IMPORTANT & URGENT - 89 Brighton Ave. - HELP SAVE ALLSTON VILLAGE HISTORIC BUILDING

[Eva Webster]

LET’S DO ALL WE CAN TO SAVE AN IMPORTANT PIECE OF ALLSTON VILLAGE HISTORY!

(it will also make a large housing development at 89 Brighton Ave. a better project)

Dear Neighbors —

After round one of public comments last summer (many thanks to those who took the time to send their comments back then), the developer of 89 Brighton Ave. was advised to go back to the drawing board. They came back at the end of last year with what are overall insignificant changes that do not solve any of the major issues (the changes are listed on page 4 of this document: http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/getattachment/bca0b1ac-487c-4887-9ba7-4cdb96a581b4 ).

Now we have a chance to comment in round two. Even a very simple, short comment from you at this time can tip the scales in the right direction, and bring truly positive changes that this project still desperately needs.

I am going to provide you in this message with all necessary information, as well as a simple template/form letter at the end, which you will be able to use (and customize, if you wish) to quickly come up with your comment.  The comments are due by the end of the day this coming Tuesday, February 2 (but if they keep trickling in during the rest of the week, that should be OK).

Why is this issue, which affects mostly Allston Village, important?  Because this project attempts to set a dangerous precedent for Allston-Brighton as a whole, and if there is no opposition, or only very weak opposition, it may lead to many neighborhood homes in A-B (maybe next to you, dear reader) getting scooped up by rapacious developers, and then falling like dominos.  We need to send a message that long-term residents in A-B are not going to be rolling over each time a predatory development proposal seeks to obliterate perfectly functional buildings to erect something that is 10+ times bigger.

But there is also a need for nuanced thinking here.  We cannot, and would not want to stop the 89 Brighton Ave. development altogether. The car rental site at the corner of Brighton Ave. and Linden St. is begging for development — but we can and should try to make this project not just marginally better, but significantly better.

It was hard to get excited by the recently proposed changes.  They cut a measly 4,000 SF out of a 117,000 SF project (a mere 3% reduction - almost a joke). They reduced the number of units from 138 units to 130 — and it’s still expensive small rentals in an area that needs homeownership very badly. With surface parking of 69 spaces, most of them in tandem, there will be no need to excavate for parking below the ground level, which will save big bucks on construction (don’t expect it will make rents lower).

The project is still bursting at the seams – it has no setbacks or green space. The public sidewalks on Brighton Ave. and Linden St. are too narrow for comfortable two-way pedestrian traffic, and will make it impossible to have trees and outdoor café seating (I can easily prove this by providing dimensions and relevant photos, but perhaps in a separate message — I don’t want to get bogged down with too many details now). And when snowbanks are on the ground, people will be forced to walk in the street, next to cars.  

And of course, the project still seeks to demolish two buildings that are important to the fabric of the neighborhood — and the proposed building would create a 5 story façade on Linden St., and a 6–story facade on Brighton Ave. (no, it’s not Comm. Ave. where such a building would be perfectly fine — it’s just Linden St. and Brighton Ave.)

The proposed 3 retail storefronts on the ground level will almost certainly be combined to accommodate a CVS or Walgreens (the garage plan makes it clear — residential tandem parking spaces are blocking rear doors to those supposedly separate retail spaces).  Delivery and moving trucks will certainly cause problems on the street, because there is no room for them (no loading zone) in the garage.

The rendering below does not reflect the true magnitude of the building – because it shows only about a half of it — the rest continues in the back until it reaches Gardner Street.

Perhaps some neighborhood folks feel like they have “won” something — I think it’s peanuts.  Developers are savvy and know how to play the game — they intentionally propose far too much at the start of the process; then in response to criticism, they take a little bit off, though they know that the project is still too big and insensitive to the neighborhood — but they hope to win the war of attrition vis-a-vis their neighborhood opponents.  We shouldn’t let them.  Time is on our side in this case (the developer owns all three properties he is trying to combine, and is not going anywhere; those three parcels are too much of a “plum” to just sell and let somebody else make a “killing”).

As I hope you have noticed, the project is just too big.  The composite images below show how totally out of scale with the neighborhood the proposed building is. Due to its very broad, 100 ft. long façades (on both sides), even a 5 story building will look massive, but 6 stories on Brighton Ave. is just too much.  

