A private developer will help the MBTA deliver a key piece of Cambridge infrastructure.
The aging Alewife Station garage, which has already seen structural renovations, needs to come down. Without money in its budget to build a replacement garage, the MBTA is looking to partner with a private development firm to demolish the structure and build back, while also developing the surrounding land that the transportation agency owns – more than 30 acres.
The T kicked off the process Thursday at a forum that introduced developers to the project and outlined a rough timeline for the redevelopment process.
“We would like to select a development partner by the end of this year,” said Scott Bosworth, director of transit oriented development for the MBTA, at the forum.
Bosworth said very little of the project is set in stone, and that the community outreach, planning and design processes will be collaborative.
“The intent here is to show we’re open for business,” said Phillip Eng, general manager of the MBTA. “We want a partnership.”
At the moment, the MBTA “envisions” that the developer would own and operate the future parking garage, but not any part of the station. The station itself would also need to remain operational throughout construction.
The MBTA still needs to find out exactly how many parking spaces are needed in the new site, and will conduct a parking needs assessment to do so.
The destruction of the large concrete parking garage, built in the 1980s, will be a complicated challenge itself for the chosen developer, as it will likely need to come down in pieces. And while it’s being rebuilt, offsite parking will need to be provided for the estimated 1,600 drivers who use the site daily, out of about 5,000 daily riders. That rider figure is expected to keep rising, hitting 7,500 by 2028 when “deconstruction” might start, MBTA officials said.
The garage also sits on top of floodplains, so the development partner would need to consider flood mitigation in its building design, the MBTA explained.
Changes and commuter rail
The redevelopment of Alewife stations comes amid a flurry of changes in the neighborhood, including the rapid purchase and development of land by developers seeking to build lab and office space in the region.
Ahead of the forum, the Cambridge City Council requested that the city work with the MBTA on advocating for city priorities – notably, the possibility of a commuter rail station and commuter rail crossing for pedestrians.
The garage redevelopment “is something the council as a whole, and the city, has thought about for probably a decade in terms of the development of Alewife,” councillor Patty Nolan said at the Monday council meeting.
At the forum, MBTA officials noted that they will be studying, as part of the redevelopment process, the demand for and possibility of both a commuter rail station and a commuter rail pedestrian bridge. Pedestrians and bikes can cross the rail now only via Blanchard Road or Alewife Brook Parkway.
Zoning and rezoning
The station and bridge have been city goals for years – ones that it specifically included in its recent rezoning of the “Quadrangle” area where Healthpeak Properties bought hundreds of millions of dollars of real estate. Healthpeak may one day deliver its own pedestrian bridge, which, as per new zoning regulations, would allow it to build denser developments.
Next year, the city will embark on another rezoning process for the “Triangle” and “Shopping Center” regions of Alewife, the former of which includes the Alewife station garage. While those zoning regulations would apply to the new complex, they would also be developed in collaboration with the MBTA and its future redevelopment partner through another working group.
Assistant city manager for community development Iram Farooq, who spoke at the forum, said she was “heartened” by the themes the MBTA addressed during its first presentation, and looks forward to the future partnership.
A “vibrant, mixed-use district”
Speaking also was Melissa Peters, the city’s chief of planning strategy, who gave the conference room full of developers – many that have partnered with the agency before on projects – a sense of what Cambridge wanted to see arise from the 30 acres incorporating and around Alewife: “A vibrant, mixed-use district that really helps to address our housing supply goals, both market and affordable, as well as balance that with needed economic growth and job creation.”
Air rights to build over tracks are in play, Bosworth said, as are naming rights. But he said it wasn’t the MBTA’s role to answer whether the developer can rebrand the entire area to supplant “Alewife” as DivcoWest did with Cambridge Crossing, a name that is obscuring the name of the North Point neighborhood where it sits.
Whatever developer is chosen for the massive, many-year process, they will be held to account better than vendors and contractors have for failings in the past, Bosworth said. The partner will be chosen based on its “financial capability to carry out the project with this magnitude” and it history as a partner, not just to the state but to small businesses and minority-owned businesses.
“The MBTA is a different place today than it was a year ago, and it continues to get better and better,” Bosworth said. “We have a team here that is committed to accountability, that respects the taxpayers’ investments and ownership of things. And I can tell you that as long as this team here is involved, this project will absolutely have the oversight and importance put on it that it deserves.”
A stronger
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A great opportunity to contribute to bettering the housing situation, fixing the dangerous mishmash of bike infrastructure with its blind turns and terrible signage, and also fix the broken and redundant traffic patterns that worsen pollution and traffic. No reason garage users from the burbs should have to be on the road with folks driving around and through that part of cambridge especially once more housing goes in.
There could also be some work on the Jerry’s pond project maybe.
Don’t blow it gang!
Oh also please get the red line to not catch on fire thanks!