Planning Board - Planning Board Meeting

I'm going to switch my backsplash real quick, but I thought people might find it interesting since I just took it yesterday. That's why you see the brick in the window frame.

I know Ben is on from Mentimco. I'm a little disappointed you're more like highlighting the Volpe site, Conrad.

I mean, that's where all the action is there, Conrad. You got it.

You're on mute, Conrad.

I said, I'm not playing favorites or making any statements.

It's a good picture.

We are all set with the live streaming as well as the recording. And Mary Lydecker has also joined us. So we have four regular planning board members, which is a quorum to open the planning board meeting at 630.

Wathi, do you see David Manfredi?

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear that clearly.

Do you see David Manfredi in the participant list?

Yes, yes, let me just quickly look. Yes, let me just do the promote. Okay, yeah, he's in the process. Thank you. Sure.

We're still waiting on one more board member from our side.

Yes. So we have some general business items related to adoption of minutes and general update on what's coming up. And so, yeah, we definitely have some time before we get to the first item. And Ashley Tan has also joined us. So we have all the planning board members expected for today. Ted, we can start whenever you're ready. Oh, I'm sorry. We are not getting your audio. No.

Okay. And Carolyn is not going to vote on the first matter?

She's actually recusing from the first matter.

Okay. All right, I'm all set whenever you are.

Yes, please go ahead. We are at 6.33, so we can officially open the meeting.

Okay. Welcome to the October 28, 2025 meeting of the Cambridge Planning Board. My name is Ted Cohen. I will be acting as chair this evening. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023, adopted by the Massachusetts General Court and approved by the governor, the city is authorized to use remote participation at meetings of the Cambridge Planning Board. All board members, applicants, and members of the public will state their name before speaking. All votes will be taken by roll call. Members of the public will be kept on mute until it is time for public comment. I will give instructions for public comment at that time and you can also find instructions on the City's webpage for remote planning board meetings. This meeting is being video and audio recorded and is being streamed live on the City of Cambridge online meeting portal and on cable television channel 22 within Cambridge. There will be a transcript of the proceedings. I'll start by asking staff to take board member attendance and verify that all members are audible.

Thank you, Ted. This is Jeff Roberts from Community Development. We'll start with Mary Lydecker. Are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Present, visible, and audible.

Thank you, Mary. Diego Macias, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you? Present, visible, and audible. Thank you, Diego. Thompson Avich, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you? Tom is absent. Ashley Tan, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Present, visible, and audible.

Thank you, Ashley. Carolyn Zern, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Present, visible, and audible.

Thank you, Carolyn. To the associate members, Dan Anderson, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you?

Yes, Jeff, all the above.

Thank you, Dan. Joy Jackson, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you? Joy is absent. Mary Flynn, are you present and is the meeting visible and audible to you? Mary Flynn is absent. And back to H. Theodore Cohen, just confirm that you're present and the meeting is visible and audible to you. I am present and it is visible and audible. Thank you, Ted. Thank you as acting chair. So that means we have six planning board or we have five full planning board members and one associate member present.

Thank you, Jeff. The first item is an update from the Community Development Department. I assume, Jeff, you're doing that. Please also introduce the staff present at the meeting.

Thank you, Ted. Once again, I'm Jeff Roberts. I'm the Director of Zoning and Development here at CDD. On my team, Swathi Joseph is here with me, and we also have Eric Thorpeldsen, Urban Designer in the Community Planning and Design group. And I believe I missed somebody last week, but I believe that's all for staff. um so i will just quickly uh point to our our schedule of upcoming cases tonight we have one public hearing which we'll get to very quickly um later we will have a general business item a design review matter sort of an update to a uh or a revisiting a design review uh detail of a case at 75 broadway this is part of the volpe redevelopment site um so we're all in kendall square tonight after tonight's meeting we have a bit of a break uh november 4th is election day i encourage everyone to vote um there are no meetings that held that day and then november 11th is a holiday so uh so there's no meetings either of those days the next meeting is november 18th uh there will be an item of business um that we've put on the schedule at this point we have uh We've scheduled a continued or the second planning board advisory consultation session for 28 to 30 Wendell Street and affordable housing overlay development in the Baldwin neighborhood. The board heard that a little while ago, the first review, and they're coming back for their second review. And we plan to have some more items as we close out the year, but we don't have everything quite scheduled yet. So that's all I have. I will note, I noted this last week, but for people who are tuned in and interested, on Thursday, the ordinance committee will be having their public hearing on the zoning petitions for Mass Ave and Cambridge Street, which the board heard and gave a positive recommendation on last week. The ordinance committee has, we expect that that meeting will be primarily for presentation and comment. And then there is a continuation scheduled on November 13th. Both of these are at 530 p.m. And that's all that's on the calendar. So I'll turn it back to the chair.

All right. Thank you. If there are any questions from board members. Doesn't appear to be. So then the next item is approval of meeting minutes. The board has received certified transcripts for the meetings held on August 5, August 19 and September 30, 2025. If there are any questions from the board regarding these minutes, please state your name and ask your question. uh if not uh can i have a motion to accept the transcript as the meeting minutes this is mary so moved thank you is there a second actually second actually thank you uh could we have a roll call vote jeff yes on that motion mary Lydecker yes diego macias yes

Ashley Tan.

Yes.

Carolyn Zern.

Yes.

And Ted Cohen. Yes. That's all members present voting in favor.

Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the continued public hearing on case PB 315 for a major amendment of the infill development concept plan for the MXD zoning district by Boston Properties Limited Partnership. This review was held jointly with the board of the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority. So we will start by having the CRA board officially open their meeting. So, Conrad. Conrad, is that you?

It is me. I was unmuting. And I'm Conrad Crawford, chair of the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority, and this is the joint meeting of the CRA being held in remote format on October 28th. I will now call the role of CRA board members and its executive director. Please specify whether the meeting is audible to you, and please respond after I call your name. Kathleen Bourne.

Present and audible.

Joe Camillus. Present and audible. Philo Castore. Present and audible. Aviva Rothman-Shore.

Present and audible.

Executive Director Tom Evans. Present and audible. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. CRA staff members who are presenting are also in attendance, and I would like to add that because this is a remote meeting, all votes will be taken by roll call, and our executive director will be repeating the response of each member present. And... Before we begin, I'd like to note for the record there are only six planning boards present to hear this case and five votes are required to approve. Does the applicant agree to proceed with this public hearing with the six members present? Is this for me? as chair of the redevelopment authority or is the plan that Conrad that's that's to CDD staff? Yeah, yeah.

Okay. So we can turn I think Ted can I think Ted, you're muted. You want to go ahead?

I'm sorry. Yes, that's for the planning board. Let me start over because the numbers are a little different. Before we begin, I'd like to note for the record that there are only five planning board members present to hear this case and five votes are required to approve. Does the applicant agree to proceed with this public hearing with the five members present? We do. Thank you.

That's Jeff Lohenberg, Mr. Chair, speaking on behalf of the applicant.

Thanks, Jim. Thank you. Thank you. We will begin with an update from the CDD staff. We'll then hear an update from the applicant, followed by public comment, and then the board will discuss the application. Our action is to grant or deny the requested special permit amendment, or we could ask for additional information and continue the hearing to a future date. Jeff, I assume that's you. Thank you.