By the way, last week I got in touch with the owner of the bow-front buildings to the right, and he feels the project is too big and needs to have one floor removed.  Taking one full floor out would bring the number of units down to approx. 100 (still a lot, but more reasonable than 130) — and that would also improve the currently inadequate parking ratio.

The project, as proposed, would lead to demolition of two perfectly viable and architecturally pleasing older structures — a Queen Anne 3-family house on Gardner St., and an extremely well built commercial/retail building on Brighton Ave. (see photos below).

The “Bicycle Building”, now called “POP Allston” ( http://www.popallston.com/ ), was built in the late 1920, or early 1930s, of reinforced concrete — to house a school for auto mechanics, and as such it had to have floors and walls that could support heavy loads. (Back then, the exploding auto industry was to the economy what electronics and the internet are to our economy today. An interesting tidbit: in 1920, the US had 25 million working horses and 8 million cars, and in 1940, it had less than 14 million working horses, and 27 million cars.)

Allston, with its Packard’s Corner ( http://www.bahistory.org/PackCornHist.html) has of course a rich history associated with the automobile industry and trade — and 89 Brighton Ave. is a part of that history.

The building is incredibly strong and solid, totally “overbuilt”, like a fortress — it combines utility, architecturally dignified appearance, and superior engineering — so it would be a total shame to destroy it (plus taking down reinforced concrete is a nightmare - difficult, expensive and vey loud) — not to mention that the space that is inside that building now is FANTASTIC, and could have community–enhancing uses — including revenue producing uses for the building’s owner.

Here are some examples of community-enhancing, revenue-producing uses that one could easily imagine: restaurant/café/bar with karaoke and/or stand-up comedy (a stand-up comedy group used to perform at Roggie’s before it closed; the famous DoReMi karaoke place in Allston also had to close because of a new development), bookstore, music/recording studio, art gallery, antiques mall, dance school, yoga studio, cooking school, catering business, work space for graphic designers, arts and crafts supplies store, a flower & garden shop, pottery studio, some beauty/health-related uses, substance abuse counseling, ESL tutoring, a place for support groups — and so on. The building could also be structured as a non-profit cultural/arts center, which would help make it economically viable. 

Neither of the two buildings that the developer wants to demolish is protected, but at least one of them can and should be saved (I’m certain it can be done without adversely affecting the overall viability of the project, but the developer won’t do it unless he gets the message he has no choice).

I think that the POP Allston Building is the more important of the two buildings — because there are probably a couple hundred Queen Ann houses still surviving in A-B, but the POP Building is one-of-a-kind in the entire Allston-Brighton neighborhood — unique and irreplaceable due to its distinct look, seemingly compact size and yet very spacious inside, wonderful tall ceilings, thick sound-muffling walls, and unusually strong construction.

A building like that can stand for many centuries. If it survives the current danger to its existence (and is refurbished with architecturally appropriate windows at some point), it will become one of the memorable, very popular signature buildings of Allston Village (maybe second only to 130 Brighton Ave., the impressive former bank building that houses the Sunset Grill).  If we let the POP Allston building go, we will have no moral ground from which to save the Sunset Grill building (which was recently sold to a major developer).

Don’t we have the responsibility to respect, cherish, and save such structures for future generations of residents in this area? Can anyone imagine Allston Village WITHOUT the Sunset Grill building?  The Brighton Ave./Harvard Ave. intersection would lose its character — and so will the 89 Brighton Ave. block if the POP Allston building is gone. 

So how can we save the POP Allston building (and also make the project better, easier on the eyes, and less oppressive)?  The answer is: by strongly influencing the BRA and our Elected Officials with our comment letters – asking that in exchange for the extensive zoning variances sought by the developer, the project retain the POP Allston building.  This would be the best Community Benefit this project can offer to the community.

Please keep in mind that even with the POP building staying in place, the developer still has plenty of land to build a large housing development on the car rental site (see photo below) combined with the directly adjoining Gardner Street parcel.

See Google Earth view below — all the paved areas, under the trees too, the one-story car rental building, and the Gardner house on the upper right side, are all a part of the development parcel.

