to massage those desire lines well uh Chris um uh you know in in many ways the park
right now does a very nice job of connecting the future cancer hospital to the Rosenberg building i mean it's uh I agree it's not a direct path but it's it it feels like it can uh uh encourage uh
active meandering on that path but if the it's from the east and west sides where the uh the new park layout doesn't feel like it is does the
same form of connecting uh I mean this park is all about con connecting uh four sides to an open space and two of the sides on the north and the south
are quite clear uh but it's the lack of connection uh in the U east west direction across Brooklyn or or even Pilgrim that I would encourage you to play with because
you've obviously thought about it and and it's it may it may be tricky i I'm I'm I'm you know still learning the uh elevations of this but so I I encourage
you to continue to look at that certainly thank you go ahead Anie if I could just add to that I I want to continue to push a little bit on the role of connections that you know Bill was describing I
mentioned earlier i think as I as I reflect back on the evolution of this project I think a big piece of at least what I felt we've been grappling with is how do we create kind of how do we unify this collection of build how do we take
this opportunity with a major investment by the hospital on one of the sites to unify a collection of buildings that have a shared purpose and I think the park in my mind has always played a
pivotal role in that so it's it's this is not a critique of the quality of the landscape you've created but rather thinking about the relationship of the landscape visa v the campus of buildings
and it it I I just can't help but look for something that is uh a space that helps to center center an individual so much the way Central Park I'll be a totally different scale is sort of a center or
an anchor for for New York for the neighborhood surrounding it but then within it there are still a collection of different experiences so I really appreciate the degree to which you're thinking about this as you know offering places for respit for whether you're
working in the building you're visiting the building you're a family member or you're somebody in the surrounding community but I still imagine myself as somebody who spends a lot of time walking to different places i always think about from an urban design
standpoint that the the role of visual orientation the role of giving of providing cues of help me get to one place or another and at least looking at this and plan and I too am trying to catch up and understand the the the role of grading and elevation
um when I look at the plan it it frankly creates more confusion for me than than assistance and and and kind of a sense of centering so it's just one thing I'd encourage you to think about as you look at this and frankly even driving making
that turn um from Brooklyn into the campus i worry a little bit about you know turning in there in a car and thinking oh is that you know is the one street two-way or not you know just sort of thinking what is it going to feel like to turn into that space so I know
you're you're the team has a lot of experience i have confidence you will figure this out but I just these are the questions that come to my mind when I look at the proposal thanks um can I can I just pick up on on that and I'm not agreeing or disagreeing completely with
with Anmarie's statement but I I think at this point there's a a real consistency in the green kind of closing off the outside i think it's it's it's and so I think in developing the project a lot of it I think it will be about the
scale of the planting and what the and where the where the trees are thicker and thinner to be able to help um to help with that visual connection from from one side to another not and and I think that's really sort of a subtle um
subtle development of the of the the plan from from my perspective rather than a than a a you than a a dramatic change thank you i agreed that porocity will be will be huge in terms of orienting
through this space and opening it up while also making places that are comfortable and provide respit thank you Seth it could be that we're ready to go to public comment unless there are any commissioners with any last comments
looks like we're ready okay so at this time we'd like to invite any members of the public in attendance who may wish to contribute public testimony to raise your digital hand and I will call on you if you are calling in by phone dial star 9 to activate the raise hand function
and star six to mute unmute yourself please state your name and any relevant project affiliation information and please keep uh comments to two minutes um I do see uh a hand raised um
Tom Yardley are you able to unmute yourself yes thanks two two minutes is going to be a little a little tough here um so I'm Tom Yardley uh I'm VP for area planning and development for the Longwood Collective uh we represent uh 22 members in the Longwood medical and
academic area including the proponents uh for 50 years we've served as stewards for Longwood um I run a department of planners and designers run the local TMA and we also operate a fleet of shuttles 2,000 parking spaces run a daycare facility uh amongst other things thanks
for the opportunity um I want to quickly get to the substance and and and not speak too much around those things but one of the things we do is a placemaking program and so it's on spaces throughout the district so we're extremely familiar with Joslyn Park as it is today and and
I'm really excited to hear BCDC's sort of reaction to MBBA's excellent concept plan and actually we came up with a very similar plan independently when we were sketching ideas out so I'm extremely excited to see this concept um sort of one thing to think about we
don't have many easily accessible public parks yes we have the Emerald Necklace around us but we have busy arterials separating our 73,000 employees from easily getting into those parks and they're not all the ADA accessible paths so I cannot uh overstate how important
even a small relatively small pocket park like this is to the district we have 130,000 people visiting daily the concept addresses two big issues from our perspective it improves the public realm and it rationalizes the street network um and I think that opportunity
along a very congested uh frontage of Brooklyn Avenue is both the great opportunity and the challenge as some of the uh comments have sort of identified tonight how can we make that inviting and I think that corner um with one of the parks sort of announcing the entry
to the rest of the park across the street i'm not articulating that super clearly it's going to be really important so I think these comments are really good you know I think uh I'll save these comments if I may quickly for for for later but uh we have some technical comments about road widths
they should be minimized as much as possible and I would strongly urge getting rid of the sidewalk around the perimeter of the park unless by the taxi stand uh or maybe some other areas where it's necessary or just at least something to be to be looked at um
anyway those are the extent of our comments and we're very supportive of this concept um so thank you okay thank you Tom uh Allison uh Pinus I see your hand raised can you unmute yourself
yes hi thank you um um I do think this is very exciting um and look forward to an increase in green space along Brookline Avenue i think that's really important um my uh number one concern is
aligning the crosswalks and the pathways in the park with building entrances because again being rational about who will use this park and uh how it's used now and will be used in the future it
will be used by people who typically are short of time or going for a lunch are hurrying to a bus stop whatever and or have mobility challenges so thinking about what is the shortest route from uh the building entrances to me makes the
most sense and and thinking about the connection from Pilgrim Road all the way to Brooklyn and where people are walking to go buy lunch I think is important but I do look forward to in increasing green space i think that's a wonderful idea
thank you okay thank you Allison is there any other uh person present who would like to provide public testimony okay seeing none maybe Lizzie you can
stop sharing and proponent can reshare uh back to a site plan uh and certainly feel uh free to address the you know uh any of the questions or comments from from the public that came up this is taking a picture
so I guess uh at this point uh we uh thank you for to the commissioners for your comments and to uh uh to the public as well i don't know Tom Yardley if you had additional additional comments or feedback uh I know you are in close contact with uh with the proponents
through your activities uh through the long collective uh but all all points very well taken to address your comments first tom okay maybe I'll just chime in with a little bit of what I'm hearing from the
commissioners and if anyone you know any fellow commissioners I don't have it so I think the big takeaway that I'm getting is that you know this park has a potential to anchor several buildings around the campus so it's not only the
north south connections that you should be thinking about but really thinking about east and west like how can you you know further expand the legibility of this park and access to this park uh the planting should be a bit more porous while the rooms are kind of exciting
they might be limiting that connection between inside outside connection to uh one Joselyn park and then there's you know subtle comments about pathways are the pathways secondary you know in particular uh and main ones in the right
location I think those are the big takeaways a lot of positive comments um and exciting to see how this all goes And the biggest question in my mind is you know how do these solid ideas go now to the city so I would encourage like a
series of guidelines you know that are very um prescriptive in the event that you know um the the design get has to be picked up in a different you know uh time frame
etc thank you maybe to address uh Allison one of your comments and Tom as well i think uh we have uh uh are looking forward to working closely with with the various city agencies uh including the public improvements commission uh the streets department traffic
transportation uh so some of the issues around sidewalk widths or the safety of midwalk crossings or pedestrian safety will certainly come up uh in uh in additional meetings uh and how the rights of way uh develop based on city city standards versus the unique
character of this park uh and the abuing uh uh the abuing uses are certainly very important uh as are I think uh to put uh the the goals and values of both Dana Farber and Beth Israel out patient safety uh and clarity of arrival uh to
both the cancer hospital uh but moreover uh the incredibly busy uh and uh very active drop off for Rosenberg uh serving as one of the busiest emergency groups in the city uh that pedestrian safety and circulation there are of utmost importance if I could also add because I think this
these two images um highlight for me thinking about the visual connection and design from above i think particularly for people who are patients you know and and have um you know limited ability to get outside thinking about just that
that aerial view as well I think is something to consider in the design process well great commissioners since uh there's no vote occurring there are no formal provisos but I think there were some excellent comments and Mimi thank you for summarizing uh them for the
proponent as they continue to refine this um and I believe uh that the proposed project is recommended for additional review um at a forthcoming subcommittee as we have other elements of the project to get into uh and
they'll also be back to share with you updates as they continue to uh advance the open space concept so team thank you very much appreciate it thank you very much and thank you to the commissioners
good night everyone hey um Bill I understand we may be losing uh you um and if MC Young is online
and myself as well Seth I have to leave at now okay 6 o'clock thank you Sean good night everyone thanks Shauna okay so we are still joined by uh Commissioner Love Commissioner Lubenau
um and Commissioner Kim and so let's turn did I miss somebody no I say and we're hoping that uh Commissioner Manf Freddy joins us yes and let's turn to our second agenda item for the evening which is 181 West
First Street in South Boston and this is actually a notice of project change uh a proposed project at 181 West First Street seeking a notice of project change entitlement contemplates increasing the proposed height and density of an approved project pre previously reviewed by the BCDC and
approved by the BPDA board back in 2014 this will be the first presentation of the proposed project to the design subcommittee following an introduction uh back in January of 2025 uh it is my understanding that there are no commissioners present who intend to
recuse themselves a reminder to proponent teams that presentation will be limited to 15 minutes uh I will give you a halftime warning and a one minute warning and with that I invite the proponent team to begin uh sharing their
screen and presenting whenever ready seth we're being asked by um Oh thank you oh okay we elevated okay all right um I'd like to introduce Ron our team so
I've got our landscape architect Antoine Almeida here i've got Ron Bennett from our the project architect uh and myself as the presenters ron I'm going to let you take it and start with the presentation thank you all thank you for your time
this evening uh we're proposing a 144 unit apartment building uh between First and Second Streets in Souy along C Street uh we've uh gone back and forth quite a bit with the um in our workshop
meetings with BCDC and uh this is the result of of uh that feedback that we received what what we heard um was uh we'd like
to simplify the the massing um pull back a portion of the building um to reduce uh the impact on the adjacent Mahoney Park and our a butter at 186 West First
um develop the open space that is created from pulling the building back on the west side and uh fine-tuning the facade of the building on it's almost a two-sided building where we're facing a a a future
commercial zone on First Street and our residential neighbors across Second Street and on Sea Street this model represents what we presented in January with the changes that we've made
since then so the blue shaded areas are areas that we reduced and scaled back the the building the massing and then we did extend the penthouse on the fifth floor slightly to try to recover some of
the space that we lost um to this major change here on the left this is this is the western side of the building facing toward Mahoney Park this is what we're proposing today we've stepped back both the fourth and
the fifth floors to reduce shadows on the public on the gardens uh next door at in Mahoney Park and pulled back the entire fifth floor um on this wing to reduce its impact on
the uh the park and our neighbor here at 186 West 2nd Street which is an existing building that we're essentially building around on the west facade i just want to compare where we were in January to where we are
now um you can see the the penthouse at the top on the fifth floor that's been eliminated and the entire building pulled back from uh less than 60 feet from the property line on Second Street to almost 90 feet now and and a
resulting uh pocket park that we're creating in front of our building um adjacent to Mahoney Park here's a 3D view of that modified um well the the original uh presented here in January
and then the the current design uh with the pocket park developed and also showing our neighbors building at 186 uh West Second in in more
detail another view of that same space we have a landscape design by MDLA you have any questions Anton's here to to answer them um we're surrounding the building with uh sidewalk level
planting uh anywhere from five to 9 ft around the building with uh I'll zoom in a little bit also adding a number of street trees and of course the feature open