Yep, thank you. This is Jeff Roberts again. So this is a continued public hearing on this case. The board first heard this in March and voted to continue the hearing after requesting additional information. Just as a reminder, this is kind of a special, special permit from the Planning Board. It's called the Infill Development Concept Plan. It authorizes the planning board to approve a development plan for additional phase development within the MXD zoning district. It operates in large part like a PUD or a planned unit development. where it sets an overall development plan for the area, which is then subject to ongoing design review and approval. So this was a request for a major amendment to shift a portion of the approved commercial gross floor area, basically to change some of the sites and include a new site for redevelopment, all still within the MXD zoning limitations. And CDD staff, so the applicant team has provided updated information in response to the board's comments back in March. And staff has provided an updated memo. And we can answer any questions that the board might have as we get there.

All right.

thank you um the cra do you need to wish to introduce no i i think yeah i think jeff roberts covered a lot of it i would say um some of the things you know with phase one and two identified in the idcp as complete and with progress made to phase three this amendment introduces a development alternative for phase four BXP has submitted two potential development paths for phase four outlined in two alternatives. Option one to advance the redevelopment of 250 Benny Street or commercial building D as delineated in the IDCP amendment number two, which is referred in the document as phase four baseline. Option two, to construct a smaller building on 250 Benny Street or commercial building D, and to deploy the rest of the utility project GFA to a proposed new building at 105 or termed commercial building E. The phase four alternative would not augment the project's GFA, but would rather distribute it across two plots instead of one. The CRA action tonight is to vote on a draft motion with potential conditions, or the CRA board could ask for additional information and continue the hearing to a future date. Like CDD staff, CRA staff have provided a memo and are present to answer any questions that the board may have.

Thank you. Then let us continue with the presentation. I understand the presenter is Jeff Loewenberg, who is representing Boston Properties. Mr. Loewenberg, you will have up to 30 minutes for your presentation, though we hope you can be as concise as possible. Please introduce your project team and begin.

Thank you, Acting Chair. Good evening. My name is Jeff Loewenberg. I'm a Senior Vice President OF DEVELOPMENT WITH BXP. REALLY GOOD TO SEE BOTH THE MEMBERS OF THE PLANNING BOARD AND THE CRA BOARD. EXCITED TO BE BACK IN FRONT OF YOU TONIGHT. QUICKLY INTRODUCING OUR TEAM HERE TONIGHT. IN ADDITION TO MYSELF, MY COLLEAGUE, KATELINA PIDEA IS HERE FROM BXP. FROM PICARD SHULTZ AND ARCHITECTS, WE HAVE MAXWELL BOMB AND TONY MARCHESE. OUR LOCAL COUNSEL JIM RAFFERTY IS ON THE CALL HERE TO HELP ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS AS WELL. SO MAX AND TONY, IF YOU WANT TO SHARE THE DECK, I'M GOING TO JUST GO THROUGH A COUPLE OF INTRODUCTORY SLIDES JUST TO, AGAIN, LEVEL SET THE CONTEXT OF THE REQUEST OF THIS AMENDMENT. AND THEN WE'LL JUST GET RIGHT INTO SOME OF THE UPDATES AND THE MODIFICATIONS WE MADE SINCE WE WERE HERE IN MARCH.

You can't see this yet.

No, it's coming up now, it looks like.

Can everyone see that?

Yep.

Yes. All right.

So just kind of reiterating some of Joel's comments, the request tonight is a IDC amendment number three. If approved, we would then continue on to a design review phase, although we have IN RESPONSE TO THE MARCH HEARING ADVANCED SOME OF THE DESIGN ASPECTS TO TRY TO ANSWER QUESTIONS OF THE BOARD. THE MXD ZONING HAS ALWAYS HAD A TRADITIONAL AGGREGATE GFA CAP AND THE ENVISION WAS ALWAYS TO KIND OF SHIFT AROUND GFA needed. In this case, there is approval of the IDCP amendment required, and we are here with that proposed amendment today. So this image shows some of the IDC approval. So the three buildings at the top of the graphic, so 121 Broadway, 290 Binney, 250 Binney, and then in between 121 and 290 is the Eversource, below-grade substation, and the plaza. Those buildings all make up the previously approved IDC Amendment 2. Phase 3 of the IDCP is currently under construction, includes 121 Broadway, 290 Binney, and the substation and the plaza to come after that. So that Phase 3 already under construction. Phase four of the IDCP involves the construction of 250 Binney. And now we kind of get into our proposed amendment. So as previously said, this is the phase four baseline. In this alternative, we proceed with the already approved 250 Binney. Again, as in 105 Broadway stays in its current condition. So this is one of the two paths that we would have basically staying with what's approved. If you go to the next page, this page and the next page really show what the phase four alternative is. In this phase four alternative, approximately 149,000 square feet of GFA is shifted. from 250 Binney to 105 Broadway. And then if you go to the next page, you see basically the resultant of a lower 250 Binney and then a redeveloped 105. Again, no new net GFA, just a shifting of that 149,000 square feet. Next page. So this chart basically compares the phase four baseline path with the phase four ALTERNATIVE PATH. AND ASSUMING THAT THIS IDC AMENDMENT 3 IS APPROVED, WE WOULD FIRST GO THROUGH A DESIGN REVIEW PHASE WITH BOTH THE BOARDS. FOLLOWING APPROVAL OF DESIGN PHASE, REALLY THE PATH IS THEN SHOWN WHERE WE EITHER GO STAY WITH THE BASELINE OR PURSUE THE ALTERNATIVE. AND WE WOULD MAKE THAT DECISION AT APPROXIMATELY 75% DESIGN DRAWINGS, KIND OF PRE-BUILDING PERMIT. submit that to city departments and staff for a review. That's kind of the trigger. So we kind of maintain these two pathways through the initial design review phase and then pick a path. There's no change in the GFA in either the baseline. Parking spaces do not change. In terms of bike parking, there actually is an increase in the alternative because we're kind of leaving all the bike spaces at 250 even though it would be a smaller 250 in the alternative and adding bike spaces in 105 Broadway so there's a A NET ADD OF BOTH LONG-TERM AND SHORT-TERM BIKE PARKING. EVERYTHING ELSE IS ESSENTIALLY THE SAME. NEXT PAGE. THIS JUST LISTS OUT THE MITIGATION REQUIREMENTS THAT ARE CURRENTLY IN THE IDCP. I WON'T GO LINE BY LINE. HAPPY TO GO BACK AND TALK IF THERE ARE QUESTIONS. BUT THE HEADLINE HERE IS THAT THERE IS EITHER NO CHANGE IN THE MITIGATION OR IN THE CASE OF CERTAIN ONES, WE WOULD COMPLETE THE MITIGATION IN THE FIRST BUILDING IN THE CASE OF THE ALTERNATIVE, WHETHER IT'S BUILDING D OR E, WE WOULD BASICALLY COMMIT TO THAT FUNDING. SO KIND OF A NO CHANGE OR WITH THE FIRST BUILDING. AGAIN, HAPPY TO COME BACK. WANT TO KEEP THINGS MOVING. GET INTO OUR CHANGES. NEXT PAGE, PLEASE. SO THESE ARE JUST A FEW OF THE KIND OF THE MAIN COMMENTS WE HEARD IN THE MARCH HEARING. I WOULD KIND OF BOIL THESE DOWN INTO REALLY FOUR MAJOR THEMES THAT WE HEARD. FIRST IS MASSING CHANGES. YOU KNOW, WHEN WE CAME IN MARCH, YOU KNOW, GIVEN THIS IS REALLY MORE OF A ZONING CHANGE TO SHIFT THE GFA, WE HAD A LITTLE BIT MORE OF A GENERIC We've actually really spent some time with the massing addressing comments in terms of its relationship to 121 Broadway, etc. So you'll see some advancement on the massing of 105 Broadway. Shadows, we've redefined and really expanded the shadow study to give everybody really a full picture of not only shadows throughout the year, but also throughout the day. So happy to get into that. There also were some comments on ground floor. uh components we'll look at that as well and then there is one comment on on market viability this is a rather small site so as we start to shape massing and things like that it is important that we maintain a floor plate size that meets the demands of the market next page These are also some additional feedback we've had from CDD, CRA staff. I would say a lot of these fall into that massing and ground floor type of themes of the comments that we will address. So, you know, with no further ado, I'll turn it over to Tony and Max, and we can start to get into some of the responses to some of the comments we heard in the spring.