And here is a drawn footprint of the development parcel — you can see that the POP Building (at the lower right corner of the blue area) is the smallest of the three parcels, and it takes little room compared with the other two — only 4,269 SF, while the combined car rental and Gardner house parcels are 29,545 SF (those numbers are from the Boston Assessor’s website).  

On nearly 30,000 SF, you can certainly build 90-100 housing units (especially the sizes this developer favors) — which is the maximum number that this location can accommodate.  Also, keeping the POP building would not result in any loss of parking — therefore the parking ratio would improve, and would go up to 0.69 (which would be comforting and more fair to nearby residents like Don Lubin, who worry about this project’s impact on parking).

With the POP Building saved, the Brighton Ave. façade of the new building would have a less overbearing appearance because it would be 60 ft. wide, not 100 ft. wide as it is in the current plan.  A slimmer building could have a 6th story (but recessed from the street) — and it would not look as oppressive.  Most important, the POP Building, whose height is equivalent to 4-stories, would provide an excellent transition from the 5-6 story facade of the new building, to the 3-story brick bow-front buildings.

The amount of retail in the new building would be reduced to a little under 3,500 SF — but the overall amount of retail would not go down, because the ground floor of the POP Building could be used as retail.

Overall all, Allston Village is really a commercial “town center”, and preserving and rehabbing the POP Building is what this place needs.  30 units of housing can be easily built on residential streets elsewhere, but the POP Building cannot be replicated anywhere else in Allston-Brighton. 

——————————————

Now, the only way to achieve this goal is to OPPOSE the current plan — yes, oppose the plan, in order to make it better.  Please note the difference: we are not opposing the project — we’re strongly opposing the current plan.

Here are the key bullet points that I think should be communicated to the BRA (Project Manager Phil Cohen phil....@boston.gov) as part of opposition to the current plan (please use the simple template below for your comment letter if you wish):

Mr. Phil D. Cohen

Project Manager

Boston Redevelopment Authority

phil....@boston.gov

Dear Mr. Cohen:

Re. Opposition to 89 Brighton Avenue development proposal

I am opposed to the current development plan for 89 Brighton Ave. due to its excessive density and overbearing impact on Brighton Avenue. I also strongly oppose demolition of two architecturally contributing structures. For the project to be acceptable, I would like to see the plan include the following:

• Preserve and rehab the POP Allston Building (formerly the “Bicycle Building”) - this effort should count toward Community Benefits;

• The number of housing units not to exceed 100;

• Retain 69 parking spaces;

• The 6th story of the proposed building along Brighton Ave. to be recessed by 7 feet (the space can be used as terrace), so the 6th floor is not easily perceived from the street;

• Do not exceed 5 stories along Linden Street, or 3 stories along Gardner St. (as in the current plan);

• The currently proposed 12 ft. wide sidewalk on Brighton Ave. (10 ft. on the street + 2 feet recessed into building as a very narrow “arcade”) is insufficient for such a tall building along a busy street.  The Brighton Ave. façade (its main surface) needs to be 13 feet from the curb (not counting the curb), with an additional 4-5 ft. deep “arcade” — similar to what the POP Allston Building has.  Positioning the new building 13 feet from the curb (not counting the curb), and providing a 4-5 ft. deep arcade will allow for true, comfortable outdoor café seating, as the developer promised to the community.

(Note: 13 ft. is the distance between the curb and the main facades of the bow-front buildings — therefore this distance should be repeated with respect to the proposed building as well; otherwise, there won’t be enough room for decent, robust street trees.)

• The Linden Street sidewalk must be widened to 11 ft. (from 8 ft. in the current plan) to give trees a chance, and to make pedestrian use more comfortable.   

Sincerely,

Your name

Address

—————————-

I hope you found this helpful.  If you have any questions or wish to discuss further, I welcome you to contact me directly at evawe...@comcast.net

With our combined efforts, I’m sure we can make a positive difference.

Regards,

Eva

617-277-4708 (primary number & answering machine)

617-519-8883 (mobile - secondary number)

[Emma Hawes]

I sent in a comment. I continue to think that this development is more large and imposing than our neighborhood requires, and that it should be developed as condominiums, to reduce transience and increase home ownership in Allston.

...