space is our pocket park adjacent to Mahoney Park the grade is essentially even across the property line although there are um established plantings now in Mahoney
Park that we'd prefer not to disturb so there there's a visual connection and the spaces should read as all as one our pocket park with Mahoney Park but there's no physical connection um to
walk between them uh but they are easily accessed uh from the sidewalk on West Second Street we have our electric service in this space um for lack of another place to locate
it on the site and we will um screen it with vegetation um to you know do our best to conceal it the Mahoney Park actually has something very similar in this area number six um where they have their switch and and
transformer uh close to the street um and also behind some a vegetative screen we've got some renderings um this is the corner of West Second Street and Sea Street our building entrance on West
Second Street here we included the original design from January for reference um we we refined this corner with the setbacks up on the fourth floor to uh create a better transition from
brick to metal the fifth floor is still set back enough so when you're on the street across the street on the sidewalk on Second Street and you look up the building should look like a fourstory building which aligns with uh the signal
building down the street and uh a fourth floor datim on the uh the building across from us across sea street in the process of developing the design we eliminated any raised planters
along the sidewalk and instead substituted or replaced that with a um 6-in high granite curb uh between our sidewalk and planting area um with a variety of plants along the foundation
um brick all the way down to to the ground no exposed concrete and team about halftime okay thank you um we did slightly shift the entrance uh to optimize our garage layout because in shrinking the west wing of the building
we did lose three parking spaces and we knew our neighbors would not wouldn't like that so we did manage to uh tweak the uh entrance location to uh optimize the parking and re we recovered those three parking spaces in the garage so
although we we reduced the footprint of the building we still have the same number of parking spaces this is Sea Street and First Street um Sea Street we've simplified the massing and materials um on First
Street we eliminated the false frames and metal panels between the windows and instead have a simple reveal in the brick masonry that relates to the balconies on both corners of the First Street facade the scale of this facade
is different from the rest of the building given that it faces first street which we anticipate is a a future you know commercial thoroughfare we increased the amount of and height of the glass along the retail spaces on
first street uh so this reads more like uh retail or public space and we developed the first street entrance somewhat uh with a larger overhang and again more glass um to make the first street entrance more
prominent um and again you can see the planters are at sidewalk level here as opposed to raised planters and we added some windows to the garage where we're showing a lot of foundation just to uh break up that large area of brick on the
sidewalk we have elevations here which I think are really better represented in the 3D renderings but we've got them here for reference our our uh three-story building relates in height to our neighbor and then we've got two stories
above that in metal um with the fifth floor set back the sea street facade and the first street facade i do want to mention that in the um re refinements that we made to the massing
and the setbacks that we added to the west side of the building that the shadows we have I have a complete shadow study but these are a couple samples from that study that show um that the shadows cast from the proposed design as it stands today
um fall within the shadows that would have been cast by our threetory 2014 our design that was approved in 2014 so this is uh April August at 9:00 a.m and you can see the shadow falling
within the red dash line which represents the um shadow cast by the design approved back in 2014 it's later in the day middle of the summer um and we're not casting in midday we're
not casting any shadows on the gardening plots in Mahoney Park next to us if if I if you'd like to see plans I have them in an appendix um we really wanted to focus on the massing and the
the building envelope or the the facades um I do have additional plans and uh renderings if you'd like to see those ron I might suggest uh focusing on the proposed open space
yes we have open space in front of the building what I'm calling the the pocket park and then you know what i do need to refer to another plan because we I don't have one that shows the um interior courtyard here it
is so behind 186 West 2nd Street we have a a courtyard an internal courtyard uh with private decks and it's elevated above street level it's approximately 3
to four feet above street level and we'll have um common area um space for any any of the tenants to use as well as some private decks shown here in this lavender color that's that's our open
space for the tenants only and it is it's our intention to try to reserve this space out front the pocket park for tenant use as well i mean it's essentially their front yard um and we do have Mahoney Park right next door
which is a public amenity and then of course there's um landscape buffers all the way around the building um and on First Street oh I need to go to a different
plan here it is where our retail spaces front on First Street we've got outdoor seating wider planting areas and a nice wide sidewalk bike
share street trees and a dog relief area do you have any questions about the open space or anything else and I'm sorry Ron did you say that your landscape architect was with you this evening yes i'd like to introduce Anton
from MTLA he can he can get into more specifics about our pocket park and the landscape design so I might ask uh for you all to do that in the final minute and a half that you have
okay i would say in particular the streetscape as well as the park pocket park right and if if you could just go into a little more detail um it's hard for me to understand if you could just kind of give us a little more information about
materiality and programmatic intention that'd be great sure I'd be happy to um yeah we're uh complete streets compliant um you know we're using 4 by 8 foot um tree pits 30t on center um and there's
currently no existing trees on West First and Sea Street along our property so we'll be adding green to those areas which we're really excited about um and uh we're also adding a lot of guest parking spots you know uh everything that obviously complete
streets um calls upon um we're running that brick apron pattern uh along the concrete walkway to match what's going on in the neighborhood right now um permeable papers at all the entrances um we want to add a nice I'm sorry to
interrupt time would you mind zooming in and pointing as you're talking um this is my first time seeing the project so No problem appreciate it do you have it open Anton i don't but I could share why don't you Why don't you just zoom in for him just tell him where you want him to
zoom in sure i'll I'll point you you narrate sure well we could start in the top left um to toward the dog relief area and then work our way around okay yeah so if you could zoom in there zoom
in yes thank you yes so we added the dog relief area the goal is to um hopefully reduce the amount of dogs using the Mahoney Park lawn i know it's a big issue um we're hoping that most people are going
to end up in this fenced in area and you know that they can allow their dogs to run around and have fun there so that's the thought process behind that um and then moving east um you can see we've incorporated a few benches some seating um out front you know for Uber pickup or
just you know a general uh seating in front um by two you can see there's a blue bike station so we've incorporated I believe there's 15 bikes in that location um so are those two rectangular shaped benches then around uh those are
planters so uh oh the white uh corners are the seating is that right yes exactly got it thank you yep no problem um and then we wanted to add a lot of shade tolerant planting um in front
because you know in in front the north side's not going to get that much sun so we we've uh done that there um and then moving um east um we have some more uh permable pavers and some patio seating
um and there's a little bit of a slope so we have a a wall and fencing there and then um you know moving down sea street we've incorporated taller shrubs where we can and where there's um building overhang we have more of a low
ground cover um while also adding um a row of uh honeyloust along that that that street and then that's a continuation of the honeyloust around that corner more permeable pavers and then more um uh
planting that obviously does uh better in the sun as this this will get more sun in this location and then I could quickly review the um amenity deck um we're showing a variation in the
type of paving up there we're using deck tiles and um like uh porcelain pavers as well so we wanted to break it up into a game space we wanted to break it up into um social areas for the tenants to enjoy um while also giving a little bit of
privacy to the um the private um uh decks that everyone has pat mhm can can you describe I understood it was three feet up higher than you know grade so how does that intersect with the
adjacent building um the the intersection the middle building's first level in the rear is a parking garage so we are probably 3 ft higher than their parking garage comes up 8 ft and then they have a little yard
space behind their parking garage they don't seem to be using the yard space very much but that first level is park is is a parking garage for them our parking garage which comes up below these these courtyard the center
courtyard is about 3 36 above grade in this area so their garage is about 8 ft above grade and ours is about 36 okay now we're at grade on the sides coming down next to them so our you see these two staircases that come down we
come down to grade pretty quickly and all that area is at grade around their property okay i I don't know that I'm understanding is there some retaining wall that's set that's there's a foundation there's a foundation wall
that is right here it's part of the foundation wall of the building because that's garage and this is a foundation wall of the building too that is units on one end and then as you go over you have the
foundation wall like that so that's all foundation wall our concrete podium sticks out of the ground back there but we're still well below their first floor above great this is all built on
top of the garage this courtyard is built the garage yeah we have parking under here so that dashed black line is that's the property line right
but that's that grade with the hatch area north of it yes yes okay and then so the retaining wall is at what you're calling the foundation wall yep yeah the foundation wall yep we're set back three and a half to five
feet from the property line in all cases is there any other questions uh could you just talk about the other the my public park yeah sure jason and specifically the relationship like with the transition between that park and the
p your park and the public park yeah is there a fence between the two so so currently there is a fence and what we plan to do is remove 70 ft of it um and we plan to follow that grade so if you're walking on West Second you won't
The goal is you won't notice the difference between Mahoney Park and our Pocket Park it'll all look cohesive that's kind of the goal um that that we have here um and then also we want to block those transformers in Mahoney Park um because they're a little bit large so
we've added um some shrubs there and some uh river birches which are doing really well in Mahoney Park right now so um we we really want it to be an extension of Mahoney Park um because we know it's you know it really is an important part to the neighborhood and
we want to embrace that and then um have that carry over to our site and just to provide the Sorry M it's a it's a visual extension so the fences removed the grade along both sides of the property
all the way from Second Street to First Street both properties will be graded at the same grade the grade will follow the whole park from one street all the way through the whole block down to the other street um and and Peter just to provide a little bit of additional
context we've been in conversations with Boston Parks Department um to see if there was the opportunity to have a physical connection uh between these two spaces i think at this time um parks was not interested in creating a physical connection or or expanding the actual
footprint of the park so the challenge has been how do we create a you know semi a publicly accessible you know privately owned open space that's immediately adjacent to a public park um that still provides public benefit uh
and amenity and and visual cohesiveness so what we've done there Seth is we've actually used the same plants and the same shapes that are in Mahoney Park so the buffer between the two properties is really plantings on both sides and
they're going to be the same species of plantings so you have a nice buffer although it is two different properties you'll never know where the property line is because the property the plants themselves will grow on both sides of the of the property line we additionally
took the shape of the pathways in Mahoney Park and we use the same shapes in our park on the on our side um and and that's how we've merged the parks that's why we're recommending that we
take there's a six-foot fence currently between the properties we're proposing that we take down the first 70 feet of the fence so that the plantings merge together and there is no identifiable barrier between them and then for the
rest of the park they have a 6-ft fence which we're suggesting we reduce to 4T to make it a little more visually friend friendly as it continues down from approximately this point to to first street
um and by grading them of the same grade uh we are actually they have a current block system that grades higher than us and we will just grade to their grade all the way down and use that as the grade coming down the the the property
line for both both properties i'm just going to acknowledge that we went from presentation to questions and so we haven't really gotten to commissioner comments I think but by all and we're a small group tonight so I don't have to call our
hands i don't think so we can you know just feel conversation exactly so is there any any more commissioner questions i mean I think we probably have a lot we're just trying to digest um and so I'm going to let my fellow
commissioners go first and I I'm happy to chime in if and can you clarify what's happening so I understand that you are removing about 70 ft of the existing fence but that you
are keeping the existing fence where it runs alongside your building and can you just help us understand what's happening what's the material of the fence how much space like what's the relationship between the building and the fence
what's happening in that space the currently or in the future i guess both currently we have a grade change from them so they put up a concrete block system to retain is a as a retaining wall between the park and
our and our property right and on top of that block system they have installed a sixfoot chain link black fence um so that's what exists there today what we're proposing is that once we
complete our building is to use the grade that they've established they step the grade down by two foot increments they start at about 25 on the second street side i think you see a little memo here of 23 and then it steps down
to 21 in increments of 2 feet so we would use the same grading system that they've established with their concrete blocks to grade to our building and then at the very end it drops off a little more than the than the two feet i think it drops off four feet at the end of the