Thanks much, Jeff. And again, my name is Tony Marchese, design principal with Clark Chilton. It's a pleasure and great to see you all again. And so as Jeff outlined, We're back here today after meeting with the joint boards in March to share with you the result of a series of work sessions with both staffs to refine the building design and provide some more information. GO AHEAD TO THE NEXT SLIDE. ONE OF THE COMMENTS THAT CAME FROM MORE THAN ONE BOARD MEMBER AS THEY LOOKED AT THE PROPOSAL AND MAYBE SLIGHTLY ADVANCING INTO QUESTIONS RELATED TO DESIGN, THE BUILDING MASSING WAS FAIRLY SYMMETRICAL. YOU SEE THAT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE THREE DIAGRAMS. LEFT-HAND SIDE SHOWING THE EXISTING MASSING. middle one showing what you saw in March. And one of the questions that was raised was, would we look at a more asymmetrical massing to shift the bulk of the building a little bit eastward to open up the gap between 121 and 105? The aim there was to allow more views from the residential units in 121 and to allow potentially more light into the central plaza. And that's exactly what we did as we refined the design as you see there. And you can see that that resulted in a widening gap as it branches out skyward. And we want to spend a little bit of time showing you that condition in a little bit more detail, then talk about shadows and share some updated design images. Next slide. And so here you see the two designs in more detail, the one on the left from March, the one on the right, the current proposal. And again, you see that the design strategy in terms of the enclosure, the general layout of the building, chamfering, adding balconies, et cetera, is very much the same, concealing the mechanical. But you see how the building has a little bit of a shift eastward towards the connector to open up that gap. Next slide. And then a section where we're just highlighting that concept again based on the design guidelines of incorporating the mechanical area of the building into the overall massing so that it feels like it's part of a continuous well thought out design concept and the mechanical components are shielded BUILDING. NEXT SLIDE. AND THEN A COUPLE OF AXONOMETRIC VIEWS LOOKING DOWN AS IF WE WERE THERE IN PERSON LOOKING AT THE MODEL. AND WHAT'S IMPORTANT THERE IS MAYBE FIRST FOCUSING ON THE IMAGE ON THE RIGHT WHERE THAT CHAMPFORD CORNER WORKS IN PARALLEL WITH THE C3 BUILDING ON THE MATIMCO SITE TO CREATE THIS KIND OF APERTURE, THIS OPENING, WELCOMING ONE NORTHWARD INTO THE 6th STREET CONNECTOR AND HOW THE SHIFT focuses the emphasis on that corner as well and allows that kind of movement of the building to feel more cohesive and organic. There's a reciprocal cut on the 121 side and we'll show you how in plan how that opens up the views for the residential units and marks the entry to the retail at the base. One of the other questions that came up as a result of the discussion, both I think with you, joint board members, but in more detail with the staff, was asked us to come up with a diagram that would somehow illustrate the difference between the opening between the Akamai building and 121, which is under construction right now, and the proposed building. And I think the focus there is, as you look at that kind of filled-in form between the two, the gap and the negative mass, if you will, between 105 and 121 is larger than it is adjacent to the Akamai building. Next slide. The next series of slides, if you look at the bottom, there's a plan. Left is Akamai 121, 105, C3 along Broadway. And we're just going to cut a series of sections that move northward. And the reason we're doing that is You have to think about the two buildings as being kind of dynamic in elevation and section. 121 is a bit of a wedge shape. So it points towards Broadway and then focus of the views of the units outward. 105 has a reciprocal kind of wedge. So again, trying to make that aperture wider, but also that aperture opens up as you go to the sky because again that face of And so as you see that cut, you see the aperture narrow and then widen again. So quite wide at the top, narrow in the middle, and then kind of hitting a 50 plus or minus dimension in the center. Then we move to the center, and it's more in the 33.5 and then 40 below. It narrows. stays consistent on the 105 and then 121 is narrowing. Next section shows that and then the final section you'll see it opens up again. But if you look at that compared to the Akamai distance, that's a kind of a almost consistent vertical void, if you will. So the The void on the east is more dynamic, both in plan and section, and larger. Next slide. The other thing we looked at was how do those dimensions kind of compare to adjacent relationships, whether it's the one we just talked about between 121 and Acoma, the east of 105 on the Matimco site, the relationship between the resi and the lab building. And I would propose to both boards that the relationship between 105 and 121 is more dynamic and more varied, but in general terms, the basic dimensions are very much in line with adjacent relationships along that block. Next slide. And then finally the plan, if you saw the earlier slides about some of the requests, one of the board members asked, you know, if we could superimpose the plan of 121 with the plan, the new proposed plan of 105. And here's where you see the two angles kind of working together to create a kind of an hourglass shape where it really expands quite a bit on the southern portion along Broadway. and then expands out to 70 feet. And then another note, if you look closely at the unit plans of 121, it has a kind of a sawtooth and the major aperture sort of purposely faces southward. So those units kind of look almost parallel to the lower angle line of 105. And again, it's this idea of the two geometries working kind of hand-in-hand to kind of maximize the kind of sense of light and air between the two and certainly the recommendation to shift the building asymmetrically has improved that condition. Next slide. So that kind of covers the massing. As it relates to the ground plane, the position of retail and lobby, et cetera, here's a plan that starts on the left on Broadway with the Yakima building, moves to 121, 105, and then across the 6th Street connector, the new green space that parallels the connector, and then the lobby and retail disposition. In our current design, we're proposing the lobby kind of focus on that connection or that entrance, that aperture to the Sixth Street connector. has the visibility southward along Ames, activates that corner. It also allows us to create a larger chunk of retail on the western side. The loading dock is on the western side so we can get direct access to the retail from the loading dock and then in more detail in the core to the service elevator and then the lobby Next slide, please. A detailed view of that. On the top, you can see we've added that connection for the request to get that kind of passageway to the north to that east-west connector. You see that the angled chamfers at the ground plane create the ability to kind of get to the site get settled before you enter the building, creates some nice south-facing small little seating areas on both corners. The idea of a retail piece that can spill out with seating could spill out as well. The building is elevated slightly to meet the flood mitigation, but we have ramps as well as stairs to allow you to get to the slightly elevated height. And then loading and parking access per the previous design come off the East Service Road. We've enhanced that connection on the eastern side of the East Service Road with landscaping and a flush walk that connects north to south as well. Next slide. And then I think one of the real positive benefits of this endeavor is I'll call it a transformation of the ground plane at this important location. Because we are at the opening, the aperture, as I said, of the 6th Street connector, also the terminus of Ames Street as it meets Broadway, the existing building, to be frank, is nicely designed, but there's zero active street frontage other than the small corner entrance that happens along the East Service Drive. What we envision is a complete transformation of that with the addition of landscape, OBVIOUSLY, IMPROVEMENTS TO THE BIKE PATH, A WELCOMING LOBBY ENTRANCE, LOTS OF ACTIVITY. SO FILLING IN A KIND OF A GAP IN THE URBAN FABRIC ADJACENT TO THE 6th STREET CONNECTOR, RESERVING THE TREES, BUT ALSO KIND OF ENHANCING THAT ENTRANCE. NEXT SLIDE. SHADOWS ARE A COMPLEX THING TO DESCRIBE. We've kind of put together two ways to talk about the shadows with you all tonight. The first one is very static. It's just kind of fixed views. The second one we're going to kind of flip through so it's more dynamic and you can see the pathway of the shadow. We don't expect you to look at each one of these individual images. It really just represents a grid of every month at the 21st, so it catches the equinoxes, as you see along the top, and we've targeted between 10 and 2. The reason we've targeted that time is If you look at the longest day of the year, June 21st, you'll notice that in that bracket, the central public space is always in the sun. After that, buildings either to the east or earlier than that to the south create shadow. So we wanted to show you the shadow impacts in that kind of critical lunchtime, but also in the time where there's actually an impact as you look at the whole grid. So when you look at this entire grid, 50% of these show an impact on the central plaza, but that impact in terms of an additional shadow in area varies widely from 1% up to 34%. If you take the average of all those, our impact during this kind of grid that you see is creating a 7% additional shadow area on the entire area of the plaza. So it's a way to kind of bracket or describe the aggregate impact of the shadow. If you just look at the equinoxes, which is another way to cut it, that drops even further. So you see that in the, actually it increases a little bit, sorry, that's in the eight and a half percent. So it goes slightly higher when you look at just the equinox and that's because the summer seasons, there's literally zero impact. But winter seasons, you know, there's a larger continuous impact. So the next series of slides will just show what I mentioned earlier where you'll see the movement of the sun through the plaza and the purple represents additional impact. And again, we're looking at that for the period of the time when there's actually an impact. So in March and April, it's between 1030 and 1. So Max will click through that and you'll see Early, it starts with almost the plaza being in pure shadow. Then you see the addition of the purple later in the day. As you get into closer to the two o'clock, you'll see the shadow will come off of the plaza. And then by comparison in April, you saw that it was much less. So as the year progresses, the impact is less. And so that general impact was closer to the kind of 30% at its worst case. In contrast, we'll also show you the same movement in the summer where the plaza is getting a lot of sun and in the winter when the plaza is getting barely any sun. And again, it's going in half an hour increments. So you see in the summer basically minimal impact towards the end of the time period it touches the lower corner. You see in the winter the impact is a little bit greater. It's filling in the sliver of sun that was left as opposed to the lower original 105. So that's a couple of ways of just kind of explaining and documenting the shadows for your education. And then finally, We created a series of views of the building within the context of Kendall Square. And so we're starting on Broadway. We're east. We're looking at westward. On the right-hand side is the Volpe Massing. You see 105 kind of sloping back from the Broadway frontage, allowing 121 to peek out behind. And now we're going to move westward. Here, you've kind of moved a little bit closer. You see the entire building, the massing, the sky, and the gap between 105 and the C3 building. You can come in closer and see a little bit more detail. Now you're starting to see the storefront. You see the impact of that large kind of terrace, canopy, balcony, how it faces towards Broad and the building sort of tapering skyward and the top sloping towards the north to allow as much light in as possible. And then we're going to move a little bit around. We'll be on Ames Street looking north. So that vertical column of sky, that's the 6th Street connector. Again, you see the chamfered face that marks the corner and kind of that marks the entrance to the lobby, that large terrace where we're planning the amenities for the building beyond. And then again, the tapering silhouette of the building, the incorporation of the mechanical within the composition of the building. And now we're going to kind of continue and swing. Now we're looking eastward. We're on Broadway. 121 is on the left. The gap between the two buildings in the center, that chamfered corner, which creates this interesting kind of triangular form, easing the edge, opening up the views for 121, the porch in the distance, the active use along the frontage, the new bike lane, et cetera. Danny Lewin on the right. Next slide. And then we're just, we're moving a little bit further back. So now you see Akamai 121 and that, again, that kind of sculptural chamfered corner that marks the edge and allows the silhouette or the basic form of 105 Broadway to taper upward. The building is not quite as square and plan, but the chamfers allow it to kind of taper. And then a view from the plaza itself with 121 in the foreground on the right the gap between the buildings and then a reciprocal move here that makes a gesture back towards the park and gives up a kind of a eased silhouette. And then finally the last view You're on Binney Street, you know, it's a spring day, the trees are a beautiful light green, the GSA building on the left, the Binney project with the DNA pattern on the facade, and then 105 peeking out beyond. And, you know, we're anticipating that the coloration will be of the same family as some of the other buildings around the Central Plaza. certainly feel as if it's a kindred spirit, but having its own personality as well. I know I went through those quickly. Happy to answer any questions and thank you again for your time this evening.