[Neal Klinman]

Is the proposed building within the guidelines of the parcels' zoning regulations?

-Neal

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 31, 2016, at 6:19 PM, Eva Webster <evawe...@comcast.net> wrote:

LET’S DO ALL WE CAN TO SAVE AN IMPORTANT PIECE OF ALLSTON VILLAGE HISTORY!

(it will also make a large housing development at 89 Brighton Ave. a better project)

Dear Neighbors —

After round one of public comments last summer (many thanks to those who took the time to send their comments back then), the developer of 89 Brighton Ave. was advised to go back to the drawing board. They came back at the end of last year with what are overall insignificant changes that do not solve any of the major issues (the changes are listed on page 4 of this document: http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/getattachment/bca0b1ac-487c-4887-9ba7-4cdb96a581b4 ).

Now we have a chance to comment in round two. Even a very simple, short comment from you at this time can tip the scales in the right direction, and bring truly positive changes that this project still desperately needs.

I am going to provide you in this message with all necessary information, as well as a simple template/form letter at the end, which you will be able to use (and customize, if you wish) to quickly come up with your comment.  The comments are due by the end of the day this coming Tuesday, February 2 (but if they keep trickling in during the rest of the week, that should be OK).

Why is this issue, which affects mostly Allston Village, important?  Because this project attempts to set a dangerous precedent for Allston-Brighton as a whole, and if there is no opposition, or only very weak opposition, it may lead to many neighborhood homes in A-B (maybe next to you, dear reader) getting scooped up by rapacious developers, and then falling like dominos.  We need to send a message that long-term residents in A-B are not going to be rolling over each time a predatory development proposal seeks to obliterate perfectly functional buildings to erect something that is 10+ times bigger.

But there is also a need for nuanced thinking here.  We cannot, and would not want to stop the 89 Brighton Ave. development altogether. The car rental site at the corner of Brighton Ave. and Linden St. is begging for development — but we can and should try to make this project not just marginally better, but significantly better.

It was hard to get excited by the recently proposed changes.  They cut a measly 4,000 SF out of a 117,000 SF project (a mere 3% reduction - almost a joke). They reduced the number of units from 138 units to 130 — and it’s still expensive small rentals in an area that needs homeownership very badly. With surface parking of 69 spaces, most of them in tandem, there will be no need to excavate for parking below the ground level, which will save big bucks on construction (don’t expect it will make rents lower).

The project is still bursting at the seams – it has no setbacks or green space. The public sidewalks on Brighton Ave. and Linden St. are too narrow for comfortable two-way pedestrian traffic, and will make it impossible to have trees and outdoor café seating (I can easily prove this by providing dimensions and relevant photos, but perhaps in a separate message — I don’t want to get bogged down with too many details now). And when snowbanks are on the ground, people will be forced to walk in the street, next to cars.  

And of course, the project still seeks to demolish two buildings that are important to the fabric of the neighborhood — and the proposed building would create a 5 story façade on Linden St., and a 6–story facade on Brighton Ave. (no, it’s not Comm. Ave. where such a building would be perfectly fine — it’s just Linden St. and Brighton Ave.)

The proposed 3 retail storefronts on the ground level will almost certainly be combined to accommodate a CVS or Walgreens (the garage plan makes it clear — residential tandem parking spaces are blocking rear doors to those supposedly separate retail spaces).  Delivery and moving trucks will certainly cause problems on the street, because there is no room for them (no loading zone) in the garage.

The rendering below does not reflect the true magnitude of the building – because it shows only about a half of it — the rest continues in the back until it reaches Gardner Street.

<1D72F6A2-EA80-4AB4-9F7D-A42C464C1503.png>

Perhaps some neighborhood folks feel like they have “won” something — I think it’s peanuts.  Developers are savvy and know how to play the game — they intentionally propose far too much at the start of the process; then in response to criticism, they take a little bit off, though they know that the project is still too big and insensitive to the neighborhood — but they hope to win the war of attrition vis-a-vis their neighborhood opponents.  We shouldn’t let them.  Time is on our side in this case (the developer owns all three properties he is trying to combine, and is not going anywhere; those three parcels are too much of a “plum” to just sell and let somebody else make a “killing”).