just before West Street um the fence because the fence is a six feet sixoot chain link fence it's not the most visually pleasing fence in the world so what we're proposing is that we remove it and put a 4-ft chain link fence which
would be be much softer in appearance than the six-foot fence to put the divide between the two properties it's their fence i think we would need approval from the city to remove it and replace it uh but that's what we're proposing with with the again the
grading on both sides would be level and now you wouldn't see the concrete blocks along the edge that you currently see and you would just see graded land between the two build between the two properties and is there a building elevation i'm looking at the draft presentation and it
looks like what you're presenting now has changed quite a bit is it possible for you to just quickly pull up a a building elevation so we can see what it would look like so there it is right there so we the gray that you're seeing
the the black line is their fence along the edge of the property line so you can see here for the first part of the property where the where the our pocket park is there is no fence for a long distance right and then you have a small fence area here because we have a set of
stairs that we need as an egress um that will go on the prop on on our actually it'll go on on the property line and then this fence exists it's not drawn in as a chain link but this fence exists and this is the grade line coming down
currently and then as you see it on first street you can see that the grade accelerates uh a little more at the at the last um probably 15 20 feet of it thank you is the space occupiable
between the existing fence and your building like are those terraces or Well no no no we have simply a graded area that's between four and a half and 5t wide along the property line there is no there is no decks there or anything else
it's just graded area um we do have some balconies as you can see on the top on the fourth level and then we have a couple set back on the very top both of those are set back the fourth floor is set back 10 ft from the edge of the
third floor again trying to minimize the shadows on the park and then the fifth floor is set back an additional 10 feet from the fourth floor or 20 feet from the third floor again minimizing the shadows in the park and is level one the
first level that has residential units on it yes yes but essentially I'm just looking at a before and after from what the approved previous project was is you're requesting to increase the height
of this building by two stories is that right yes yes we're even though I see that you're setting things back and stuff shape but we're we're increasing the height by two stories exactly i mean I think would be helpful cuz I know this
area a little bit but I'm not 100% familiar been walking around it kind of walking around it and on the computer and I'm just having trouble understanding the scale of your proposal to the neighborhood okay um and I know
that the neighborhood some of it seems like it's uh you know underdeveloped um but I just would like to just have a better understanding of of the relationship of this new height because it seems like
your original proposal was more in keeping with with the scale of the of the neighborhood ron can you go to the slide that shows the elevations between the buildings next to us and us on Sea Street yeah i mean you're showing the
building to the right which I know is a bigger building but the buildings kind of across the street and to the left are Well we we actually smaller aren't they or am I Well no directly across from us are fourstory buildings as well so what we've done Do you have that slide Ron
that you can pull up it's an elevation slide that shows that West Second Street ron are you there okay this is a This is Go back no no go back one slide you can No west Second Street okay so I'm going to try to do it from this slide there is
another slide but this is 186 um West Second Street and we kept our third floor elevation in line with 186 West Second Street do you have an elevation from First Street though from
from I can show you the elevation from First Street but the neighbor really real the neighborhood exists on Second Street there is no neighborhood other than the signal building which I own on First Street and West Square so the buildings on on First Street are bigger
than the buildings on Second Street so that's the transition between the neighborhood so let me first go over Second Street with you the buildings across the street from you are three stories on Second Street right i'm just getting to know this neighborhood a little bit the two on the corner are
four stories and the one across from us on Second Street is four stories so we aligned our fourth story up with West Square and we lined our other fourth story up with the signal building which is on the same side of the street as us
we've set back the fifth story so it's not visual from Second Street and we've aligned our thirdstory building up third story of our building up with the three-story building in the middle the buildings across I'm sorry it would be helpful if you had a drawing that was a
little bit um like showed a little bit of context to the building we're seeing everything kind of close to the building and I just I just want to make sure that this is not an addition of this huge block in
this neighborhood and that it h it's having a conversation but verbally what you're saying is it is um visually I just don't like when I walk through the neighborhood I'm not quite understanding it um so yeah let me see if I can pull you have like an axon view with like the
buildings around it now I'm going to let my f fellow commissioners um take over but I'm having a little trouble understanding the project um and its scale in this neighborhood and I think if you could come back and kind of give us more drawings that showed not
just the building itself but its relationship to the context that would be great i I can actually give you an elevation if you'd like to see it perfect that'd be great all right so let me show you i'm going to share my screen Ron i I I think Peter the commissioner is asking for a drawing that we haven't
seen yet tonight um that shows this building in context with buildings surrounding it yep yeah okay all right so we'll do that at another time then but we do have I think that would be so helpful it's not really saying that there's anything right or wrong about the project i just don't when I'm
walking through this neighborhood and I may be walking to the wrong part of it there are some very charming like Victorian style houses and and I just like to see I'm not against bigger buildings but I just want to see how
things fit and that you're not there's something kind of charming about this neighborhood today and there's there's a difference in how you're So I'm going to go to landscape there's difference in how you're creating streetscape to your building and maybe your neighbors which
I think I understand but I I'm not sure whereas you're creating um I think you have a generous sidewalk which I think is great it's like 13 ft on average or something but you're putting a very large planter like foundation planting around the street the sidewalk of the
building and I'm looking at your neighbors and they all have plantings on the um curb side of the And so I just want to see like how are you making these decisions i think it could be quite lovely to have them but you want to stitch this building into a larger
neighborhood so that would be my bigger comment to you um I think there's a lot of interesting moves you've made to try to kind of push the building back and then I'll go to that public park um can we have a plan up yeah that'd be great
um I just wonder if there's something This neighborhood feels a little neighborhoody right like maybe families live here i see in the Google there people pushing their strollers and and all the folks who'd live here maybe
there's something about programming of that public park that differentiates it from the public park next to it so it'd be great if there was a connection like a path between them but if not if that's not possible but I think there's already
lawn in Mahoney Park and I just um wonder if there could be some more like backyard programming like um vegetable gardening or things that kind of hearken
to a neighborhood um and make this feel more homey um so that would be my one piece of advice it feels um like it could use a little bit of programmatic character that's unique to the demographic who's living here so
those would be my only two comments maybe I'll chime in because I have seen this project a couple of times and I I think you know where this project is happening is right where it's transitioning from the you know town
houses the row houses to much larger projects definitely along west first definitely along second you'll start to see these bigger you know Texas wrapped style apartment buildings um I think what they're trying to do is
balance you know um the project viability and you know respond to some comments that we've suggested that they need to ensure that the quality of Mahoney Park is not being compromised so I do think that that
before and after of that massing change helps to you know contribute positively to the park we were very worried the last time about that increased height um it was good to see that shadow study of where the
park were not affecting more um than what was previously approved cuz I think that's one thing that I I I'm very mindful of and I definitely think where you've added square footage seems to be reasonable and certainly the height on First Street is going to be in line with
other projects that we've approved along First Street so I think the massing has improved i'm I'm you know I do have some issues with the architecture but um I I think you know that's at least my thoughts is seeing this before they have
come a little they have come you know a long way in that regard i can understand that process my initial reaction and I don't want to like say it unequivocally but is that it still feels pretty big so
I know there's been um an evolution towards this which I really appreciate but just wonder if there's some way in which maybe Mimi you could talk about the facades cuz that they could somehow respond because it feels almost like a
wraparound but the two first and second street are very different and so yeah no I totally hear that maybe we could get a site plan too i think what is a little bit also unsatisfying to hear is that
the park wasn't interested in connecting can we go to a site plan yep we'll go to the the Ron you want to go to the um that wasn't interested in making those connections because I feel like you have a pathway that's similar in scale to the
existing pathways at Mahoney Park but you're actually not going anywhere you're going to like a stair or an eraser stair and so that feels like it could be confusing you might get you know people walking their dog going up to a place you don't want them to go so I I do think if there's not
that you know um interest in connecting the park maybe those visual cues have to redirect to another way or something but I I like the intention that you want to connect to this park but I actually don't think you know it's actually working in
in your benefit um to have that big path to this to that era stair um but I do think that making it seem like a bigger park at the front end and getting rid of that fence is is a positive for sure yeah
like maybe use different terminology and instead of calling this a park it's more like a yard or something more residential where people I just feel like maybe they barbecue out here maybe they um they plant vegetable gardens
they do things that people do in a more domestic setting that they wouldn't do at Mahal Park and maybe we accept that they're too separate and this is this is dedicated to um this development because I agree i think
having that really wide path feels there's something a little commercial about the way this as you're trying to mimic the public park and maybe it just gets scaled down a little bit yeah yeah and commissioners we will certainly reach out to parks again to discuss this
further to see if that opportunity exists past the first conversation we had with them yeah and and Mick Young I believe that there are community gardens in the upper part of the park you can kind of see them i think top left
i'm I'm cons I'm uh interested in how successful they are because a lot of community gardens are so successful i mean there's like months and months of wait list and I just walked by it in Google Earth and it
looks very charming like little scruffy there's like a wood shed and I kind of love that like I kind of like that it's it feels less I don't know corporate or complete
and finished by the residents you know so I think the more it can be inspired by Mahoney whether it's uh it's vegetable gardens or flower gardens or whatever they are um
so commissioners I was hearing some very you know good commentary and and specific asks for additional material uh particularly to put the building in context and better describe the scale and the relationship of this building to other buildings not just the 186 West
Second Street but sort of up and down uh Second Street as well as First Street but Mimi do you have comments about the facade architecture that you want to relay to this opponent yeah and I'd like to invite you additional comments please
yeah so maybe if we go to uh in particular the west first i think on you know you have simplified the massing you've have simplified the moves which I think the simpler the better um is always good i still you know think that
there's architectural language around these corner posts and balconies that feel really uncomfortable to me um I don't know what the right solution is but I I do think that this corner open
you know balcony moment and the twostory height o entrance are the language doesn't feel very uh cohesive yet and I think the other architectural comment that I have is
when you have those bays that overhang I know you have plantings underneath but they just feel like shadow areas that you might want to think a little bit more about that language like I don't know does it taper or something it feels I don't know that putting a window into
the garage is the right architectural solution there as the grade um changes those elements come really close to sidewalk height i don't know any commissioners have any comments i know David you
joined in midway through the presentation but my Yeah my apologies for for being so late um I just two comments i I agree with what you just said Mimi and I wonder if there's there's kind of a
um um disengagement of the corners from the body and um and and a sort of uncomfortable change in scale in the in the masonry part of the building the windows are they're small
but I'm not criticizing that um but then I get to the corners and the the corners read of course like a six-story element or at least a five-story element and then I get back to the punch and then the bays we read like again a bigger
element and I'm looking I'm wondering if there's a if there's a way to be more consistent about the scale if we want the scale to be feel residential have streetscape and then be residential above um lined up the middle ground in
the in the scaling elements and not I feel big to small to big to small and that's making making um I don't know making it feel um sort of discontinuous and disconnected and then my only other comment is I think the drawing that the
easiest way to communicate what Mick Young is looking for is you had that aerial axonometric but you only had the block and if you had the surrounding blocks uh in that drawing i think that would help us enormously to understand
how it connects on all four sides um that was an that was a very interesting drawing and um and to Mimi's point uh I think you have made some nice massing moves i think u pulling the building
back adding the massing where you add it added it was not detrimental where you pulled it back was was helpful to the existing building it's a hard thing you're trying to do um not overwhelm the
