Former Frat Row, forever UMassDeputy Chancellor Todd Diacon told the Amherst Redevelopment Authority, "We wholeheartedly support the Gateway Project." He also confirmed UMass funding for a traffic study in the Gateway corridor as part of their ongoing Master Plan.
Town Manager John Musante testified the town will sponsor warrant articles for the fall Town Meeting to hire consultants for a marketing study and to map out zoning changes required if the Gateway "vision," now endorsed by both the ARA and UMass, is to become a reality.
Zoning is a key factor which requires a two-thirds vote of Amherst Town Meeting. Since that body will deliberate spending tens of thousands on additional consultants for the Gateway project in November, the majority vote required will be a bellwether of how well the zoning vote--a higher hurdle--will fare.
Diacon also admitted, however, that his office would not advocate for the transfer of Frat Row, a 1.8 acre prime swath of land deemed a "catalyst" by the Gateway Vision consultant, to either the town or the ARA--although he stated UMass would landscape the wide open property and that they had no plans for building construction over the next five years.
UMass purchased the property, formerly home to five rowdy frat houses, for $2.5 million. Originally the Gateway Project commenced when UMass offered to donate the land for a private sector mixed use project but one providing significant housing. After a chorus of complaints from immediate neighbors fearing a resurrection of Frat Row, the housing aspect was significantly altered.
If Town Meeting approves the zoning change, individual private developers will have to undertake the task of transformation, with a form-based zoning code for guidance and a "vision" as inspiration.
Explain this to me. If UMass won't donate frat row, and won't build on it, what is there that is the gateway?
ReplyDeleteArea around Kendrick Park mostly, but the zoning change will be for the entire corridor (even though UMass does not need a zoning change to do with frat row whatever they please.)
ReplyDeleteI agree. It sounds like the Gateway project is not much of a project anymore.
ReplyDeletewhat will the viper developers do now?
ReplyDeleteWell, since ARA won't be taking away any of the office buildings, retail stores, residential housing, the UMass building, the church or the motel, exactly what is left?
ReplyDeleteso they blew how many 10's of thousands on this, and they aint gettin nuthin?
ReplyDeleteshould have paid bach instead
At the moment it's only $30,000 and it was all ARA money (left over state/federal $ from 40 years ago.)
ReplyDeleteThe proposed fall Town Meeting warrant articles for additional consultants will be anywhere between $15,000 and $40,000 for a market analysis and another $30,000 to $40,000 for form based zoning.
If they fail to get a majority vote, Gateway, by any measure is, quite simply, d-e-a-d.
can the planning dept do the work on the zoning changes for free?
ReplyDeleteThey would argue with all the projects going on around town the department is s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d too thin.
ReplyDeleteSo in a word, "NO".
What are the proposed zoning changes?
ReplyDeleteMixed use mostly: retail/office space ground-and-lower floors, apartments-condos upper floors.
ReplyDeleteBut with "form based" it has to match a preconceived idea of looking, for lack of a more technical word, nice.
**But with "form based" it has to match a preconceived idea of looking, for lack of a more technical word, nice.**
ReplyDeleteAn Amherst committee deciding what looks nice? Ouch. (No reflection on you there LK.)
Well, we already have a Planning Board, Zoning Board and Design Review Board and to some extent all of them judge what's "nice" on a project (although they would never admit to it.)
ReplyDelete"At the moment it's only $30,000"
ReplyDeleteYou really have gone over to the dark side. What a waste. You count every penny that the town spends on Cherry Hill and then brush off this boondoggle?
Cherry Hill lost over $1 million in operations alone these past 20 years, $40,000 this year. No comparison.
ReplyDeleteGateway was a glorious idea that could have generated $1 million annually in tax revenues.
It was a gamble well worth taking.
Larry -- I won't say how much I was involved in this, but the saner minds at UM (both here and 225 Franklin Street) realized that the land had been used to house students and if there wasn't going to be housing for students here, the university really didn't have much of an incentive to *give away* something they could (and are planning to) *sell* to someone else who is already involved in plans to provide housing to students on another part of campus...