As I hope you have noticed, the project is just too big.  The composite images below show how totally out of scale with the neighborhood the proposed building is. Due to its very broad, 100 ft. long façades (on both sides), even a 5 story building will look massive, but 6 stories on Brighton Ave. is just too much.  

<E1027307-280B-4329-9089-8BD54A5B0889.png>

<1124551E-5BBB-495E-A06D-9C8BCC8C394F.png>

By the way, last week I got in touch with the owner of the bow-front buildings to the right, and he feels the project is too big and needs to have one floor removed.  Taking one full floor out would bring the number of units down to approx. 100 (still a lot, but more reasonable than 130) — and that would also improve the currently inadequate parking ratio.

The project, as proposed, would lead to demolition of two perfectly viable and architecturally pleasing older structures — a Queen Anne 3-family house on Gardner St., and an extremely well built commercial/retail building on Brighton Ave. (see photos below).

<DF1C6E2C-DCDB-40FF-8C17-1B0F889546EB.png>

<D685FA35-D495-4271-BED1-E315A4B72A7A.png>

<8362CF06-61CD-4CD9-9DE4-E8CCF5C193AF.png>

The “Bicycle Building”, now called “POP Allston” ( http://www.popallston.com/ ), was built in the late 1920, or early 1930s, of reinforced concrete — to house a school for auto mechanics, and as such it had to have floors and walls that could support heavy loads. (Back then, the exploding auto industry was to the economy what electronics and the internet are to our economy today. An interesting tidbit: in 1920, the US had 25 million working horses and 8 million cars, and in 1940, it had less than 14 million working horses, and 27 million cars.)

Allston, with its Packard’s Corner ( http://www.bahistory.org/PackCornHist.html) has of course a rich history associated with the automobile industry and trade — and 89 Brighton Ave. is a part of that history.

The building is incredibly strong and solid, totally “overbuilt”, like a fortress — it combines utility, architecturally dignified appearance, and superior engineering — so it would be a total shame to destroy it (plus taking down reinforced concrete is a nightmare - difficult, expensive and vey loud) — not to mention that the space that is inside that building now is FANTASTIC, and could have community–enhancing uses — including revenue producing uses for the building’s owner.

Here are some examples of community-enhancing, revenue-producing uses that one could easily imagine: restaurant/café/bar with karaoke and/or stand-up comedy (a stand-up comedy group used to perform at Roggie’s before it closed; the famous DoReMi karaoke place in Allston also had to close because of a new development), bookstore, music/recording studio, art gallery, antiques mall, dance school, yoga studio, cooking school, catering business, work space for graphic designers, arts and crafts supplies store, a flower & garden shop, pottery studio, some beauty/health-related uses, substance abuse counseling, ESL tutoring, a place for support groups — and so on. The building could also be structured as a non-profit cultural/arts center, which would help make it economically viable. 

Neither of the two buildings that the developer wants to demolish is protected, but at least one of them can and should be saved (I’m certain it can be done without adversely affecting the overall viability of the project, but the developer won’t do it unless he gets the message he has no choice).

I think that the POP Allston Building is the more important of the two buildings — because there are probably a couple hundred Queen Ann houses still surviving in A-B, but the POP Building is one-of-a-kind in the entire Allston-Brighton neighborhood — unique and irreplaceable due to its distinct look, seemingly compact size and yet very spacious inside, wonderful tall ceilings, thick sound-muffling walls, and unusually strong construction.

A building like that can stand for many centuries. If it survives the current danger to its existence (and is refurbished with architecturally appropriate windows at some point), it will become one of the memorable, very popular signature buildings of Allston Village (maybe second only to 130 Brighton Ave., the impressive former bank building that houses the Sunset Grill).  If we let the POP Allston building go, we will have no moral ground from which to save the Sunset Grill building (which was recently sold to a major developer).

Don’t we have the responsibility to respect, cherish, and save such structures for future generations of residents in this area? Can anyone imagine Allston Village WITHOUT the Sunset Grill building?  The Brighton Ave./Harvard Ave. intersection would lose its character — and so will the 89 Brighton Ave. block if the POP Allston building is gone. 

So how can we save the POP Allston building (and also make the project better, easier on the eyes, and less oppressive)?  The answer is: by strongly influencing the BRA and our Elected Officials with our comment letters – asking that in exchange for the extensive zoning variances sought by the developer, the project retain the POP Allston building.  This would be the best Community Benefit this project can offer to the community.