existing building and I think it feels better than the first time we saw it but I think if you could add even in a a a massing kind of way the all four sides are are on the opposite side of the street it would help us understand a lot
better that's all yeah commissioners would you do you have any more comments or should we look towards public testimony i'm ready to go to public testimony everyone good question we can always
follow up with more comments okay so at this time we'd like to invite any members of the public in attendance who may wish to contribute public testimony to raise your digital hand and I will call on you if you're calling in by phone dial star 9 to activate the raise hand function and star six to mute
unmute yourself please state your name and any relevant project affiliation information and please keep comments to 2 minutes and we have one hand raised uh Valerie if you can unmute yourself and I suspect Valerie may also be able to
speak to the um the uh the gardening plots as well uh yes can you hear me yes yes okay great um I'm Valerie Burns and I'm a community gardener um uh at Mahoney Park and um I have was on the
list for three years and I got a a plot um last year so I'm very excited about my second year in the park um and just a word about uh Mahoney Park is a new park it's a it's a success of the neighborhood it's something that the
neighborhood is very proud of it's only about um 6 years old it was um it was created com there's no parks in this neighborhood there's lots and lots of people coming we have lots of larger um buildings like this one that you're
looking at in the neighborhood so there's lots of people and there's no parks um uh and there are balconies and there are little bits of private um private spaces but there are no parks so this park was the it was a a public
works city of Boston public works um yard and there was some developer um community benefit um funds and city funds and the community worked really hard to to create this this park and um
one of the things they the neighborhood wanted was a community garden because even if you're in the older housing you have the traditional housing you don't have any yard space so um there are 22 plots in the um uh 22 plots in the
um in the park and um we really need sunlight we're very concerned about what's happening uh in the building next to us um uh this park is new it wasn't there in 2014 when the park when the this building was first um permitted and
we're we appreciate the trimming that's been done but we are very concerned about the um the amount of shadow that remains um primarily on the parks um I have a comment about the about the pocket park but I I have I see my stop
so I guess I'll stop thank you Valerie any further public comment okay seeing none I'll return it to the commissioners and ask for the proponent to share their screen again and maybe put up a site plan
um Ron you want to put up Would you like a site plan Seth is that what you requested yep okay sure we can start here to see if the commissioners have uh any other additional thoughts or or questions there was one other comment that I did
want to um just offer the the sidewalk that's along Sea Street at five feet 4 in wide seems fairly narrow yeah um so I don't know that that's really following any complete streets guidance
in terms of widths it's actually 9 ft yeah it's five feet clear and then four feet for the tree pit and then we have I think four four feet three inches after that so that's the question is do you actually need that foundation planting of four feet i
think there's there's no foundation planting the retaining walls are now gone and that's what is that green next to the building then this is on grade this is planting that's on grade this is your net side your sidewalk is five feet
and then you have a 4 foot right so if you reduced the width of that green you'd have a wider sidewalk if I'm understanding this correctly these are the guidelines so the guidelines in the area have a wider sidewalk on first
street and second street so these are the the the pick guidelines public this feels very narrow to me what okay oh that's the guideline for the aerator is exactly that five and four and then the sidewalk on on on
first i would recommend just taking a look at it maybe you could draw a section just to show us like if you have oh two people crossing each other one person has a baby carriage and you have the street street pits um street trees what are you getting there um we we will
certainly look at this crosssection to confirm that this is the recommended complete streets uh sidewalk and cross-section which I think it is here but we will double check to confirm m and that's not that's not to say that even within the of course within the
available space between the curb and the building um as Mick Young is suggesting there could be other ways to take a look at the uh distribution of the space here peter yes yes yeah so I think commissioners we have a big decision to make do
we have we given enough guidance that the proponent can work with the um you know the planning staff on these revisions and come back to full commission or do we need to see them again as they work through the revisions
we talked about i mean it does feel to me like there's more work to be done but I'm not a good judge of when that should happen and with whom so I'm going to leave this to you guys i And this is my first time seeing it so
I don't feel it's fair that I make that judgment and Marie you went unmuted yourself what do you I I I guess I you know I didn't I because I had asked questions about the landscape so I think the proponent you've done a good job of addressing the
scale the specific scale issue of you know stepping down to meet the park i when I think about our responsibility as BCDC a key aspect of it is understanding the building within its context and and
I and I understand and I I was I I I was present for the previous presentation and understand that you are negotiating the change in scale between the neighborhood um and you know an area that had a whole
different scale of building so the one thing that I think is missing in this presentation in addition to the to to the issues that were that were discussed in this forum the absence of an understanding of how this fits within
the surrounding context is um is a little troubling um and I guess just to confirm Mimi so the idea is that is is determining whether or not we vote that we need that this comes back to us
or whether we vote to say we put it in the hands of the planning staff correct correct well it would need to come back regardless for full commission okay it's whether it comes back to subcommittee um and you know certainly I think the you
know from my point of view the direction we've heard loud and clear um I think we have a lot of uh work to do with the proponent to on both the content to help you know justify um the decisions and the larger massing and the moves here uh as well as
continued refinement to the streetscape to the landscape to the architecture itself um so it's certainly something that we are committed to working with the proponent on uh and working on until you know we feel that it's it's ready to go that's not something that we would bring back next you know next week uh
you know month for uh for a vote uh because I do think there are some things here that that need addressing so there's a question from about what about the community i assume that there is a community process can you give us a little bit more
insight about what's happening Seth with that yes so uh as uh this is article ADB large project review there is um uh series of public meetings as well as I believe an I A meeting um that has taken
place um I believe Valerie has among others have been a part of the uh the public meeting process um I do not know if they have another public meeting scheduled or not um so that I would have to get back
to you about so I I guess I would say you know not speaking specifically about the the landscape architecture but the architecture that uh I could frankly go either way i I I think you know if when this comes back
to full commission there needs to be a lot of um there needs to be additional material to help us understand the conditions that we discussed this evening yeah at this meeting you know
both in terms of understanding how this development fits within the context of the surrounding community to better understand the the landscape and the streetscape you know between the building and the street and then
to address the recommendations or the suggestions that were made in respect to the relationship or the design of the pocket park that's within the development site and the adjoining public park can you give me a little
refresher i'm sure you said this at the beginning so this went through one full uh the first month first of the month presentation yes there was an introduction and this is the first walk me through the next have they Is this the first subcommittee
meeting this is the first subcommittee meeting okay i'm going to make a vote it might be a little unpopular with the proponent team but it's a big project there are questions about the facade design the size the context the
landscape i think this deserves a second viewing by in subcommittee and then going then it could that could happen at any time Seth it could happen after maybe that's a recommendation I would make it happens
after Seth you work with the proponent group and you I know you guys do a great job and it comes back to us subcommittee and I'm sure but just to see a project of this scale and magnitude just have one subcommittee meeting feels a little
light to me but I don't know how my fellow commissioners feel i I support what Mick Young just said for the reasons she just said it um and I would I would just add this that um we've made
a lot we've talked a lot about seeing better more understanding better the context but I would urge the proponent not to just come back and I know that that Seth and and Urban Design won't let this happen but I'm going to say it anyway um uh don't just come back and
show us context show us real um refinement and development so that you make it easy to say let's go to full commission uh and I think that's some of the site issues that you've heard about and also um the the architecture kind of
all around the building on all the especially the public faces of the building and I would add to have a even a better shot of getting to full commission the next time come with options like if they're architectural solutions that you feel
you know you want uh input on or park pocket park you know ideas that you want input on i do think that often we see proponents come with options instead of just one final
design um so I think that could be a something to think about i don't mind if you guys come with options and say this is what we prefer you know in fact I prefer that but to
show that there was a process of um looking at the streetscape looking at the facades as they are on First and Second Street and seeing if that impacts the work at all i think that would help a great deal yeah and Seth if I could
just ask just one conversation with the parks would be helpful to really understand you know do they really need to pivot and just you know do something adjacent but separate or is it something that we could really tie in i think
that's a really important piece to figure out okay all of that heard um documented and of course this is also being recorded so we will go back to the recording to make sure that we get everything as well um and there's no vote occurring so no
formal provisos but a lot of great uh feedback from the commissioners on how to improve um both the the argument for what this building is as well as improving the building itself uh and the landscape and its relationship i want to
commend uh the proponent for bringing housing into this neighborhood really rejuvenating this neighborhood i think it's very exciting and so just work with us here a little bit and you know bring it to the next level and I think it'll
be very exciting for this neighborhood okay and I know the planning department feels the same oh great it's always good when we're on the same page and so commissioners it's my understanding that the proposed project is recommended for additional review at
design review subcommittee um thank you to the proponent and proponent team uh commissioners as always thank you for your time uh and look forward to seeing you a reminder that we have another subcommittee next week so hope to see you then thank you everybody you guys
have a great evening thanks everyone have a good night overnight Part: 2
thank you good evening everyone and thank you all for joining us for design subcommittee meeting of the Boston Civic Design Commission today's date is Tuesday April 15th and this is session A of the BCDC
design subcommittee the planning department continues to host public meetings in a virtual setting for the health safety and accessibility of Boston residents i am Christina Rico executive director of the Boston Civic Design Commission and senior urban designer at the City of Boston Planning
Department before we proceed with the agenda open meeting law requires that I notify the public that this meeting is being recorded i'm making a recording of this meeting please turn off your camera and microphone if you do not wish to be recorded um and for the purposes of the record uh
commissioners Eastley Morris and Solano are present at this time we are also expecting commissioners Evans and Codoritus i'll let folks know as soon as they've joined tonight's agenda will include presentations for the 10-year
institutional master plan for Northeastern University and for 3430 and 3440 Washington Street Jamaica Plane tonight's meeting proceedings will follow the typical BCDC design subcommittee format beginning with a brief presentation from the proponent
comments from BCDC commissioners and public testimony i'm going to go ahead and uh promote Maryanne Victoria and Corey to co-host as they are the first presenters but before I do that just a quick summary
uh for Nor Eastern a proposed 10-year institutional master plan for Nor Eastern University seeking article 80D entitlement contemplates approximately 2,224,000 ft of new construction and approximately 935,000 ft of renovation
across eight proposed institutional projects this will be the fourth presentation of the proposed project to the design subcommittee following introduction at the June 25th 2024 monthly meeting and subsequent design subcommittee meetings on December 17
2024 January 21 and then March 18th 2025 and it's my understanding that there are no commissioners present who intend to recuse themselves from deliberation a reminder to the proponent team that presentations will be limited to 15 minutes uh and I'll give you a two-minute warning when you're getting
close to the end of that and with that um I invite the proponent team to begin presenting just as soon as I can promote you to co-host oh Christina we might need I think is going to share her screen so might as
well sure thing thank you all righty is everyone promoted that needs to be able to present okay I think so go ahead just really quickly wanted to thank
everybody uh I'm Victoria Abina i'm ABP for campus planning and design at Northeastern University and I'm joined today by my colleague Corey Berg who's the director for campus planning and our consultant team on the project that all
of you have already met but Marian Compo from Sasaki Associates and um Kartiki Sharma from Suzaki so um we look forward to having this discussion we've made um a lot of progress and we really
appreciate your engagement to date and all of the feedback and um we are happy with where the plan is um and I hope you'll um appreciate the changes we've made so I'm going to hand it over to Maryanne to walk us through um the plan
on each individual site that we focused on based on uh our discussion um last month great good evening everyone um thank you Victoria so what we heard from the BCD DC last um time we met um a couple quick