Thank you. So this is a public hearing. Any members of the public who wish to speak should now click the button that says raise hand. If you're calling in by phone, you can raise your hand by pressing star nine. As of 5 p.m. yesterday, the board had received written comments on this case from Jason Alves. Written communications received at 5 p.m. yesterday will be entered into the record.

This is Jeff Roberts. I don't see any hands raised from the audience. So I'll just repeat one more time for anyone who might still be looking for the button. This is the public comment portion for the MX or the infill development concept plan amendment. And you can, if you'd like to speak, you can push the raise hand button or star nine on your phone if you're connected by phone. Still not seeing any hands. I think I'll turn it over to the chair at this point.

Okay. Well, thank you. So are there any questions from I'm sorry. We have received written material from CDD staff and the staff is available to answer questions. Do we have any questions for staff or for the applicant from the planning board or from the CRA at this time? If so, please raise your hand and we can proceed from there. Okay. Ashley?

Thank you, Chair. I have two hopefully quick questions. One is I know the applicant is trying to reserve the right to pick whether they want to go with the base or alternative until 75% DD. I GUESS TO SEE APPLICANT HAVE A SENSE OF WHEN THAT IS IN COMPARISON TO PHASE THREE. AND I APOLOGIZE IF IT WAS IN THE MATERIALS. BUT THAT'S MY FIRST QUESTION. AND THE SECOND ONE WAS I KNOW THAT ONE OF THE SPECIAL PERMITS REQUESTED WAS REDUCTION OF THE GREEN ROOF AREA. OBVIOUSLY IT'S TOO EARLY RIGHT NOW TO SEE ANY ROOF PLANS. Does the developer have a sense of what they're trying to aim for right now? And is the request a big reduction, a small one? So that would be helpful. Thank you.