Please keep in mind that even with the POP building staying in place, the developer still has plenty of land to build a large housing development on the car rental site (see photo below) combined with the directly adjoining Gardner Street parcel.

<35E66FD4-371C-4D27-8C7F-37FA15372562.png>

See Google Earth view below — all the paved areas, under the trees too, the one-story car rental building, and the Gardner house on the upper right side, are all a part of the development parcel.

<53BE367F-54A8-4D14-A217-F257CD0827C7.png>

And here is a drawn footprint of the development parcel — you can see that the POP Building (at the lower right corner of the blue area) is the smallest of the three parcels, and it takes little room compared with the other two — only 4,269 SF, while the combined car rental and Gardner house parcels are 29,545 SF (those numbers are from the Boston Assessor’s website).  

<B84714EE-A52A-419C-A4F6-65395B84AE12.png>

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[Eva Webster]

No, Neal, this project requires a ton of zoning variances!  (but maybe you know this, and are only asking facetiously)  It is TWICE as tall as the zoning allows (which on a very broad 34,000 SF footprint amounts to a HUGE mass). It violates Floor-to-Area ratio (FAR) many, many times. It disregards required setbacks, ignores the minimum open space requirement, and falls short on parking.  People can argue what the proper amount of parking should be — but I cannot comprehend why the scale and the architectural character/integrity of that neighborhood are not getting any respect.  This project is boorish and greedy.  Funny how the people who propose these projects never live in Allston-Brighton. They would be run out of town if they wanted to do it to their own neighbors in their own communities.  

[Leland Webster]

All, I submitted the attached letter to the BRA in opposition to the proposed development at 89 Brighton Ave.  Please join me in insisting that a better plan be put forward by the developer.

- Leland

[Rosemary]

Can Allston Village  Main Streets program help? Can other city agencies (historic, environmental, traffic) bring some pressure to bear?

The demolition of such a wonderful building is a terrible thing. 

Rosemary Foy

On Feb 1, 2016, at 8:58 PM, Leland Webster <leland....@alum.mit.edu> wrote:

All, I submitted the attached letter to the BRA in opposition to the proposed development at 89 Brighton Ave.  Please join me in insisting that a better plan be put forward by the developer.

- Leland

On Sun, Jan 31, 2016 at 6:19 PM, Eva Webster <evawe...@comcast.net> wrote:

LET’S DO ALL WE CAN TO SAVE AN IMPORTANT PIECE OF ALLSTON VILLAGE HISTORY!

(it will also make a large housing development at 89 Brighton Ave. a better project)

Dear Neighbors —

After round one of public comments last summer (many thanks to those who took the time to send their comments back then), the developer of 89 Brighton Ave. was advised to go back to the drawing board. They came back at the end of last year with what are overall insignificant changes that do not solve any of the major issues (the changes are listed on page 4 of this document: http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/getattachment/bca0b1ac-487c-4887-9ba7-4cdb96a581b4 ).

Now we have a chance to comment in round two. Even a very simple, short comment from you at this time can tip the scales in the right direction, and bring truly positive changes that this project still desperately needs.

I am going to provide you in this message with all necessary information, as well as a simple template/form letter at the end, which you will be able to use (and customize, if you wish) to quickly come up with your comment.  The comments are due by the end of the day this coming Tuesday, February 2 (but if they keep trickling in during the rest of the week, that should be OK).

Why is this issue, which affects mostly Allston Village, important?  Because this project attempts to set a dangerous precedent for Allston-Brighton as a whole, and if there is no opposition, or only very weak opposition, it may lead to many neighborhood homes in A-B (maybe next to you, dear reader) getting scooped up by rapacious developers, and then falling like dominos.  We need to send a message that long-term residents in A-B are not going to be rolling over each time a predatory development proposal seeks to obliterate perfectly functional buildings to erect something that is 10+ times bigger.

But there is also a need for nuanced thinking here.  We cannot, and would not want to stop the 89 Brighton Ave. development altogether. The car rental site at the corner of Brighton Ave. and Linden St. is begging for development — but we can and should try to make this project not just marginally better, but significantly better.