things is just to remember that we were going to simplify massing uh we want to make sure that we're considering the pedestrian experience really thinking about the DATMS that are part of our context and how we carry those through our massing there were also thoughts
about creating additional views so we can get a couple different perspectives to understand how we're creating these urban scenes um through the kind of projects that are part of the IMP um as well as where there might be connections and illustrating how the open space
network is working as we think about larger patterns that are knitted into this urban campus so if we move to the next slide we have um our proposed plan has really again those three areas of focus at 21 foresight street um the
second being bursting rubenstein and third being the east end and so considering massing understanding the public realm um and all with the goal of creating really powerful vibrant urban spaces for this institution and how it
contributes to larger city making so on the next slide um we'll move into first and foremost University Ben's campus community um and this is along for um Huntington Avenue and um the idea of of taking 24 for 21
foresight and rethinking this as a residential um community for northeastern students um and seeing that this massing would be responsive to mitigating any shadows that would be on the back bay fence but really celebrating a public realm where we can
think about welcome mats that mirror what we're seeing within this greater context of the Marino Center um as well as how we play with the kind of datams and continue that um strata across the Huntington Avenue elevations so on the
next slide what you'll see then is um what we presented before um and changing the datam so that on the right side the latest scheme starts to see the base of the building so that we've increased
that base to being 60 feet high as a street wall that continues from the surrounding kind of buildings um and in showing that massing change um to maintain the datim and more pedestrian scaled experience along Huntington um
with a 5-ft step back um as you move towards the tower where there will be housing and then also thinking about the setbacks and the welcome mat at the corner um which is mirroring the Marino Center Plaza and thinking about these
different plazas as small medium large um as they start to round around the kind of intersection of Huntington and Foresight Street so on the next slide what you'll see then is an existing kind of view u
from the green line looking at that crossing of all these students crossing the street um and and then moving to the next slide what you see is that same vantage point and then understanding how
214 side on the right side uh would be designed to again maintain that kind of street wall of 60 ft um as it starts to work uh across Huntington um in that block and then also seeing the kind of
18 ft set back along Huntington to widen the sidewalk so that we can plant trees thinking about passage along that street um as well as a 15t setback which would allow you to connect towards the back bay fence uh from Rugle Station along
Foreside Street um you'll also see the proposed foreside plaza to the left so as we enter in this area we kind of see this major intersection um between Foresight and Huntington Avenue and how that's punctuated um with an entry that
would be subject to later review with article 80B for for large project review but just thinking about the zoning envelope of the the kind of base of the building activating that um base um with uses that would be more um vibrant and
fronting Huntington Avenue so on the next slide um as we move forward we'll we'll travel to West Village and bursting Rubenstein on the left you can see the existing conditions um on the right um the site that we have
combining two building sites as to one building site for residential life for Northeastern as we move to the next slide um what you'll see then is that based off our great conversation in March um we've maintained that there's a
street wall of 60 ft which you see um on the right side um that plays to the kind of proposed massing that we're seeing at 500 500 Huntington Avenue um with Worth to the right um and then trying to
maintain um a equal um if not more of a setback to widen the sidewalks at 20 ft along Huntington um this is an alignment with the development to the east or to the right um which ranges with a
sidewalk in front of the Wentworth development of 15 ft to 20 ft i would also note um here we've simplified the massing we've gotten rid of any cantalievers so that you have a sky view um of you know um along
Huntington similar to what the Avenue of the Arts had mentioned um in that study um and that we do have a welcome mat that we see um at the kind of corner of that convergence of Parker and Huntington um with no overhang or
Cantalver here but again that sky view so on the next slide um you'll see that existing um perspective of being on Huntington looking at that corner and proposed um you can see then um a very
simple kind of street wall would be through material differences um that can be seen here as well as some of the kind of massing given that we're we're thinking about housing on the upper floors and really activating um the
first couple floors especially with um kind of student lounge and retail space um punctuating or creating entries that are accessible off of Huntington Avenue and improving the crosswalk u experience across Huntington um as well as the
sidewalks that are surrounding um this building site on the next slide um per your recommendations we wanted to look at different perspectives uh from the MFA lawn and seeing what this would look
like from um you know what's the block going to become um and so this view starts to show what that DATM looks like relative to how it would be a continuous street wall with 500 Huntington and move through the site we can see the 20 foot
setback um but here we also just wanted to note that we would want to create a transitional kind of plaza uh between the two buildings um as we're seeing towards the center of your screen um and making something so that there would be some sort of um small plaza for
gathering and entering through the site moving forward um to the east end um again this is a site where we have now rethought the hered colon um kind of buildings into one major research and academic building as well as Gainesboro
for um kind of student life as well as um academics and research and of course the arena site at 262 St bul here um we've been looking at the massing simplifying it to create these different
outdoor spaces that start to look at um a great kind of street experience on St pat creating uh welcome mats as well as a pocket plaza kind of mediumsiz um open space that would exist in front
of Gainesboro um and then how we would start to again work with the kind of southern parts of those development sites u for movement um along the kind of track and where there would be shared service and circulation as we're moving towards the
Curry Student Center so on the next slide we'll see then that east end um and what those flows could be so in this case looking at the public realm and the connectivity um your migration from St
pet and the arena as you move towards Mugar um you can see a welcome mat at the corner of Gainesboro Street in St atl um the triangular kind of pocket plaza that's bookended by her colonine
um as a kind of major architectural um endpoint there um and something where we've been thinking about how you can move through that building as you're moving from the the triangular plaza through the building um to get towards
Robinson quad um here again um seeing in the red what the kind of liners ers are that would be active existing kind of um elevations or building entries and how we're we're proposing her culin and
Gainesboro to participate um in dialogue with those other buildings and how we're forming the urban kind of public spaces um and setting up some of those viewing corridors so on the next slide um what you'll see then is that rationale you also saw in
that case u some of the service entries that would be to the south on the previous slide but again seeing that there's academic and student life if we go from left to right and then research and academic that's in the her colonine site um we have a continuous street wall
along St the with the Gainesboro site as well as having a a kind of continuous datim at 60 ft for her taken colonine in the middle diagram and then the active uses at the ground level um to the right
diagram so you can see um how we're integrating more private uses such as the pool but lining it with um active lobby space and um social spaces as we front some of the public realm spaces in this particular
area on the next slide you'll see the existing condition of what this is like today um kind of lowrise um parking lots and and streetscape and as we go to the next slide you can see this enhanced
pedestrian experience um extending the St the tall street wall um and creating that defined edge um providing a welcome mat and a major kind of entry into the Gainesboro site um to punctuate the
corner at this critical intersection of St pat and Gainesboro um street we have 20 foot setbacks pretty generous size Wii you know um sidewalks on Gainesboro Street um and then we have a 15-ft
setback that increases to a larger triangular plaza that you can see um with the book end of the heron building really being this kind of transparent um ground floor use where you can enter
through the building to move to Robinson quad so you see these transitional spaces that we're creating uh to enhance that public realm and create paracity through the buildings and in between the buildings while maintaining the kind of contextual datoms that are playing to
different parts of the the kind of district in this area so for the forest side street campus community um we have the three major diff um development sites at the UR complex the foresight comp or foresight
building as well as cabb um again a major industrial kind of area of the campus in historical um and so as we transform the campus it's a reminder that we're really rethinking the
academic core and that foresight street becomes part of this new center of gravity for academics and research as well as campus life so what is that experience as people move from ruggle station um towards the backbay fence in
Huntington Avenue so for us if we move forward on the next slide you can see that this is u one view of Foresight Street overlooking um towards Huntington Avenue um and what that experience is
like if we move forward um you can see the proposed kind of viewpoint again looking towards 21 Forside you can see that little tag in the very back seeing a glimpse of that residential tower but creating this active vibrant spine that
is contextually sensitive to the low-rise buildings with the 60-foot podium active ground floor uses that would be transparent um and then as we move towards along this road uh maintaining a generous sidewalk of of 15
ft with the setback of new developments um that would be also um embracing smaller kind of plazas that would be part of the entries into the the new buildings and then on the next
slide we can see that this is part of our public realm framework that we talked about in yellow you can see the pattern of pedestrian and public realm paths um that are these arcs that are starting to connect um what is an kind
of array of different geometric patterns of the campus um as outdoor spaces and building sites um so as we look at this we can see that there are these diagonals that exist from uh foresight in Huntington as we move towards the
library we have these certain arcs um that are also positioning um patterns of movement um on the left side what you'll see is um based off your comments the kind of shared zone with Dana what is north of Dana and south of our new
foresight east of the UR complex and knowing that this is a major zone for parking um as well as service here we've revisited creating the northern part of that area to be primarily for pedestrians to really protect their
movement from the UR complex as we're moving through that zone um and the image at the bottom shows that half of that shared zone already has been renovated um to create this beautiful little corridor um plaza for pedestrians
so we need to create the missing link um that recaptures some of that service park surface parking into a pedestrian zone that would begin to connect to that image on the left so if we move to the the next drawing um
just a time check Marian oh okay i think you might be close to the end here anyways we are at the end actually this is the end i thought there was one more but thank you Christie right on time
and commissioners I just wanted to acknowledge that uh Jonathan Evans and um Kathy Coderus have joined as well and I think that um they were both they were both here for most of the presentation which is great um well I'll I'll dive in i think that the idea was
that we would have these sessions with um with you all as a way to kind of dive into some of the massing to think about open space and I think the the notion is that today is the kind of wrapup where you're bringing it all together and I
appreciate the presentation Maryanne I think it was really clear and touched on all of the pieces that we had raised in that um March subcommittee which feels like it was just last So thank you for being comprehensive um
with our requests i had a a couple of comments i'm going to go in the order that you presented and uh some of the slides have slide numbers on them and some don't so we may have to hunt around for a few so the first is that I think
we all understand that this is an add we're going to be seeing these projects again as you all continue to work on them and they become more real and um and so I wanted to start with 21 for I wanted to go to the gosh maybe I
can yeah that's fine slide five either slide five or slide seven uh let's try slide seven maybe two from here okay this is good and So as we're thinking about that
kind of the purpose of this ADD I imping what comes in future um you know I look at this diagram and I'm thinking through the comments from our last go with all of you and appreciate you starting to think about
that datim starting to think about well how does the original carveout and welcome mat begin to correlate with this new form term and um and even though this is reading clunky we understand the intent and so
in um I would just suggest that as you're presenting this if we go to the full commission that there's just a nod to the fact that we're kind of in this uh transition between 80D and ADB and some of these buildings like Mercine Rubenstein are are a little bit more
developed and then you kind of hit a stark podium that looks like it's not developed i think just letting people know that um that it's kind of in process would be would be really helpful but I especially for um 21 foresight
really appreciate the DATM because it brings both sides of the street um together the Marino Center um and then the the building that's just beyond the 21 foresight i think it makes a lot of sense contextually to me so I
appreciate you looking at that the Bursting Rubenstein um we can either do slide 11 or 13 so on this one I really like that this
has become a flat iron building that there isn't this complicated undercut and canal lever um and my main comment here is that I appreciate that simplicity and then if you go I think to slide
13 again I think that the messaging here from um from your side is again that that the kind of top of the building looks more designed than the bottom where it's hitting the podium and so it's a little bit confusing graphically
and also the entries are are rather flat because you haven't sorted that out yet and so I think it's just a matter of either graphically making this more similar to like slide 21 where it's kind of a massing rather than showing articulation that hasn't been worked out
yet or making sure that your narrative is very clear about the fact that we're kind of in between here um but I think the flat iron works a lot better i think the site is so complicated that it just helps to simplify what we're doing on this corner and then kind of the nod to
