87 replies to this topic

[Cotuit]

A lot of Bostonians are moving out to Boston now. It doesn't have the urbanity of a Providence or Hartford, but it's got great proximity to Boston. I think Worcester will do alright, it'll never become a big destination city, but it should grow into a a place that the residents will at least enjoy.

[MikeR]

cloudship, on Nov 2 2005, 10:08 PM, said:

One of the reasons why people didn't spill out from the mall into downtown was beacuse they had no desire. Downtown Worcester is not the cleanest area, people didn't exactly feel safe, nor was there anything of interest there. It's mostly small offices, few restaurants (no restaurants?) or shops or anything. I am not sure that this is going to be as great as they are hyping it up to be - from my understanding a lot of the residential bits are intended for the college of Pharmacy, it's going to be mostly office space, and there is no real focal point.

Yes... When the mall repoened in the early 90's as an outlet mall, it opened with a big promotional campaign with actress Judith Light (from ABC's "Who's the Boss?") palying a part. My wife and I went up there several times to check it out. We liked all the stores; it had a lot of 5th Avenue stores at outlet prices. The reason we stopped going was that the city did a good job of trying to attract people to that mall, but it failed trying to entice people to leave the mall and explore downtown Worcester. We left the mall twice to explore downtown and our exploration lasted all of 5 minutes - there was little vibrancy downtown, and we did not feel entirely safe, and there was esstentially nothing to do downtown. We just found similar stores closer to home so we just stopped going there. If Worcester can copy Providence and Hartford's examples of revitilizing downtown, they can succeed in this project.

[Recchia]

Were there any street fronting stores? If you're gonna have an urban mall, you have to have some stores/restaurants on the street, or people won't even think of leaving.

[virgo20]

Recchia, on Nov 3 2005, 09:49 AM, said:

Were there any street fronting stores? If you're gonna have an urban mall, you have to have some stores/restaurants on the street, or people won't even think of leaving.

No...none at all!! Everything was enclosed! Also Downtown Worcester is connected to the Main South area. I know some people like the idea of not siphoning off downtowns and connecting the neighborhoods, but Worcester is a prime reason not to do that. I like the fact that downtown Providence is separated with Rt. 95 and the Woonasquatucket and Moshassuck Rivers. It creates a sense of place that you've arrived.

[cloudship]

Back when it was the original Galleria, there was a little bit of an opening for Filenes, but it was an area that few people went to. Then again, the part that is fronting the road is actually two office towers - the mall is kind of tucked behind them, so there is not much to front. Whenit became the Outlets, they blocked that in.

It's kind of a wierd situation - Downtwon Worcester is not a real attractive place, yet in the mindset of the city, it actually works. There is very little available space - a few here and there and now two empty porn theaters. It's more of a working city - in order to do anything you are ultimately going to have to kick people out or make their working lives harder. I think the real revitalization of Worcester is going to come from Shrewsbury Street and Green St/Canal District. And it will come - it's just a slow process.

Unless somebody does something.

[MikeR]

Recchia, on Nov 3 2005, 09:49 AM, said:

Were there any street fronting stores? If you're gonna have an urban mall, you have to have some stores/restaurants on the street, or people won't even think of leaving.

No street-facing stores, espically where the mall abutted Worcester's city square..I think (similar to Kennedy Plaza/Burnside Park). The mall afforded some nice views from the inside, but offered no reason to go outside. That's why we stopped going - a suburban-like mall in an urban area...

[oliver]

Quote

"It's kind of a wierd situation - Downtwon Worcester is not a real attractive place, yet in the mindset of the city, it actually works. There is very little available space - a few here and there and now two empty porn theaters. It's more of a working city - in order to do anything you are ultimately going to have to kick people out or make their working lives harder. I think the real revitalization of Worcester is going to come from Shrewsbury Street and Green St/Canal District. And it will come - it's just a slow process."

I have to partly disagree with you here. I think that you are right that the revitalization comes from Shrewsbury Street and the Canal District. At Shrewsbury Street it already happened, the Street is packed with restaurants and looks nice with the new street lights etc. The Canal district is slowly emerging with new loft/condo transformations and stylish bars / restaurants moving in (e.g. SPQR, Block 5). Canal District and Shrewbury streets are easy walking distance to downtown (as soon as the mall is out of the way). Around the Common and on Main Street there are beautiful buildings which could make a very attractive place. Right now they are occupied with empty porn theaters, run down apartments etc. But there is a lot of talk about converting those buildings, which are all in very close walking distance to the New City Square and not too far from Shrewbury Street and Canal District (again, if the mall is out of the way). There is plenty of available space, indeed I looked at a space on Main Street yesterday, which is in the process to be converted into Condos/Loft spaces.
North Main Street / Commons and New City Square could be one nice walkable downtown area with short walking distance to Shrewsbury Street with its many restaurants and Canal District with loft housing units, restaurants and bars. Well, perhaps I am dreaming here, but in my mind it makes all sense...

Edited by oliver, 04 November 2005 - 10:29 AM.