It was hard to get excited by the recently proposed changes.  They cut a measly 4,000 SF out of a 117,000 SF project (a mere 3% reduction - almost a joke). They reduced the number of units from 138 units to 130 — and it’s still expensive small rentals in an area that needs homeownership very badly. With surface parking of 69 spaces, most of them in tandem, there will be no need to excavate for parking below the ground level, which will save big bucks on construction (don’t expect it will make rents lower).

The project is still bursting at the seams – it has no setbacks or green space. The public sidewalks on Brighton Ave. and Linden St. are too narrow for comfortable two-way pedestrian traffic, and will make it impossible to have trees and outdoor café seating (I can easily prove this by providing dimensions and relevant photos, but perhaps in a separate message — I don’t want to get bogged down with too many details now). And when snowbanks are on the ground, people will be forced to walk in the street, next to cars.  

And of course, the project still seeks to demolish two buildings that are important to the fabric of the neighborhood — and the proposed building would create a 5 story façade on Linden St., and a 6–story facade on Brighton Ave. (no, it’s not Comm. Ave. where such a building would be perfectly fine — it’s just Linden St. and Brighton Ave.)

The proposed 3 retail storefronts on the ground level will almost certainly be combined to accommodate a CVS or Walgreens (the garage plan makes it clear — residential tandem parking spaces are blocking rear doors to those supposedly separate retail spaces).  Delivery and moving trucks will certainly cause problems on the street, because there is no room for them (no loading zone) in the garage.

The rendering below does not reflect the true magnitude of the building – because it shows only about a half of it — the rest continues in the back until it reaches Gardner Street.

<1D72F6A2-EA80-4AB4-9F7D-A42C464C1503.png>

Perhaps some neighborhood folks feel like they have “won” something — I think it’s peanuts.  Developers are savvy and know how to play the game — they intentionally propose far too much at the start of the process; then in response to criticism, they take a little bit off, though they know that the project is still too big and insensitive to the neighborhood — but they hope to win the war of attrition vis-a-vis their neighborhood opponents.  We shouldn’t let them.  Time is on our side in this case (the developer owns all three properties he is trying to combine, and is not going anywhere; those three parcels are too much of a “plum” to just sell and let somebody else make a “killing”).

As I hope you have noticed, the project is just too big.  The composite images below show how totally out of scale with the neighborhood the proposed building is. Due to its very broad, 100 ft. long façades (on both sides), even a 5 story building will look massive, but 6 stories on Brighton Ave. is just too much.  

<E1027307-280B-4329-9089-8BD54A5B0889.png>

<1124551E-5BBB-495E-A06D-9C8BCC8C394F.png>

By the way, last week I got in touch with the owner of the bow-front buildings to the right, and he feels the project is too big and needs to have one floor removed.  Taking one full floor out would bring the number of units down to approx. 100 (still a lot, but more reasonable than 130) — and that would also improve the currently inadequate parking ratio.

The project, as proposed, would lead to demolition of two perfectly viable and architecturally pleasing older structures — a Queen Anne 3-family house on Gardner St., and an extremely well built commercial/retail building on Brighton Ave. (see photos below).

<DF1C6E2C-DCDB-40FF-8C17-1B0F889546EB.png>

<D685FA35-D495-4271-BED1-E315A4B72A7A.png>

<8362CF06-61CD-4CD9-9DE4-E8CCF5C193AF.png>

The “Bicycle Building”, now called “POP Allston” ( http://www.popallston.com/ ), was built in the late 1920, or early 1930s, of reinforced concrete — to house a school for auto mechanics, and as such it had to have floors and walls that could support heavy loads. (Back then, the exploding auto industry was to the economy what electronics and the internet are to our economy today. An interesting tidbit: in 1920, the US had 25 million working horses and 8 million cars, and in 1940, it had less than 14 million working horses, and 27 million cars.)

Allston, with its Packard’s Corner ( http://www.bahistory.org/PackCornHist.html) has of course a rich history associated with the automobile industry and trade — and 89 Brighton Ave. is a part of that history.