500 Huntington with the with the street wall um I personally feel like that 21 Forsight is more important for kind of that DATM than this site uh because you're only really giving a nod to one building that ends up you know not being
a a historic development but a new development um but I appreciate where you're going with it and then um going to the east end we've spent a lot of time talking about
this part of the project and um in the plan views and some of the plan views that you shared the I thought um yeah this one is fine where we're talking about herig and
cullen I know that we have talked about whether that diagonal can come through and directly connect to what I think is Robinson quad and so uh as you guys are working through the program you'll you'll sort
that out exactly Maryanne and so again we're at an 80D here thinking about what what are the macro moves and um and so just something to think about since that's definitely been something that the commission has raised about just making those connections and not only
making the pedestrian connection in a more clear way but actually making the visual connection that as you're coming kind of with your back to St to and crossing through that building that you're automatically aligned with Robinson quad um I think could be a
really beautiful statement and then um just two other comments on slide 18 thank you for removing the barnacle from our May conversation this feels much clearer to me um and even looking at this one
again because we didn't have this one for our our last meeting but it's also really clear where the entries are to the two buildings now as you're essentially coming from the arena and I think that clarity goes a long way to helping to mitigate some of the kind of
confusion on campus in terms of um buildings having a more odd geometry and St bal here has an odd geometry itself and so um I appreciate that and then the last thing that I would add and just thinking about this project is that I
think it could be really helpful to begin with that kind of larger scale open space diagram or diagrams and the reason is that when we began this project when we first saw this project in full
commission one of the recurrent themes from commissioners was that it felt confusing it was hard to understand the organization of the campus and I know last time we kind of drew the smile or we drew the two arcs through the campus as a way of kind of helping ourselves to
understand and um and I think it's just a really helpful way to to explain what you're trying to do and then all of the ways that these new projects touch some of these big moves that help to um reorganize the campus through all the
grade changes and building geometries I think I think could be really helpful so um that was really an epiphany for me in that March meeting is to really understand okay this is how you actually move through the campus um it's more of an arc and it's less of a you know going
from quad to quad so anyway I think it's been great you guys have been really responsive to all of our comments and in some ways I I think it's um helpful to take almost a step back to that massing for some of these projects since they're in between and allow
um us to kind of assess the the massing and the space making based on those kind of bold forms yeah I would happy to to build off of that i think this has been uh exciting to see evolve uh I'm I'm probably caught
in between the uh maybe sort of eagerness to look at some of these buildings at a much more granular level that I think will come as part of later submissions i realize what this what this is as as at this moment um and I I guess maybe to that end maybe my my uh I guess comment or
encouragement is I I appreciate this sort of 60 foot datim that we're sort of that's being established and I guess again as we get to the project by project level conversation that that I think I think each building has to have its own
attitude towards what that means to its its form and its massing and its and its identity i think like the the Bernstein and Rubenstein one for example on slide 11 i think that's one where you're it's almost a very severe urban design diagram where it's like I appreciate
that's clean but now we have this very clean uh uh uh implication of a different attitude towards the architecture from above and below 60 ft right and I don't know if we wanted to necessarily be that aggressive so all these are things that I think you is probably front of mind for you all as you kind of take this to the next step
but I appreciate kind of setting that as a uh again a data thing to understand and to sort of react off of but uh yeah at a high level this is all exciting to see and excited for kind of next steps here could we go to slide
13 just have a a question um there's the note about the transitional plaza um about the program flow between buildings could you show me that in plan
i see it and then what's between those buildings just a a a passageway no there's no through connection because there's change in elevation between Parker and Huntington um so it's just that corner
plaza yeah I actually I I can give a little more color all right now that you're asking this question I realized that the drawing doesn't reflect it but one of the comments we provided as part of the 500 Huntington Avenue review was that them pushing against that you know
how the base here looks like it kicks out to be parallel to um the lot line and we pushed back on that and I think the final design actually took that away and created a heartscape plaza
uh with seating so that we can have a reciprocal heartscape plaza and have a little bit of a breathing room it does not go behind the building okay um but it does have some you know smaller scale frontage on Huntington Avenue that
separates this large uh lab building from you know what we knew we would want to be a residential program was active student ground floor right okay thank you um and then could we go to the east end um and let's start
with the plan oh thank you um so I know that that this has been um worked on so much and it's it's really advanced itself but I can't help but um ask about the service areas and
how those are going to work and in particular at the Curry Student Center with that service entry deep in does it need to be that deep in so that is an existing service area we're not changing it and yes it does it's
actually it's it's at a very different elevation it it slopes down towards where the arrow is and it provides also accessible entrance into Mugar but it does have all of the
service off the student um student center loading uh and and actually that other blue arrow is also serves as our accessible entrance into Mugar and is also loading an access so that is an
existing condition that we can work to beautify but it is not something that can be easily changed without redevelopment of Mugar well I have a I have a question so basically if I were to draw a section
through this if you have the building you go down and then am I going back up to this path yeah so the path is is ramping down from Krensman towards Robinson Quad so that
path there is a zigzag yep and then it comes the ramp comes down parallel to Mugar Wall and uh what you see a pedestrian through connection through Curry Center is an entire floor below Krensman Quad mhm yeah
um you've worked so hard everywhere to really improve the circulation and you know service areas are just the bane of institutions um you know the way that I see a plan at
at this um moment in time is that there's lots of opportunities for the landscape you just have to have the space needed to do those to do those plans later on so I would I would encourage you
to as you move through this to just continue to look at those surface areas and how they can not interrupt um the the flows that you've made you know I'd almost I understand you can't but just
as a diagram I would prefer almost not to even have that path because it's you're kind of dragging people back to um a pretty uh miserable um condition i think I mean maybe it can
be better i don't know whether or not how elevations work but maybe in the future look and see whether or not there's any capping that can happen on that service area or something that gives more back to the
landscape um I think Robinson and the space between Gainesboro are pretty well behaved um it's it's just the one um at Curry that stands out and I I understand you have an existing condition you're
trying to meet um I this every time I've seen this plan I wonder about whether or not people are really going to cut through her to to cullin and I'm curious if you all have
had that conversation as well and I what I think about even though this isn't what you're doing is um in what is now the Smith Center when it used to be Holy Oak trying to cut through and it was almost impossible because of the wind
you could barely open the door um and so I I just wonder how well that will be used i get the diagram of wanting to to connect through but yeah so we we actually it's interesting you you make a great point it depends on whether there
is an active use inside so with uh we see this with Isac the way um which is our research building that was completed on Columbus by pay there is a through connection um from Columbus towards pedestrian
bridge and now that there is a very good coffee shop inside students go through it all the time before when they didn't like the vendor they went around well interesting so it's really about the programming
inside but it is faster to your point is to go around the building than it is to go through the building and because you're navigating other people you're navigating furnishing and we try to activate every square inch of our interior real estate usually yeah um so
what I've seen anecdotally we haven't done a PED study is that when they like something they'll go inside and through and then come out on the other side but generally they will walk through the kind of landscaped area and stay outside
if they're just passing through so I think that the bigger traffic flow will be through around but I think if we do if you know not if but when we do the development and redevelopment of Heric
Cullin and if we invest uh that it's an opportunity to invest into making that um service road pedestrian to have dual uses with landscape and protection and signage
then that will be even a faster way to get to Gainesboro if students want to go that Okay uh sorry g S Bat and and the Rex space there right so could we see the perspective that looks from
um say Bolt that's this way i think it's maybe the one after this but I'm not sure i've lost track oh yeah there we go so I wonder you know and this is future right because
um you know when we look at these master plans right we do the best that we can do for the information that we have but the you know life changes and I still can't help but wonder whether or not someday this might be
on columns at the end just the way that is um so that you kind of have this rhythm of open and open and maybe giving people a choice to go around that building but again I think that's when you get you know when this is built
you'll know a lot more um as you start to plan those other buildings but um I do appreciate how much you've done at this end we're I I feel like we're in a very different place than when we first saw that and
then I wanted to go to force size i think I think I have it right oh yeah that's perfect what is the What is this building or the Is it a What is that do you see I'm sorry do you see
where I've circled right next to Dana the small one yes so that is our um that's our Latinx center um it's a teeny tiny building but it's if you've been to our campus it's very colorful and has kind of murals splashed all over it yep
um Yeah and then I wanted to see the view that you had about this the shared space um I think there's um existing on the left hand side it was a photograph just want to make sure I
understand that oh there we go if you don't mind zooming into that just a little bit i can't zoom in but I can just maybe like make it bigger so that I can just Well that'll work too yeah one second so
so orient me where is the shared space now in this so this is Yeah so this is actually um this is kind of in response to I I think you've been you've been pushing on this um uh service road versus pedestrian
yeah which I I really value that comment because I actually feel like it's such a characteristic of our campus where our service roads are often pedestrian connections and so this is a space that was previously parking um it's just next to our library so you exit out of the
library you look left and this is a space that we really activated for student use um during co we had little bonfire areas and heaters um and it's it's just become kind of this like quiet
space but it it abuts directly you know the loading area and cooking that's needed for the Latinx and and buildings there um and so then this space are you saying that this space will be treated
similarly in other words there's going to be some um precedence given to the um landscape in that area yeah I think it's more this acknowledgement that um all of our pathways need to need to
really have some service function but I think this is kind of an inspiration of if we could continue this sort of treatment here so that um you still have that service service function um I think it's worth noting that kind of south of Dana is really a primary pedestrian
connection to the Centennial but we are um you know by nature of Unckinking Green Leaf Street by the UR complex this could become maybe more of a pedestrian desire line and so even just continuing some sort of paving pattern like this um
might make it feel a little bit more um welcoming I guess yeah and I also think about this connection right it's pretty that's a pretty tempting um entrance into this kind of great um courtyard
space in the back so um I'm I'm glad to see this photograph that actually there's a precedence for this on campus and um so you've got um I think you've got your thinking right about that um and that's really all I had i think that
the um I think that the spaces that you've made for the landscape to develop and evolve over time are are really sharp and um I look for I I hope I live as
long to see it all implemented but um it looks terrific thank you thanks Laura um Katherine or Kathy any comments before we see if there's any public comments
you all have shared everything I was going to talk about so thank you all right thanks Katherine um same here although I just want to commend you for the general flow through the campus to not not just the internal portions but
how you've met the edges and how you've met the the surrounding communities it it it feels much more comprehensive and um and um and thoughtful and engaging to
the the surrounding neighborhood so I um and I know that that was a a matter of conversation really early on so I commend you for that thanks Kathy so Christina I don't know if we
have any public comment but I'd love to leave some time for that at this time we'd like to invite any members of the public in attendance who may wish to contribute public testimony to raise your digital hand and I'll call on you if you're calling in by phone dial star9 to activate the raise hand
function and star six to mute and unmute yourself please state your name and any relevant project affiliation information and please keep your comments to two minutes commissioners at this time I see no hands raised so I'm going to go ahead
and close public testimony period and we don't need a formal vote since it's design subcommittee meeting but we do need to uh make clear what the next step will be i feel really comfortable having this go back to the
full commission i feel like the questions that we've asked have been looked at and I think we've had some more suggestions here from commissioners which hopefully can get wrapped up into a updated presentation how do others
feel about that kathy I'm seeing head nodding from you okay I agree catherine okay sounds like we have consensus team Northeastern great so we will bring Northeastern's
IMP and the um ADB application for Matthews Arena together back to a full commission quite soon thanks Victoria thanks Corey thanks Marian thank you all thank you everybody really appreciate your guidance and all