Yeah, I'll take that. So it's Jeff Lohenberg with BXP. Thank you, Ashley. The timing, we don't have certainty on the timing. It is a FUNCTION A LITTLE BIT ON MARKET DYNAMICS. WE OBVIOUSLY HAVE A LOT OF DESIGN WORK YET TO DO. SO AGAIN, JUST TO REITERATE, THERE WOULD BE AN INITIAL DESIGN REVIEW PHASE, YOU KNOW, TO TAKE 105. SO THIS WOULD, THIS APPROVAL, IF WE'RE SUCCESSFUL TONIGHT, WOULD JUST GRANT US THE ABILITY TO SHIFT IT. WE WOULD STILL NEED TO COME BACK FOR A FULL DESIGN REVIEW OF 105 BROADWAY. SO THAT WOULD BE THE FIRST STEP. following that, depending on that timing, you know, we would then potentially advance the design to a point where then we would get to that fork in the road, if you will. But it is hard to kind of put a time frame on it, but we do have some design review steps we would have to do before we even got to that point. And then the question on the reduction of the green roof, I don't have kind of a quantity. I will tell you HAVING DEVELOPED LIFE SCIENCE BUILDINGS, YOU KNOW, WITH ALL OF THE REQUIREMENTS AND QUITE FRANKLY, BOTH THE CITY AND BXP SUSTAINABILITY GOALS, THERE'S A LOT REQUIRED UP ON THOSE MECHANICAL FLOORS IN TERMS OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY EQUIPMENTS AND HEAT RECOVERIES AND EVERYTHING ELSE. This will be, from a life science perspective, kind of a floor plate on the smaller size compared to, you know, a 290 Binney, 75 Broadway, etc. So we will be kind of more challenged to get all of the necessary mechanicals in there. I don't have a percentage, but I just know and even in the larger, more typical floor plates, it's very difficult to get some of the green roof aspects on top given the requirements on the mechanical side.

okay thank you uh dan yeah thank you mr chair so a couple of questions um first of all um a nice evolution of the design and great presentation so so thank you um some of my concerns previously are around shadow study obviously the the shoulder seasons the equinox are the times when we'd like to see um more thermal comfort so one question i guess the design team was whether i believe is rwdi maybe who did your shadow and wind studies, did they do a comfort map or have you looked at that in terms of locations in the plaza that are comfortable for sitting, comfortable for standing, comfortable for walking? There's some nice criteria that typically comes along with those comfort maps. The other was In looking at the massing, was there any consideration about tilting the building away from the plaza to increase it? I think the move towards the corner and chamfering back from Broadway is very effective, but it doesn't move the massing particularly away from the plaza. And the third question, maybe this is for staff possibly, but I understand that the long-term flood elevations may be increasing here per 2025. I took a quick look. It doesn't look like they're significantly different than the flood elevations that were shown in the presentation materials, but the cities, current LTFE for 2025 are still in draft form. So I don't know if there's any additional flood impacts coming down the road that the team and design team should be aware of.

Does anyone want to respond to those questions?

Sure. And my team can help me out if I didn't write down everything, but I'll kind of start. So the wind and the shadow are kind of two separate analysis. RWDI does do all of our wind studies. We do have, we did do a wind study, pedestrian wind study comfort. Those details are in our submission books. The headline is the wind conditions can improve with a taller 105 and NEED TO WE COULD PULL THOSE OUT THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING AGAIN WE WOULD GET INTO IN DESIGN REVIEW PHASE AS WELL THE SHADOW UH THE SHADOW STUDIES HAVE BEEN DONE BY PCA UH THE ARCHITECT AND DEVELOPING THOSE MODELS I WILL SAY UM AND I'LL LET I'LL LET TONY JUMP IN WITH ANY ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS UM You know, we have looked at, you know, different moves in the massing. I don't think chamfering the building back, you know, from the plaza is really going to have a significant change of it. It's really on the margins. If you do look at some of the shadow impacts that we're seeing, a lot of the shadow impacts are on the south side of the plaza, you know, which is where, like, for example, the intake exhaust is If you look at where the lawn and the deck space, which is on the northern end of the plaza, those shadow effects are less than the southern side of the plaza, where we think less, you know, call it human activity, people hanging out or doing something on the lawn would occur. So I think, you know, the way we look at it, I mean, I think, you know, there are many, many times during the year where there isn't any shadow impacts on it, and Yeah, there's two points in time, literally, you know, an hour at the Equinox where we have a 30 some percent. But if you kind of get beyond that kind of worst case scenario for those, you see those percentages drop quite substantially. Let me just stop there. I don't know, Tony, if there's anything you want to add on the shadows, anything from a Massey perspective, but.

Yeah, just one quick note, Commissioner Anderson. As part of a series of studies that we did in collaboration with staff, we looked at dropping an entire floor of the tower to see the impact on the shadow. And to be truthful, it surprised us a bit because taking off that 13 or 14 feet, really didn't move the shadow at all that, you know, in our shadow analysis, it was a very thin sliver. So I think if we were to change the location of that point on the north further southward by battering it, I think the impact would be minimal, almost unnoticeable. based on that other analysis we did of dropping the full height of the tower by a floor, if that makes any sense.

It does, and if I could just follow up on the comfort mapping, which typically RWDI does. I don't know whether you shared the shadow studies with them, but I'm sure you're familiar with their kind of thing. Here are areas which during a period of time are comfortable for sitting or standing based on wind temperature, shadow, et cetera. Is that something that, Jeff, you...

mentioned that that's in the materials i didn't happen to see it so um just following up on that the wind study so the wind study has some values and there are some values that used to be strolling that went to to standing so there was general improvement with introduction of 105. this is true for the plaza but it's especially true for the plaza in front of 121. where there were areas where it used to be uncomfortable and with the introduction of 105 turned to comfortable seating conditions.

Thank you, Kathleen. I must have just missed that in the document. So thank you for pointing that out. And I guess my last question was just around flood elevations and maybe staff has some input on what DPW may be coming up with.

is there anyone from staff who wants to respond to that now well this this is jeff i don't uh we don't have anyone from public works here they're they're responsible for reviewing i guess i would maybe have that go back to the applicant to let us know because we we did flag in the zoning that it would be um this this would be subject to the um flood resilience standards and i would ask the applicant which standards they're reviewing at this point because it would all this would all get certified at the the phase of actually having a building design and public works would would look at it against the applicable um elevations at that time so i'm not sure pca has that handy i will just say you know we're happy to kind of

As we get into the design review phase, just touch base with DPW. I know we did get a memo from DPW as part of our original submission back in the spring. I'm sure that detail what we should be doing, but we're happy as we advance through a design review phase, certainly to tighten that up. We obviously have raised the ground floor here to the extent it needs to be raised.

I'll chime in, Jeff. We are in conformance with our understanding of that requirement with the current design.

Great, thank you. Mary Lydecker, you have questions?

Thank you. So I've been looking at your phasing section, which is helpful, and I was wondering if you could talk through a little bit the design sequence for the central open space in the east-west connector relative to making this decision about whether you'd do the base or the alternative, I think, relative to things like the sun. shade, would the central open space have an opportunity within design to react to the decision that's being made about which option is pursued?

