What Is Density Anyway?

There are a lot of people talking about density these days.  Is it good and important for sustainability? Or is it bad and hurts property values? When we talk about density, we rarely define it, but it clearly means very different things to different people. During a recent ULI Technical Assistance Panel I was part of in Provincetown, this really came…

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For Better or Worse, Provincetown is Ahead of the Curve

Provincetown is one of my favorite places – anywhere.  I’ve been going there for almost 30 years; I have watched it change, as places do, and I love it now as much as I did then. But like all communities, it has its concerns and issues. So I was honored to be part of an Urban Land Institute Technical Assistance…

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Walking East Boston with ULI

This week a few of us attended a ULI walking tour of East Boston’s waterfront development. We enjoyed a water taxi ride over, and visited residential projects at various stages of development — one plans to lease by August, while another recently completed permitting. Each development has a retail component and public access to the water, including new water taxi…

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What is the Future of Downtown?

One of the best things about great cities is that they adapt and change. Rail yards become new neighborhoods, and industrial districts become lofts, offices, and shopping centers. The ability of the urban fabric to evolve with the rapidly changing ways we live and work is part of the reason people and businesses are returning to the city core. It…

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Retail & the City (and the suburbs, too)

Once upon a time, people lived in the same places where they worked and shopped. Like my grandparents, who lived over the butcher shop in Irvington, New Jersey. Their community was tied together by local retailers. Then, someone decided that it would better and cleaner and less bothersome to separate where we lived from where we worked, and from where…

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Location, Location, Location

That’s the old punchline about real estate, but it’s especially true for retail. No matter how much we buy online, and no matter how many of us move back to the city, location and access remain paramount. Successful retailers, both urban and suburban, have always understood (and had) location. We are facing a future in which how things are delivered…

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Where Is Retail Going Anyway?

Some say it’s going away. Some say it’s online. Others say it’s changing so fast that it’s impossible to know. While the role retail plays is changing, it remains a critical component of both the real estate industry and our public places.  Even if it’s more convenient to buy certain things online, the social act of going downtown (or to…

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Graffiti & Steel: Embracing Culture

For most of us, graffitied walls and industrial sites are usually things to be repainted and remade. But in our hearts we all know that the most interesting places have a little bit of grit to them; it’s what gives them life, character, and makes them memorable. In the end, the things people leave behind them are what make communities…

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Arrowstreet Designer Launches The Curatist

One of our designers, Timea Szabo, and her husband, coder Zsolt Nemeth, have collaborated to create The Curatist: a new platform for browsing architectural content from around the web in one place. Currently available online and as a Google Chrome extension, the Curatist aggregates and filters architectural news and presents a variety of sources in a single place. The site is…

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King Open School Update

As the year drew to a close, so did Arrowstreet’s work on the feasibility study phase for the King Open and Cambridge Street Upper Schools & Community Complex project. Arrowstreet is partnered with William Rawn Associates, our neighbors here at 10 Post Office Square, to design the new facility for the City of Cambridge. As the New Year begins, so…

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