the comments have a great night you [Music] too all righty so our next presentation is for 3430 and
3440 Washington Street in Jamaica Plane uh just a quick preamble here a proposed project at 3430 and 3440 Washington Street to make a plan seeking ADB entitlement contemplates the development of approximately 225,000 ft of mixed
uses including approximately 12,000 ft of ground floor retail 256 dwelling units and 142 parking spaces in two buildings on two sites that are approximately 1.25 acres in total this will be the first presentation of the
proposed project to the design subcommittee following its introduction at the December 3rd monthly meeting it's my understanding that there are no commissioners present who intend to recuse themselves a quick reminder to the proponent team that the presentation will be limited to 15 minutes and I'll
give you a two-minute warning uh when you're getting close there to the end uh with that uh Mark uh Joe um and others I'm happy to promote you to co-host if you're able to start sharing your screen thank you Christina um can everyone see
this all right yes may I just want to make it full screen there yep okay uh good evening commissioners my name is Mark Sullivan from Chewing & Company Architects um architect on the U
project at 3430 and 344 Washington Streets nice to see all of you um we will quickly go through our presentation and look forward to receiving and hearing your comments after this um so this presentation will be on our project at 3430 and 344 Washington Street in
Jamaica Plane um the project consists of two lots with frontage along Washington Street and are biseected by Rockville Circle down the middle with Kenton Road being on the right side of the 3440 Washington Street site um I know Christina kind of gave
you a quick overview um but we are working with two different buildings um a total of 230 residential units um the both of these buildings will be mixed use with about 6,340 ft of retail and commercial space on the ground floor
along Washington Street um the two sites reside in a local industrial zoning subdist and they fall within the uh J the plan JP Rocks um overlay the planning overlay um the proposed 3430 Washington Street site building which is
on the left here um is six stories uh while the 344 Washington Street um building on the right here is proposed at five stories um so kind of most importantly what we heard at our last meeting was quite a while ago but the end of last
year on December 3rd um we wanted to kind of give a brief overview of what we heard and how we responded um so in that meeting you asked us to provide a clear overview of the site context as it relates to the project um you wanted us to look at the building massing and scale um as it approaches the
residential neighborhoods um to the south of both of these sites um you wanted us to explore open space specifically along the ground floor and all sides of um each building um you also wanted us to take a look at the materiality and its contextual relationship to the surrounding
neighborhood um and to establish a sense of gateway uh through this massing and open space uh kind of combination um so where we kind of wanted to start was um to provide a comparison graphics um so this is where
the site plan programmatically was um last time you saw it um notably kind of smaller setbacks around the site we're taking up a majority of the site on the ground floor um and then this is where we're looking at in the site plan now um some kind of key components which I'll
get into more detail as we progress um but we've pulled back um basically on all sides of um each one of the buildings uh notably on the rear of the 34 borrow site used to be 10 ft as a setback we pulled that back 20 ft we've introduced a a kind of new typology of
these townhouse units that occur along the ground floor um that that help kind of descale um this ground floor uh massing as it approaches the residential neighborhood to the top of the screen here um as well as increasing open space
in kind of numerous locations including the front along Washington Street um and and specifically along the sides down Rockville Circle and Kenny Road as we approach approach both of these um residential kind of fabrics um to the south of our site but to the top of the
screen um so this was the massing and and kind of how we were seeing it three dimensionally and like I said I'll kind of get into more specific details but just as an overview um this is the massing as you had previously seen it um both of them are include second floor
courtyards um but a lot of the massing really hugging the the sides of that residential neighborhood and this being Washington Street at the top here or at the bottom left here um so the massing and maybe not doing its best to transition um as we had discussed um and
then this is the massing now so as mentioned I'll get into much more detail on it but um the courtyards being positioned not only for um kind of natural light but also to help step down that massing as we approach um that residential fabric um some other moves
along again the ground floor in terms of open space to create more open space um to still programmatically get um kind of a unit count that we're looking for but to try to accomplish these things that we had mentioned last time
um just to take a step back and kind of give you an overall um sort of breakdown of the site um this is show kind of contextually what we are working with the two sites being in red here um so part of the JP plan uh or the plan JP
rocks is to along the Washington street corridor there's a density bonus increase uh which kind of creates this strong spine of density along Washington Street now the these are showing some of the other projects that are not only being built have been approved um some of them are already built that are
consistent with that kind of height threshold that I was speaking about earlier um but this starts to kind of get into what we're trying to bridge um so that density increase coming along Washington Street corridor but then how
do we descale that and and start to step not only the massing but uh increase the ground floor open space as we approach those existing residential neighborhoods uh to the south of our site um but and then across from our site just to give
an idea that that density increase um comes along until we reach like the English high school athletic fields which kind of splits the frontage on our 3440 Washington Street site uh just quickly giving an overview of what exists there currently there's
an automotive shop and a um a gas station on the um 3440 site um and then these are just some existing photos of what the site looks like today um so programmatically we we start to we start to see some of these changes here um
where the orange is representative of the pedestrian pathway uh the blue being kind of the vehicular path um but the introduction of those town houses and kind of pushing that parking inward um has allowed us to in our opinion create a much more kind of robust not only kind
of landscape zone along the edges here um but also to engage more um of the pedestrian scale and feel along the sides here with more glazing and and windows along these townhouse units rather than kind of the blank walls that are a natural um circumstance of a
parking garage being on the exterior Um the entrances um to not only the retail and the residential lobbies are again on Washington Street um I'll get to in a little bit but we have created this kind of nice uh column arcade of
exterior space um both of these entryways have also been um pushed more interior to create a more robust um sidewalk and create much more of a public kind of plaza at the entryways along Washington Street for both of these projects or both of these uh
building sites um so last time we were here uh we were asked to really take a look at some of the massing moves um that we wanted to uh exemplify through this design and I I think it really steps down to we've digressed it down to kind of four steps that we we've taken
uh the first kind of two being following the plan JP rocks in terms of the density allowed um the setbacks required and some of the setbacks that we need to um have the complete street or meet the complete street guidelines and then the next two really describe more of how
we're trying to transition um this massing from that kind of commercial density on Washington Street corridor down to the more residential um scaling um of the residential along Rockwell Circle and Kent Road uh so the first step really becomes those courtyards
those second floor courtyards um on the 3430 site uh we kind of have much more of a natural buffer to the rear in terms of open space there's about a a 64 foot difference between the edge of
our building and the neighboring um home on the other side there's a small road here um and then on the 340 site we we decided to shift this um second floor courtyard to the rear not only to gain more natural light but to also really
descale the massing as it um gets to the residential homes along Kenton Road and the reason being is because those those homes are actually right up near the um the this kind of property now not only did we step it back 20 ft the whole building but we also include this
courtyard that kind of steps it down further um to those uh two and threetory uh residential homes and then the last step being to create that open space um so it kind of the way I describe is kind of two methodologies here one being
along Washington Street corridor where we push in the entryways and create kind of that public plaza area some seating areas raised planters um and then along the sides of Kenton Road and Rockville Circle we start to push the massing back as well to create more planting beds
wider sidewalks um and those entry kind of recessed entryways for the uh townhouse units and that continues around the back of each one of these buildings um on on the rear of each site um just some more massing in scale in terms of the details of that um so that
kind of front entry courtyard along Washington Street the or I'm sorry the the front um the plazas along Washington Street um the the courtyards occurring on the second floor um we also have
introduced um kind of these balcony spaces that really only start to occur as the building moves back to the south towards those residential neighborhoods um which you can see in some of the later renderings but you can start to see here on the corner of Penn Road and back here on Rockville Circle um they
also occur on the 3440 site on uh Rockville Circle as well um and then these column arcades on the corner that help really emphasize the corners um and hold the corners in terms of that recessed entryway but also create kind of an outdoor public space that that
wraps the corner down Rockville Circle um so in terms of looking at open space again I'm going to kind of categorize this in terms of three different zones uh one being the Washington Street quarter where we're recessing the entryways we have some uh raised planters with some kind of
built-in bench seating we have a a 6-ft minimum um furnishing zone with some bike bar we're also including a blue bike station 19 dot blue bike space station in front of the 3430 site um a a brand new bus stop bus bulb with a bus
shelter on the 3440 site and then some kind of uh landscaping that that weaves its way in and out um of this kind of public newly created public plaza and again the setbacks along Rockville Circle and Kent Road start to increase previously they were about eight and a
half um so as you can see we're we're really trying to increase that and create um kind of a planting buffer on both zones that help transition the feel of that sidewalk to that that more uh smaller scale residential uh to the top of the screen so taking a look more
at the kind of detailed um front on Washington Street um again introducing uh new bus stop areas um all new sidewalk trees along the front here um that kind of public plaza feel where we're we're highlighting the entryways with these these raised planters that
have uh bench seating similar to the image that you can see here uh that start to highlight these entryways uh we also do that through materiality which I'll get to in a moment um on the corner of Rockville we we highlight each kind of corner with these uh columnade or or
column arcade um outdoor areas um so that becomes usable for the retail it's it's perhaps moments where we're creating bench seating and creating moments to stop um and gather along Washington Street rather than just kind
of pass by um and then this is starting to take a look at that view so that's that column uh arcade that we saw on the plan view um with some outdoor seating um this is kind of the corner of that blue bike station uh we have that six foot uh planting zone with the sidewalk
trees so this one is out in front of the 3430 site um and then that column arcade continues on the other side of Rock Bell Circle um again kind of holding the corner strong and and and pushing in at the entryways in the center of each building along Washington Street and
then this is taking a look at that uh raised planter with the bench seating the bus stop in front of 34 borrow Washington Street and and again how kind of all those components um interact and that experience along uh Washington Street
uh and then taking a look at the sides um again we're we're undulating the facade of the townhouse residential um units that start to occur along Rockville Circle and Kenton Road um and this creates kind of a unique opportunity for kind of planting on both
sides where we have uh planting in front of um the town homes and we also have plant and then we have sidewalk zone and then we have a planting zone outside of that where sidewalk trees u occur and how that kind of steps back and starts
to undulate um hopefully it it in our mind anyways transitions a little bit better to that residential fabric rather than just a flat wall of parking obviously uh that doesn't have as much dynamic um feel to it to
the facade um and then that's a view down Rockville Circle kind of getting the idea of that where you start to see really more of the landscaping come into factor as you move down Rockville Circle um this is kind of that corner of the column arcade that wraps the corner on
the 3430 Rio site and then taking a look at Ken Road you can kind of see that more as an elevation um how that starts to occur um these are those townhouse units um that start to break down the scale uh we play with kind of materiality and how that
works um where the the massing kind of brings down some of those residential materials um and that that landscaping buffer zone that it that starts to transition into the residential fabric um and then the last zone being kind of the rear where uh as mentioned on the 34
four site we're stepping an additional um we were previously 10 feet off of the property line um we start to create this path um that's gated on either side that becomes um entry points for these townhouse units that wrap the rear um so
that's now 20 feet as a setback so that allows us to create a planting buffer zone between the existing home and the existing multif family here as well as create a pathway um an accessible pathway that enters all of the townhouse units and then also um another planting
zone in front of the townhouse units so a more robust um planting area we also are planning for kind of some small seating areas that we're kind of continuing to develop um along uh this kind of multif family site as it it's more open and lends itself to that um
and then at the the 3430 site as mentioned we kind of have this more natural buffer zone of landscape so these are existing trees that exist there today um our setback is 11 feet but we are providing again we have that additional kind of uh landscaping zone
with uh the street that runs um as an extension off of Rockville um to the the south of our site um and then this is taking a look behind the 3440 site and giving you an idea of uh the kind of different uh conditions
that we're we're trying to accomplish with um the rear and those townhouse entry areas um so part of it um on that the single family that's along Kenton Road that directly abuts us um we've been in talk with him in terms of what