ReplyDeleteUMass should donate it to Hwei-Ling Greeney for a homeless shelter.
ReplyDeleteUMass could then become a Mecca for the homeless who wish to get a good education (of course UMass would also have to provide that free as well.)
UMass could then become a Mecca for the homeless who wish to get a good education (of course UMass would also have to provide that free as well.)
ReplyDeleteLarry -- four words never seen in the same version of reality:
UMass
Free
Good Education
UMass has maybe another decade of spiraling downward as it sells its Potemkin Village myth to the guidance counselors of the Great Lakes region, but every 19-year-old going back to his high school screaming "UMass Sucks!" is at least one more guidance counselor who won't blindly recommend UM to the graduating crop of seniors...
It is about a decade until The Great Tag Sale....
Ed,
ReplyDeleteIf it's so bad, why are you there?
You were clearly drinking the Gateway Kool-Aid. That number is complete baloney.
ReplyDeleteA million dollars in tax revenues would need over $65 million in taxable property value. All in an area with untaxable churches and the Chabad House, also a small motel that wasn't going away, existing residential houses, and a untaxed UMass building. The frat row was the only free and clear land to develop, and unless you were building a commercial skyscraper, (in which case the abutters really did have cause for alarm) then the tax revenues would only be a fraction of your million dollars.
Take a look at Boltwood Place going up behind Judie's. That building will be in the $4 to $5 million range for valuation. It sits on a footprint of 2,500 square feet.
ReplyDeleteTake at look at the old frat row. It's around 80,000 square feet, or 32 times larger.
Do the math.
You can't just scale up like that and you know it. First of all, you and I know that all 80,000 square feet would not be developed. You have to allow for some green space and lots and lots of parking. The more you plan to pack into this building the more parking space you have to allow, especially if it has a retail mixed in, which needs even more parking than the residential.
ReplyDeleteA class act developer knows how to do underground parking.
ReplyDeleteAnd if the residential tenants and business patrons were mostly associated with nearby UMass, or were empty nesters coming for retirement, they could leave their cars behind.
I see. Just as I thought, you were just b.s.ing
ReplyDeleteYeah, I had nothing better to do over the past freakin year.
ReplyDeleteLarry,
ReplyDeleteThere is no way that this building would rely on underground parking. Then it would have no storage room. Nice try though.
"Yeah, I had nothing better to do over the past freakin year."
ReplyDeleteBeats working for a living.
Strangely enough I landed a writing job a couple days ago.
ReplyDeleteNow I will not have to let meetings get in the way.
Although now that I think about it, the Gateway episode would make a fascinating business "case study."
Gateway aside, congrats!
ReplyDeleteEd,
ReplyDeleteIf it's so bad, why are you there?
Throwing good money after bad...
And if the residential tenants and business patrons were mostly associated with nearby UMass, or were empty nesters coming for retirement, they could leave their cars behind.
ReplyDeleteLarry, let me tell you what John Lederlie once told me -- he (who was involved in building much of UMass) candidly said that "we never anticipated that we all would become so much in love with our cars."
The people who have the money to spend in (or live in) your upscale project are going to demand the right to take their cars with them. They simply won't go if they can't drive -- they are that rich and that spoilt.
So UMass has offically announced that Frat Row is out of Gateway. Leaving it dead.
ReplyDeletePity. It was a great idea to link UMass with the town center after too many years of UMass trying to wall itself off from town.
ReplyDeleteLong ago in a galaxy far, far away. March 15 to be exact.
ReplyDelete"The old "Frat Row" at the main Gateway to UMass, 1.86 acres of prime real estate, is currently the only swath of land that is certain to be included in the final plan."
Yeah, I believe I mentioned that to Deputy Chancellor Diacon after his brief presentation to the ARA last week.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot UMass. Frat Row WAS the Gateway Project. Everything else built off of that!
ReplyDelete