Infrastructure
Windmills
I recently came back from upstate NY and got a chance to revisit my extended family’s windmills. My sister-in-law’s family scaled back their farming over ten years ago and now rent out part of their land for seven windmills. Most of the land around the windmills is still in rotation, so it’s a relatively fluid and symbiotic relationship…
New Retail in White Plains, NY
On May 7th, our design team received the site plan approvals for a new retail project on Bloomingdale Road in White Plains, New York. Led by our fantastic new clients, Faros Properties and Caspi Development, we designed the building to work with the challenging topography of the site by placing all of the parking on top of a single floor of boutique retail shops. Our goal for the project has been to provide a pedestrian-driven shopping center with an outdoor sidewalk bustling with window-shoppers, café seating, and lush landscaping. An existing office building on the site was the former headquarters for Nestle, and is now home to several private and government offices. The new parking garage will serve the offices as well as new retail shops. The Common Council of White Plains approved the project unanimously!
Stay tuned for updates. We’re working on the retail marketing campaign now, and construction will start soon.
Site Visit to Chestnut Hill Square
Recently, the Arrowstreet staff accompanied me to the Chestnut Hill Square project for a site visit. The four new structures are each at different phases of construction, but enough is there to get a good sense of the massing, spatial relationships, and envelope finishes. Building A, the largest structure, is the one furthest along, with the brick veneer and storefront being installed and partitions and cores going up on the interior. Buildings B and C have the steel up and the exterior is starting to be framed out. The parking garage is far along- it went up quickly, within the past five weeks, with prefab concrete components…
New DCR Maintenance Building
As part of the Waterfront Square at Revere Beach development, Arrowstreet is currently designing a new building including restrooms, storage of maintenance and support materials, and DCR offices. The building was carefully sited to maintain line-of-sight between the Arrowstreet-designed South Garage and Pedestrian Bridge and the scenic Revere Beach.
A Time to Look Back
The start of a new year brings optimism and refreshed energy for the future, and also a chance to look back on accomplishments from the previous year. 2012 was a busy year at Arrowstreet. We celebrated the opening of two new charter schools in the Boston metro area, the corporate headquarters for Rechler Equity in Long Island, White Elephant Village Inn in Nantucket, a T-station garage and cool new bridge in Revere, and an LL Bean store in Danbury. The Arrowstreet construction banner was flying high in 2012…
Revere Bridge Lights Up the Holidays
On December 20th, the pedestrian bridge recently completed as part of the Waterfront Square Transit Oriented Development was lit for the first time. In early fall, our team, with the support of the City of Revere and help from Suffolk Construction and Color Kinetics, mocked up and selected color-changing LED lights at the base of the cable stay pylons. As illustrated in the photos, the lights are now installed and have been fired up with the holiday season in mind. With the recent dedication of the bridge to Congressman Markey’s family, this next step moves the project one step closer to a public opening. In the coming weeks, LED-lit railings and the glass-enclosed elevators will be completed, finalizing the connection between the MBTA’s Wonderland Station and the historic Revere Beach. We look forward to seeing the many color variations of the bridge over the course of the coming months and congratulate the Markey family, the City, MBTA, DCR, and Eurovest Development and on this new milestone.
Revere Bridge Update
I was on site in Revere last week at our Waterfront Square project and can happily report that the pylons have gone up for the pedestrian bridge that will connect the beach to mass transit and parking. The walking surface is under construction with the steel span expected to be complete this week. The stairs from the west are in place and paver installation is ongoing on the plaza…
Chestnut Hill Site Visit
This past week I was able to join an Arrowstreet group to get a tour of the Chestnut Hill site from Jason King and Mike Manship. The project has had a long history in the office but I’ve only recently joined the team, working on the 350+ space pre-cast garage scheduled to open in the fall of 2013. In addition to…
Wonderland Garage Opens
The MBTA’s new Arrowstreet-designed South Parking Garage and Intermodal Transit Center opened on Saturday (June 30th) with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by MassDOT Secretary Richard Davey, Revere Mayor Daniel Rizzo, U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, state Rep. Kathi-Anne Reinstein, House Speaker Robert DeLeo, and Revere City Councilor at large Anthony Zambuto, among many others from the Revere community. Both the Boston Globe and the Daily Item of Lynn reported on the event…
Visiting Waterfront Square and KIPP Academy Lynn
Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the site of two of our projects currently in construction: the Waterfront Square at Revere Beach parking garage and KIPP Academy Lynn Charter School. Our first stop was the Revere Beach parking garage. We started this tour walking through the bus access way to the main lobby, and then continued up the main…