he may be looking for in terms of six foot privacy fence but still trying to maintain the uh kind of planting zone and and walkway along the back there um in terms of materiality um we're we're trying to take some context clues from
around um the neighborhood um this uh building being a little bit up on Washington Street up north on Washington Street um also a residential building it predominantly found as a lot of brick along Washington Street um we want to try to continue that uh motif um and
then move to more residential neighborhoods as um maybe not like a metal or fiberment siding a more of a lapsiding look to it that um that starts to transition material um wise to that residential fabric um but as you can see
the the brick really what we're using it here is to to highlight the corners um of each one of those buildings and then um the top floor the recess top floor starts to step down material to material-wise to those um entryways um
and starts to highlight those entryways um and that's kind of our goal with uh this material pallet as it stands right now um we did want to um create a little bit of difference with the material I guess palette stays the same between building and building but the colors
start to change a little bit um we we did want to create some a little bit more of a dynamic feel between the two rather than just one kind of larger massing just a quick time check Mark sure thank you um and then so the last kind of part of
this is is different views around the site and and what we're trying to accomplish and hopefully accomplishing but I'm sure we we'll be interested to hear some of your comments and how we can further improve this um that gateway experience on Washington so this is looking at the the 34 3 site mainly but
the 3440 site being kind of on the corner here um a little bit further down the street so this is Kenton Road coming out here um and then this is a building that's already been approved um by the BPD separate building uh but giving you an idea of that kind of street wall
along Washington Street um this is a look from Rockville looking back towards Washington Street um that second floor courtyard you can see here um and and you start to see those balconies step back and and and our opinion trying to
kind of further step away from that massing that was currently there as well um and then those town houses start to create much more of a dynamic kind of facade along Rock Bale um circle and then this is further back down Rock Bell Circle uh looking up again at uh
Washington Street and again we we felt comfortable that the massing could stretch a little bit further back on 3430 um because of that natural buffer um where on the 3440 site we kind of want to step it I guess further away um from the the residential directed
letters um this is taking a look at from Kenton Road um so you can really see where that courtyard starts to step out those balconies start to further um take away the massing the top floors start to step back as well um and it starts to
really meet the scale of um the abuing home this is the abuing home on Kent Road 2 project um material wise we start to bring down the massing moves into that townhouse but then once they become their own kind of freestanding um component beyond that um it changes
back to that kind of brick material and then taking a look from uh the other way from um Ken Row looking up towards Washington Street again that second floor courtyard where we're going to have kind of robust planting area around the edges of it and and move that
kind of amenity deck more to the center um and how that that massing right now anyway steps down to that courtyard and that concludes our presentation thank you thank you so much Mark appreciate the
presentation and as um commissioners are gathering their thoughts I just uh wanted to make a couple of comments the the first is can you remind us which way is north can you put a site plan up quickly sure
uh so so north is kind of uh the north arrow is up here but it pointing down left here so south is the residential neighborhoods are more to the south uh north is kind of at this corner here okay okay so it's kind of um that sun is hitting the kind of map top of these two
projects and the other request is if you can toggle between slides six and seven just a couple of times for us they're the before and after so what we saw the last time and what we're seeing today
that'll be really great so this is the before right yep before and then after again before and then after great thank you so much um I'll make just a few overarching
comments now and then and then come back after other commissioners have had a chance to make their comments that the first overarching comment that I'll make is that I think that the four months were really well spent when we saw you at the beginning of December to when
we're seeing you now the masking changes at least for me have been largely positive and I'm sure that we'll hear more comments about that and my second overarching comment is
that um commissioners as a group you know as we're thinking about engaging more with our partners in planning just as we did in December offering comments for that group to
continue working with the proponent uh alongside of our own process we should feel comfortable to do that again today um as a way to really advance some of the the thoughts and advice and recommendations that we have here um and
allowing that team to further those comments so I just wanted to to kind of set the table with those two things and with that I will um see what commissioner comments we have thank you yeah thank you i can I can
take it from there i I I agree i think the sort of the high level the masking changes make a lot of sense and I think you know help to kind of bring light into the the center of the open space i think it definitely helps to sort of mitigate and meet the neighbors uh uh a
lot nicer towards the back edge there um and I guess I you know I'll start from a public standpoint i I think um uh when I look at the ground floor plan along Washington Street I think one question I have or something to maybe kind of consider yeah uh that's fine yeah that's
a good one um is I think all of the all of the strategies make a lot of sense i think the idea of setting back is is smart i'd love to see a section to better understand this colonade because I I maybe am a little uh concerned that might be
too grand of an architectural move for the scale of the building and so like really how how much space do you have in that zone for for seating for spill out space for a restaurant it looks like it's pretty pretty narrow um so that that's sort of one question and
um uh kind of in that vein and and and I uh I I guess I'm curious is there any opportunity and and again I I say this with some sensitivity to you have a program you've got you got a proform all that stuff
but could in could the residential lobby maybe be biased to one court and not the other such that you might have a bigger retail space that could have some more ability to perhaps allow for larger plaza cuz I guess what I'm looking at is you've got a lot of like the same it's like the same section all the way across both blocks which there's nothing
inherently wrong with that but I guess if we wanted to if you're trying to create a spill out space that might want to have a little bit more room to breathe and and what are what are sort of levers to pull to perhaps make that happen um but again there's I think what you're showing here um there's a lot to like i think the moves are strong i
think I think for me it's that section of that colonade space to make sure that that space really has enough uh kind of integrity um and yeah it looks like right now you're showing a difference between some areas again you're showing that spill out space but then like at the corner on the right side you're showing um you know kind of a race
planting bed in front of that retail so you know is there sort of a I suppose that's already implying a certain uh uh uh not not a bias but like some retail spaces get the spill out and some don't um but but again I think all all the sort of the the strategies make a lot of
sense there um and then I think on the building side I like that slide you had on materiality i think what was interesting there is I would maybe applaud the um I I I applaud looking at a lot of sort of high quality materials um and I
think this stretch of JP has certainly evolved a lot over the last 15 years i I worked on the second from the left building there um so I kind of know know pretty well and I I guess maybe what I'm what I'm curious about is um
how how is your design kind of maybe yes acknowledging this context but what are the sort of larger overarching moves that allow it to sort of speak its own voice and it's not just a collage right and I think you started to get at that
when you sort of mentioned like I've got these brick things at the corner i think that was a nice kind of narrative and a nice sort of way to sort of create some order um um but then it's like why so then why are we switching from light gray to dark
gray metal panel in the middle um and and then let me let me walk that back i'm not necessarily critiquing that but I guess I'd want to sort of understand what the rationale is as part of just the like kind of you've got a lot of nice moves here and how do they
all tell a story or work together um and maybe the last comment um I think I think there's a slide after this one that showed a perspective that showed a Yeah uh wait one more after that i think that showed the Oh did Jonathan freeze i think so oh I'm
so curious to hear what the comment was me as well maybe we can come back um once Jonathan signs back attitude towards place oh Jonathan you're back you froze on us and we were waiting with baited breath to hear your comment
and he froze again um where all right we'll we'll come we'll come back and try to grab Jonathan in a minute other commissioner comments i have Go ahead Katherine my main one is um in looking at um the entire
presentation I'm actually curious about the perspective from Amory Street or William Street um and how that actually tells the whole context of the building there's a lot of angles which is great but in terms of the story along Washington Street from either those
streets from the uh athletic multiplex field that's looking towards that space I don't have that perspective to gauge so I'd be curious to to see that um in that landscape um as part of consideration for this future
presentation absolutely thank you thanks Katherine jonathan back on or he's just signing back on now laura did you want to go ahead while he's Sure i wanted to ask some questions
about the parking um on all of the streets around the the developments both buildings could you Yeah just go to a site plan and let's Yep that's great so where is parking
uh so what currently exists there actually most of the Washington street for both of these sites is um curbcut um massive curb cuts uh this is a gas station this is an automotive um shop so there's really currently not much parking out in front almost at all on
Washington Street um along the corners uh somewhat similar is some larger um curb cuts that exist at the beginning kind of of Rockville rail circle and Ken Road um as of right now the only curb cuts we're proposing to um to close all
of those up and really the only curb cuts that we're creating are these entryways to the parking uh or onsite parking um so we envisioned um kind of a drop off um pickup area along the front
here beyond the bus bulb of the 34 uh 40 site yep exactly right there and then along the front here um of the 34 3 site so yeah the bus bulb obviously um there wouldn't be parking directly in front of that right but there but this is this is
drop off and this is drop off and I'm I'm not quite so sure I understand it on the other building in on Washington so these are these are we still don't have the bus bulb coming out
but yeah our idea was still to have um basically a parking lane along this curve here and on that one it exists the entire length is that right and there's no bulge out at the corner yeah there's no bulge out for like any sort of this
is just for the bus bulb so that that was why that extension is there there's nothing at this corner currently um I I think probably the parking would tend to be not obviously right in front of the blue bike station as the difficulty of getting around it you're probably not dropping someone off right in front of
So this blue highlighted area most likely wouldn't have parking all in front of it um so it' basically be along kind of this area that you highlighted on the right side and then beyond that blue bike station was our thoughts anyways and then what about Rockville
um Rockville I mean we're keeping the sidewalks as they are today um I don't there has been some parking on the side they're both both Rockville and Ken are fairly narrow um so I don't foresee necessarily a ton of parking but we're
not limiting the street parking along Rock Whale Circle so whatever exists there today um could still park there with the exception of these curb cuts that we are making to enter each parking garage along Rock Circle and then could you explain the blue the blue bikes is
are they only in that one location at 3430 i think I have it right yeah so when we were talking with the uh planning department um they expressed the need for putting in the 19 uh doc bay um the idea is that obviously it could service both buildings or
residents of both buildings or um uh shoppers or commercial users for any of these retail spaces but we are putting the the entirety of the 19 dock station as it comes as one um in front of the 34 uh 30 site just because of some of the
restrictions that we had with the bus stop over on the 3440 site um it's kind of what dictated it being out in front of that one um and then just largely also because of the space it takes up it it would be kind of difficult to fit it along Rockville or Kent Road without
significantly obviously stepping back yeah and more than that I was sort of wondering whether or not you'd ever looked at you know doing this in sections um to allow for some more green i mean you've kind of limited your green to
this corner right and then I mean blue bikes are not the best looking things and it feels like you're cheating the um landscape a bit on that building um or the public realm I guess
um by having that long bank of blue of blue uh bikes and again that's just something that you know can go back and you can speak with the with planning about that the thing I'm more concerned
about is the um space given to the public realm on Rockville um and Kenton but in particular on on Rockville because you have such small I
think I thought on another plan when I was reviewing this beforehand that you have I don't know something like three or three and a half foot planting strips for the trees which is so so narrow i mean trees
really can't live in that and so um I don't know what you can do there and in fact I was going to ask you what is the difference in terms of the setbacks on Rockville from now until the previous you had a two plans that you
were kind of comparing before yeah um previously we had about 8 and 1/2 ft which is giving you that like 3 and 1/2t uh planting bed that you're talking about um on both of the roads this Ken was a little bit wider at 9 ft uh kind of the whole length besides this kind of
indent area um so now um on the 3430 site it's set back a lot more um just because of the kind of feasibility of honestly fitting in the units and how we're kind of fitting some of the parking um the 9 foot was continued on
uh this side of Rockville Circle and part of that was in correlation with that kind of multif family that has a similar size sidewalk um we felt that it it was okay to kind of continue that um and then it it steps out further at these town houses now that 3-ft planting
zone for the trees or 3 and 1/2t planting zone for the trees is remain the same and I think that's it mostly in due because we created another planting zone on the other side now I I think we could obviously look at that and see if maybe it deserves to be uh