So we do have an approved design for the center plaza. We are going to into our construction documents at the moment. I don't know if there's something specific you have in mind. Again, we've kind of concentrated lawn and deck kind of gathering spaces on the northern side that does have more sun. We have factored in the current shade into our plant material base. And while there is a little bit of impact here, I'm not sure if it would change given um you know many times of the year the the shadow is not impacting uh the sun and the shadow parts but if there's something specific we should be looking at center plaza we're happy to do that mary do you have any follow-up to that

I think an exact follow-up, Jeff, I think part of it is wondering, understanding the design team there will have construction documents. There might be something, I think, especially relative to the East service drive that would make me think that that team might want to react to it in the kind of micro the way those pieces tie in because you have the east west connector the service drive and this open space and that kind of node moment where they all come together I suppose I was just wondering if within maybe the design review of this building there would be a look just at that to make sure that it all ties together

Mary, just to clarify, so the east-west connector that we reviewed so far, that is a design in the case in 105. Does that happen? If 105 doesn't happen and that's shown in the ground plan, that whole design would change.

substantially so yeah we would yes so i think that actually might be hitting it is i assume that we would be seeing that with this building and i think the last time we looked at this there were kind of discussions about how it ties to the central space so um it's just because they're just two quite different buildings right the base and the alternative so it's just making sure that not making sure, but just wondering what the kind of construction sequence is, if there would be dialogue between those two spaces.

Yeah, I mean, I think we would adapt. The east-west connector, if 105 gets built, will respond to the design of the plaza. And in terms of species and things that we can adapt to the plaza, if 105 happens, we would look into that as well.

Okay. Any other planning board members have questions? Are there any CRA members who have questions? Conrad?

Thank you, Ted. I was going to ask for CRA member questions before I started my questions. So you just got ahead of me. Anyone on the board? I don't need to go right now.

Okay. I have a question, Conrad. This is Filo, CRA. Okay, Filo. Thank you. I'll jump in at this point. Yeah, the shadow studies help, but it's, you know, static images are okay to understand. But this would be challenging, you know, with these buildings around this plaza. I think the shadows will play a role in how enjoyable this space will be. And I was wondering, as human behavior trumps everything else, are there any other areas mitigation side the plaza for the public and others to to gravitate to? So it's not just the plaza or nothing? Are there any opportunities to create spaces

So, I mean, you know, just on this, call it this city block, if you will, we have obviously the Center Plaza, which was a large public open space. There is, we talked about the East-West connector here between 105 and 115, but in reality, there's kind of four East-West connectors, if you will. There's, you know, the Southern East-West connector that goes from the 6th Street connector all the way to Galileo, And then on the northern side, there's also an east-west connector that goes similarly from 6th Street over to Galileo. Now, the one that's adjacent to 250 will be improved when that building is done. The one on the west was done when we completed 300 Binney. So there is other opportunities for open space. On the south side of 121, along the Broadway side, That residential building is set back. There's a large porch there, southern exposure trees. So you get both shade and sun. There's a water feature that's going to come out of that plaza. So there's seating for the retail there. So, you know, there are other, there's elements of the streetscape kind of all around the block that has some kind of parklet opportunities and benches and things like that. So I do think it's, It's not a case of kind of the Central Plaza and nothing else. I think there are other opportunities for enjoying kind of areas of open space on the entire city block. And again, in addition, we have our up park, which is just, you know, on the block next to it. There's Danny Lewin Park. So there is kind of a network of open spaces within the MXD district.

Thanks, Jeff. I have a follow-up question, Conrad, if I may. And I'll be consistent with what I shared at the previous meeting. What are now the minimum distance between 121 and 105 as the buildings grow three-dimensionally? My question is related to privacy, especially towards the residential tower. Any concerns there or any thoughts or studies about looking into residential powered from modified.

Maybe, Tony, I'll let you describe. Yeah, exactly. You're kind of reading my mind. Maybe start with this plan. So if you look on the on the units on the left. And this was a very intentional move on how we designed the unit. So on the exterior wall of those residential units is either a bedroom or a living room, depending on the unit. In the areas where we find the most kind of activity, which is the living rooms, the main kind of view window, the main piece of glass is always kind of orientated to the south. and not the east. Now there is some glass on the east. You can see kind of the proportions of solid panels and glass, but the large kind of glass on all of those living rooms is always kind of directed south to capture those views to the south. So there was a thinking there of trying to orientate the primary kind of views, both in and out of those residential units, more on the south and not directly on the east. And then to your other question, and Tony, I think we may have to go to the sections because the geometry of both 121 and 105 is so different. So that's why we cut a series of those sections because depending on whether you were on the north, middle, or the south portion of the building, and then whether, you know, what height you were, those dimensions are kind of changing. But the idea was... little bit of that hourglass to try to peel away down low and up high. So I don't know if it's helpful, Filo, to kind of flip back through those sections to get a little bit of a sense of it. But that dimension is quite dynamic depending on kind of where you are north-south and also from elevation off the ground.

That in mind is not a big concern. I mean, you go to High Line, you've seen everybody's living room and bedroom. There are other places in the world where, you know, that happens. It's just acknowledging that and there is comfort or discomfort from, you know, tens of those spaces. So these buildings are close to each other, I mean, as a general statement. So shadows, wind tunnels, but also the privacy and the views. I think I appreciate the the gesture or directing the views to, you know, to the south perhaps. But you can now just have blank walls to block everything else. So just a statement and a reflection on kind of how close these buildings are. That's all. Not necessarily a concern or something that will prevent this to happen.

I have a couple of questions. So we're talking about shadow studies for 105 and its impact on the East West Connector and the Central Plaza. Are there any studies that show the benefits in terms of shadow studies and comfort by reducing the height of 250? It seems like we're talking about one half of the equation, but not the other half.

It's, I think, a great point. I don't know, Max and Tony, you know, the way that the sun go, those reductions probably benefit more of the neighborhood side than the plaza side. But I don't know, do you have any thoughts on how the 250 shadow

Yeah, I think Commissioner Cohen, to answer you directly, we did not do a shadow study based on the reduced height of 250. Obviously, it will cast less shadows to the north because we are south of that. But we would be happy to do that as part of the design review process to show you. It will certainly improve the condition on Binney Street, and I apologize, I don't know the perpendicular street just to the north of 250 Binney, but on that street, From memory or conjecture, I don't think 250 in its current state or even in the reduced state is large enough to cast any shadow on a significant public space further to the north, but it certainly will improve the condition on the streetscape and at 6th Street actually on the continuation of 6th Street because we're of that. And so as the sun tracks around. With 290 there, I'm not sure it would impact the park to the west. But again, happy to backfill that information in detail in the next phase to kind of fill in that for you.

Okay. Do I take what you've been saying is that the reduction in 250 is not going to have much impact on the shadows on the Central Plaza?

No, it won't at all because that's all southward of 250.

Thank you.

It would be primarily the streetscape to the north.

All right. I see you're sitting behind a model.

I long for those days.

Yes, I long for those days too. Is that a model of what we're looking at in drawings? And if so, is that something you can share with us now?