The building is incredibly strong and solid, totally “overbuilt”, like a fortress — it combines utility, architecturally dignified appearance, and superior engineering — so it would be a total shame to destroy it (plus taking down reinforced concrete is a nightmare - difficult, expensive and vey loud) — not to mention that the space that is inside that building now is FANTASTIC, and could have community–enhancing uses — including revenue producing uses for the building’s owner.

Here are some examples of community-enhancing, revenue-producing uses that one could easily imagine: restaurant/café/bar with karaoke and/or stand-up comedy (a stand-up comedy group used to perform at Roggie’s before it closed; the famous DoReMi karaoke place in Allston also had to close because of a new development), bookstore, music/recording studio, art gallery, antiques mall, dance school, yoga studio, cooking school, catering business, work space for graphic designers, arts and crafts supplies store, a flower & garden shop, pottery studio, some beauty/health-related uses, substance abuse counseling, ESL tutoring, a place for support groups — and so on. The building could also be structured as a non-profit cultural/arts center, which would help make it economically viable. 

Neither of the two buildings that the developer wants to demolish is protected, but at least one of them can and should be saved (I’m certain it can be done without adversely affecting the overall viability of the project, but the developer won’t do it unless he gets the message he has no choice).

I think that the POP Allston Building is the more important of the two buildings — because there are probably a couple hundred Queen Ann houses still surviving in A-B, but the POP Building is one-of-a-kind in the entire Allston-Brighton neighborhood — unique and irreplaceable due to its distinct look, seemingly compact size and yet very spacious inside, wonderful tall ceilings, thick sound-muffling walls, and unusually strong construction.

A building like that can stand for many centuries. If it survives the current danger to its existence (and is refurbished with architecturally appropriate windows at some point), it will become one of the memorable, very popular signature buildings of Allston Village (maybe second only to 130 Brighton Ave., the impressive former bank building that houses the Sunset Grill).  If we let the POP Allston building go, we will have no moral ground from which to save the Sunset Grill building (which was recently sold to a major developer).

Don’t we have the responsibility to respect, cherish, and save such structures for future generations of residents in this area? Can anyone imagine Allston Village WITHOUT the Sunset Grill building?  The Brighton Ave./Harvard Ave. intersection would lose its character — and so will the 89 Brighton Ave. block if the POP Allston building is gone. 

So how can we save the POP Allston building (and also make the project better, easier on the eyes, and less oppressive)?  The answer is: by strongly influencing the BRA and our Elected Officials with our comment letters – asking that in exchange for the extensive zoning variances sought by the developer, the project retain the POP Allston building.  This would be the best Community Benefit this project can offer to the community.

Please keep in mind that even with the POP building staying in place, the developer still has plenty of land to build a large housing development on the car rental site (see photo below) combined with the directly adjoining Gardner Street parcel.

<35E66FD4-371C-4D27-8C7F-37FA15372562.png>

See Google Earth view below — all the paved areas, under the trees too, the one-story car rental building, and the Gardner house on the upper right side, are all a part of the development parcel.

<53BE367F-54A8-4D14-A217-F257CD0827C7.png>

And here is a drawn footprint of the development parcel — you can see that the POP Building (at the lower right corner of the blue area) is the smallest of the three parcels, and it takes little room compared with the other two — only 4,269 SF, while the combined car rental and Gardner house parcels are 29,545 SF (those numbers are from the Boston Assessor’s website).  

<B84714EE-A52A-419C-A4F6-65395B84AE12.png>

<L. Webster letter re 89 Brighton Ave.pdf>

[M Arado]

Does anyone know if this is the same developer, that is developing the Seaport area with same type  of Apartment complexes?  

The circle sign for the building is the same type that is blanketing the seaport area of Boston.  Sad what is happening there, and don't want it here in Allston/Brighton.

Maria Arado

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From: Rosemary <rbatt...@comcast.net>
To: "cleveland-cir...@googlegroups.com" <cleveland-cir...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: "cleveland-cir...@googlegroups.com" <cleveland-cir...@googlegroups.com>; AllstonBrighton2006 <AllstonBr...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, February 1, 2016 11:44 PM
Subject: Re: [Cleveland-Circle] IMPORTANT & URGENT - 89 Brighton Ave. - HELP SAVE ALLSTON VILLAGE HISTORIC BUILDING

[AngelaT]

Excellent points! Thanks and you are the best Leland.

 

Angela

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