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North Cambridge email — sample 2
From: Craig Kelley [mailto:craig@craigkelley.org]
Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2009 11:07 PM
Subject: Update on the St. James/Carwash Project in Porter Square
Folks:
Many of you have expressed an interest in what is planned for the Saint James Church property and the adjacent car wash on Mass Ave just North of Beech Street at the North edge of Porter Square. There have been several meetings on the project with neighborhood groups and there was another one this past Monday, 3 August. Given all the other projects in the works around Porter Square (the Kaya Hotel had a hearing Tuesday night for a Major Amendment to its Special Permit and the Council passed Lesley's rezoning petition several weeks ago), I figured I'd write up my notes from the meeting to update you on this project. You can also learn more, and see site plans, at http://oakdev.com/StJamesRedevelopment.pdf. They hope to start construction in Spring/Summer of 2010, but right now they're still working on a Memorandum of Agreement that would allow Oaktree to move ahead with financing.
Basically, as I understand things, St James is working out a partnership with Oaktree Development (the folks who bought the carwash) to combine the two properties and allow Oaktree to build a 46 unit residential condo complex that would leave the Church proper as is (with various structural improvements to the roof, stained glass windows and so forth) and build a 3 & 4-story residential complex in a sort of “L” around it stretching from Beech Street behind the Church and then to Mass Ave. The new complex would have 46 underground parking spaces for the residences and at-grade parking (and possibly below-grade as well, my notes aren't clear on that) for Church use for several more cars, all accessible only from Beech Street. There might also be a drop-off area that could handle two rows of three cars on the Mass Ave side of the development. There would be a garden adjacent to the Mass Ave sidewalk on the North side of the Church proper (pretty much where the current garden is), between the Church and the new Parish Hall and many of the property's trees are planned to stay in place.
The new building, which would be 45 feet high at its highest (not counting air handling equipment and elevators and so forth), would be 4 stories in the center and 3 stories along the edges. It's not clear if they plan on having roof decks or balconies. There would be a ground-floor retail condo for sale along the northern Mass Ave edge of the project.
The Church will get a large portion of the new building's ground level space to use as offices, parish hall and similar church uses, to include renting space to tenants. The tenants currently renting space from the Church will have to move out during the construction period. St. James may also get a direct financial payout to address the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed for repair, but how much (and even if that would happen) wasn't clear at Monday's meeting.
Neighbors have expressed a few concerns. One major issue is parking access and the heavy traffic already on Beech Street. Apparently the City wants to have the parking access off of Beech Street, but, as the neighbors pointed out, Oaktree's traffic study indicated that fewer cars would come out of the parking garage than what came out of the carwash, so perhaps the City might be willing to rethink its position. A second issue is the overall size of the project, which, while far below the hypothetical 60 unit/116,000 square feet possible on the combined lots, will put a pretty big building (and its walls) on a relatively underdeveloped lot and impact neighbors' light, air, privacy and so forth. There is also concern that a newer, bigger Church complex will have negative impacts on local traffic, parking and sidewalk safety issues.
At this point, it appears that the proposal will only need a Special Permit from the Planning Board to go forward, though Oaktree has not put in an application yet. Special Permits are generally granted, sometimes with some changes to a project, unless it's pretty clear that the project isn't following the zoning laws.
Most of what I wrote will make more sense if you look at the plans at http://oakdev.com/StJamesRedevelopment.pdf. And please excuse any mistakes I might have made, though they shouldn't be all that significant.
Thanks a lot.
Craig