Sure. And I don't know how visible it is. I'll try to spin it for you. Here's 121, C3. 250 is still at the larger height. But I think, you know, with the model, you do get a sense of that kind of more dynamic condition between the two. And then I think the other maybe helpful thing is you kind of can see the two, even though the articulation on this one is a little bit finer, I think it was Barry that called this one the perfume bottle, the symmetrical one, and you can see how the asymmetrical one is a little bit more dynamic. And I think the other thing that we focused on when we looked at the model is there is this language of angled faces, you know, even carried on to C3. And so the proposal for 105 carries that idea of a little bit of an angle. And some of that came from the fact that Benny comes in and meets Broadway at an angle, but you know, we think the building kind of has its own personality, but does kind of continue that vocabulary and makes a nice partner with C3, frankly, to create that sort of opening act. Oh, thank you.

That's a much better view now.

Yeah. And I'll just spin it really quickly so you can...

Do you have a replacement for 250 at the lower height?

I don't. I apologize. No, that doesn't even do it. No, we don't. Okay. The next meeting, I promise. Okay.

All right, thank you. Continuing with any questions people have.

Ted, can I go? And then if you don't mind, or Kathy, if you want to go ahead. Please.

Not a question. It's an observation. Is that okay?

Yeah, yeah.

I wish I had something more meaningful to add to this, but in particular, when Tony had rotated the model around to show the lineup of buildings on Broadway, it kind of made me remember back. It must have been three or four years ago. Eric Torkelson is here someplace, right? Eric was... opining about the streetscape of Broadway and using some sort of somewhat old fashioned, and that's compliment, Eric, that's not a criticism, architectural terms like holding the street edge. And what occurs to me that we have now, and again, it's not a judgment, but we're marching all the way down Broadway from Binney or Galileo all the way to, I think, presumably to Third Street. This side of the street is going to be a lineup of sculpted buildings that are, I think, fairly similar. I guess it's just the sort of nature of the beast when you get to an environment like this where you're building these bespoke buildings for... for lab clients, it reminds me not so much of an urban streetscape as of a campus, which is probably appropriate since it is adjacent to a campus. I was just visiting Cornell over the weekend and, you know, This almost could have been along one of the roads in Cornell, even sitting on a hillside in upstate New York. These individualized buildings, each one being carefully chamfered and tweaked to not offend the one next to it. It's just an observation. It's not bad. It's not good. It's just, to me, kind of the new definition of Kendall Square. The building that we're taking down was very much an orthogonal building that was setting a streetscape. And now that I see this lined up with the new Biogen building, I mean, I'm assuming the massing of that was... about right. I guess if I hung on for the second half of this meeting, I would get to see it more carefully. But it's just kind of interesting that we have this lineup of each building with its own personality, its own colors, its own rather finely detailed consideration of clipped corners and interlocking geometries. There we go. There we go. I don't know. I mean, I guess it looks a little bit like the seaport. I'm trying to think of other places in Boston that it looks like. It's just a new world. And that's the new world of Kendall Square. And I'm sorry, I don't have anything, any particular criticism of it. I just kind of wanted to get that out.

Thank you, Kathy. So a couple of questions that I have are following up on my past comments from March, sort of considering breaking up one project into two and the construction impacts. from that work and to really understand the phasing of that. I know design review is is a better time to talk through construction impacts and construction management plans. But just thinking through how any designs could impact those those scenarios is one question. And then sort of Hopping on to Mary's comments about sort of the network of open spaces and whether we're able to understand mitigation opportunities in the aggregate sort of outside the redevelopment district and to sort of inside. So thinking specifically of 15 Cambridge Center, Binnie Park, And that connection, whether even if it remains visual across Binney Street or Galileo at the end of Binney Street, sort of where it breaks off and continuing to just connect the open spaces and understanding that. You know it's a it's a wonderful finished condition and I look forward to the finished condition that being proposed here with a completed cycle track and sort of completed public realm spaces but it's it's a long time between. the recommended phasing updates that we're seeing today and and when we get to that condition so just working with all the pieces jeff you you described all the whether it's danny lewin or um or the volpe parcels um and and so forth but you know i'd like for the project team to really think through how people can use existing spaces while all this work is going on and then um just finally with the the final Shadow condition um discussion and sort of thinking about those spaces as a way to to mitigate the final Shadow um conditions that are impacting Center Plaza most specifically And I didn't lead with my appreciation. I apologize. But sort of looking at sort of the green factor cooling treatments that you mentioned in sort of Section 8.5 of the narrative, I do appreciate, you know, all of those heat island effect mitigation steps and understanding the sustainability requirements in the city of Cambridge are important. I think valid and worthy, but they are rather intense. So really appreciate you taking a look at the green factor cooling. I think with heat island effect coming into urban environments much more intensely, those will be important. So thank you.

Dan, you have a question, follow-up question? Yeah, just a follow-up. And again, part of it was prompted by Kathy's and Conrad's comments. But we have a lot of really lovely object buildings, and I think that the shaping of this really, particularly in plan, really kind of prioritizes some of the cross streets, which I think is a real benefit, particularly the... 105 champford corner, but. This is, I guess the question back to the design team and also a follow up on the pedestrian wind comfort, so I did I did find those sections and look at it and two things popped up one was that the there was no. equinox or shoulder season there's only a summer and winter comfort factor so i'm just hoping that maybe we can look more at the shoulder season and also looking at that plan it's the larger sort of more boxy 105 broadway footprint, which I think the approved east-west connector is a little wider and a little bit more gracious. So it leads me to wonder whether these wind studies, which I had heard, were improved by the chamfering of the building. But the plan that we're looking at is a wind study from the sort of earlier blockier structure. So I guess it's really just a Number one, an appreciation for the work that's going into both crafting the pedestrian experience as well as really a follow-up that that shoulder season experience is really critical to that central plaza. And the east, west connector so I just sort of looking at possibly an updated piece that reflects the new volumetric configuration. And a sense about what that looks like during the shoulder season, so I guess it's kind of a question and a request.

Yeah, we'd be happy as part of the design review phase, we would update it based on new massing design, and we can certainly request the spring and the fall Equinox studies as part of that.

Yeah, thanks, Jeff. Again, this is in the context of appreciation for the work you're doing, and I think that it's definitely moving in the right direction. So positive criticism. Appreciate that. Thank you.

Are there any other questions? If not, then board, we will move to discussion of board members who would like to start the discussion. Diego, you haven't spoken yet. Perhaps you would start us off.

Sure. I mean, I think I just approve of the general change of design. I like the chamfer. I'm concerned about the shadows, but if you're going to move that ground, that area, it's just going to go to that building. It's hard to avoid. The static shadow studies I think are helpful, but generally I like to see... you know, overall hours of affected daylight. I think, you know, I've said that before in previous projects. It's certainly possible to just isolate that Central Park Plaza or the east west connector and see the changes of effect of the proposed design and how many more hours of daylight we're going to lose just direct sunlight that's hitting those areas. I always like to see studies like that. You know, the privacy concern, I think, as, I'm sorry, I forgot the name of someone from the CRA mentioned. It's just, you know, part of the project that comes with this sort of project. You just have these buildings close to each other and it's hard to avoid. I would say, you know, if we're gonna go into design review soon, you know, maybe there's something that could be done with fins on the mullions on that facade facing the residential that could be slanted somehow. We're already dealing with some pretty cool angles on the chamfers of the massing, so maybe you can slant some extrusions that give a little bit more privacy. It's just an idea. But generally, I think I like all the effort that's been done with this project. I really appreciated the staff memo that we got from CDD. I think there are a lot of good concerns over there. You know, I don't think we talked about it tonight, but I was interested in the retail lobby sort of relationship with the new design. But again, we're not at the design review stage, so I don't know how much I want to talk about that. But yeah, I mean, I don't have an issue with going forward with allowing the option for this. Thank you.