[cloudship]

I think there are some very nice buildings downtown. Also a lot of really ugly ones, too. Other than the block that contains the old Paris theater, I can't think of much space for rent. Is there stuff, particularly store front, that I am missing? There is some housing already, I don't think you are going to get many more people to live on Main Street itself until there is more of a reason to live there.

I guess my thought is that while it would be pretty to have a nice downtown, it's not the area most in need of revitalization. I think they should focus more on other areas. To do anything downtown is probably going to have as many consequences as things it helps.

[oliver]

here a nice sky shot of the existing mall:

[oliver]

current mall vs. citysquare:

Current mall:



Citysquare:

Edited by oliver, 06 November 2005 - 10:49 PM.

[jeepcj85]

Where was this penthouse with roofdecks for under $200k???? I dont know of any places like that for that price.

[oliver]

jeepcj85, on Nov 13 2005, 10:30 PM, said:

Where was this penthouse with roofdecks for under $200k???? I dont know of any places like that for that price.

It's 531 Main Street, the old Filenes department store. It used to be an apartment building, they are converting them into condos (Federal Square Condominiums). They had two penthouses with rooftops, one of them is sold, I don't know about the other one. They also have one loft for sale for $150K, very nice, but without parking space. It is still in a half shady area, but it is very close to the Common park and the planned citysquare. So it certainly is a great investment. Let me know if you need the name of the Broker.

[jeepcj85]

To build the mall and office towers, the City took by eminent domain and demolished an entire brick and brownstone neighborhood with street level retail. Something like 50 buildings including 6 theaters and 6 hotels were taken. Entire streets were eliminated and a huge wall (the mall) was built around downtown.

This project came on the heels of another 60s "urban renewal project". The area south of Franklin St betweein Portland St and Mcgrath Blvd was taken by eminent domain as a urban renewal area. The entire area was bulldozed. Torn down were (9) single families, (22) two unit, (26) 3-4 unit, (11) 5-8 unit, (8) buildings with over 8 units, (24) rooming houses, a school, and a firehouse. 1200 people were evicted and 534 units of housing were lost. Five whole streets were taken off the map. Again, most of the buildings were brick and brownstone with street level retail. Today on the propertly sits a YWCA, funeral home, public library, strip mall, a former hotel and lots of surface parking. This project was ENTIRELY seperate from the mall project above.

And that ladies and gentlemen, is where Downtown Worcester went. Very sad.

[TheBostonian]

Wow, that's devastating.

[oliver]

It is terrible - if you see old pictures of Worcester, it used to have a beautiful and driving downtown, it even used to have a streetcar system. The population peaked at 200,000 - now, 40 years later, it is down to approx. 170,000.

[Cotuit]

I posted a thread a while back that featured some pre-290 photos of Worcester from the Telegram-Gazette.

[jeepcj85]

In addition, most buildings in the canal disctrict and elswhere were reduced from 4-6 stories down to 1-2 stories, or demolished altogether. This was because the old system of taxation was based on square footage, not value. As the population declined in the 50s and 60s the building owners found many upstairs apartments vacant, but were still being taxed on the space. Many decided to cut their losses and demolished the upper floors. Ill try to post some Water St before and after photos at some point.

[oliver]

jeepcj85, on Nov 14 2005, 12:23 PM, said:

In addition, most buildings in the canal disctrict and elswhere were reduced from 4-6 stories down to 1-2 stories, or demolished altogether. This was because the old system of taxation was based on square footage, not value. As the population declined in the 50s and 60s the building owners found many upstairs apartments vacant, but were still being taxed on the space. Many decided to cut their losses and demolished the upper floors. Ill try to post some Water St before and after photos at some point.

Would love to see those photos. Talking about high buildings, does anybody have an explanation why Worcester does not have a skyline? All comparable size cities like Providence, Hartford and even Springfield have nice Skylines, while Worcester only has a few lost 80's - towers.

[cloudship]

There's only one 80's tower I can think of - the rest is pretty much late 60's early 70's suff. The reason Worcester doesn't have as impressive a skyline is because it's much less a city. It has a large population, but not as much business and office space. Well, that and the fact Main St. backs up against a hill which makes the buildings look a little shorter.

Not to defend the Mall and Franklin St. projects, because they are pretty bad, but while there were brick and brownstones, it was not necessarily the best condition. In fact, it was considered pretty depressed. Fires were common, crime was bad, and buildings were pretty unsafe. It was kind of like the area around Main and Chandler.

[jeepcj85]

Its true it was a depressed area, but the Salem Sq clearing was concieved in the late 50s and cleared in the early 60s. Crime and slums at that point were not anything like Main and Chandler areas today. The point is though, that if the buildings, even some of them were still there, and the area revitalized, a huge area of walkable urban landscape would exist.

Providence resisted the urge to tear down vacant marginal area near downtown. For awhile the area was an eyesore, but as times got better, the buildings were renovated, and the area has retained the original urban fabric. Not to say that in Worcester it couldnt have gone the other way, breeding crime.

I will say though, my parents, who were middle class catholic school students, took the bus downtown with their friends everyday to hang out in the late 50s and early 60s. The area was very safe at that time.