Thank you. Dan?

Yeah, thank you, Ted. So yeah, I was going to actually deflect to you to see if some of your concerns, Ted, and interest in the proximity of the buildings, particularly to the residential piece. We're meeting with some of the points that you raised last. But Diego, in raising the issue about the retail lobby, I looked at that, I looked at the staff memo and I could see some rationale for trying to center the entry in the lobby, but I have to say that I really like what the design team has done with the corner entry to that lobby. It's tough with retail to know whether two smaller spaces, particularly with one maybe orphaned away from the loading dock, could potentially work. So I kind of fall down to at least lean strongly to the side that the way that it's been laid out works particularly well. Because we only had a ground floor plan, I do see an open connecting stair. I mean, the security arrangement about access to the elevators seems to work really well, but is that lobby... double height, triple height. I couldn't quite tell from the rendering, but basically just wanted to say that I thought that the direction that it was going was very strong and appreciated the connection as well back to the east-west connector in the bike room. I think that'll be a positive thing for cyclists and pedestrians and access. And again, Ted, I defer back to you in terms of that building separation and some of your comments from the last review.

Okay, Ashley.

THANK YOU, CHAIR. I GUESS FIRST OFF, YOU KNOW, REGARDING AT LEAST IN THE PLANNING BOARD SIDE WHERE, YOU KNOW, THE QUESTION HERE TONIGHT IS IF WE CAN GRANT SPECIAL PERMITS. ONE IS THE MAJOR AMENDMENT IN THE GREEN ROOF. I'LL SAY I HAVE NO ISSUES WITH EITHER. YOU KNOW, THERE'S NO REAL CHANGE IN TRAFFIC. Even with the alternative, I think the bicycle parking would actually be helpful. So I don't have any issues with the special permit requests or granting those. I do appreciate that the project team has tried hard to you know, incorporate a lot of the good comments that were brought up last time. I personally appreciate the hidden mechanicals, but also I realize I'm someone who is not as afraid of height. And I think to that point, when Kathy was talking earlier, it kind of reminded me that, you know, probably because of the nature of the proposed uses this building height is the same as the Akamai one and the one that will be south which I think is Volpe building and personally I would and I probably am going to be the minority but you know I think even a little extra height and some way to shift the building or make the building less heavy and stout on the bottom would I think would be interesting, but I know I'm probably going to be in the minority for that. But I'm sure there are ways to tweak the massing during design review to make the building less stout on the bottom. And so personally, I'm comfortable moving forward. And there are a lot of things we'll have to iron out during design review. And the reason why I asked about the timing is just, you know, this would mean that we're reviewing essentially two sets of designs, if that's my understanding, if I'm understanding that correctly, which is just extra work on both boards. But I think that's fine if we have to proceed that way. Thank you.

Thank you. Mary, do you have comments?

Thank you. I think I'm on the same page with Ashley that I'm comfortable with going forward with this, understanding there's a lot that would come back through the design review process. I'm you know the big picture the massing actually feels when the the baseline it seems actually quite small that building short compared to the others so I think relative to some of Kathy's points which I really appreciate um and I have similar thoughts it's not a criticism it's just an observation that um it's a lot of different unique buildings and you know when I look at it I also um struggle a little bit, and I say this more as an urging as, say, Design Review comes forward, to get a sense of what Broadway will feel like. Right now, I feel like I see different frontages, and they're all doing interesting things to engage the street, but I don't yet personally kind of grasp, well, what will this space look like? cohesively feel like and so I think maybe I'm just urging when design review comes back for any of these buildings that even if say the central plaza is fixed that you're helping us see the individual building in sight in the bigger context so that you know as the phasing progresses you know we know there's going to you know things come up at different times there are lots of reasons for that but that you're continuing to help us hold together your bigger vision for the development. I certainly, when the design review comes back, the sun, of course, because it's bringing height to a building on the south, it will have an impact on that central space. And so I think we'll all be curious to understand um how that will feel to diego's point i also really agree that um i really like a duration of sun um analysis it uh which is maybe a broader city conversation about can this start to be something that's part of requirements because it actually really helps to break down a more visceral understanding of oh we've gone from five hours a day to two hours Sometimes when we're looking at so many plans, it can be a little bit hard. So I'm concerned about it. It's not obviously, not obviously, but it's not a deal breaker. It's just something we'll be looking at a lot and relative to Dan's comments as well, how it connects with wind and comfort because we all know in Kendall Square, It makes a big difference to how people are feeling in the kind of micro areas. And we know that on the central plaza, since we couldn't have trees, trees are not mitigating that wind. And so I think we just want to make sure that we continue, I think, to Dan's point, to understand. really how that feels on the ground. And then my last kind of comment, I think, especially as this one comes back through design review is the East service drive. You know, I think just collectively for both boards continuing to look at with each loading parking drive that comes before us, how can we make it better and better? Because it's so much pressure on that drive generally. And so I'm curious. especially if that building you know I think part of my thinking is that if that building gets larger it's going to have more parking loading right and right now that was more concentrated to the north and I'm kind of wondering um Might that have an impact on the service drive for this building on Broadway, getting more than it otherwise would have if it was the base building? Again, I like Kathy's approach. It's a comment. It's not direction. It's just something I'm looking at and notable about a lot of the developments in this area because of how constricted space is and the high demands for appropriate loading and parking. Thank you.

Thank you. So very briefly, I think there are pros and cons to sticking with the baseline or going with the alternate. I always liked the fact that there were sort of two buildings next to each other, 250, and I don't remember the number of the one next to it. On the other hand, I really agree with Kathy Bourne's uh observation that i think getting the three buildings and then the volpe building next to it make a really nice arrangement along broadway and uh i i think that you know really does make the the streetscape right there and would be very attractive um i think there are still privacy issues with the residential tower I think the chamfering helps, and there's going to be a lot of residential there, but I think there are other areas where buildings are next to each other like that, and some people will like it a lot and some people may not like it. But I think design review could continue to look at that. And certainly, design review ought to be continuing to look at the shadow studies and the comfort zones. On the whole, though, I'm content with going forward with the concept of an alternative. So we have three options at this point. We could grant the special permit with conditions after making findings that we'll discuss. We could deny the special permit with an explanation of why, or we could continue the hearing to a future date with requests for additional information. Um, it seems like, uh, the, the members of the board here are prepared to go forward with granting it is, is that correct? Or does anybody have a desire either to continue the hearing and request further information or to outright deny the hearing and outright deny the special permit? Sorry. Can I at least get a thumbs up of people prepared to go forward? All right, so then I take it we are prepared to go forward. In order to do that, we have to make findings. And those findings, briefly summarized, is that the idcp meets the criteria in section 12.3533 of the zoning ordinance it confirms with the general pud development controls and district development controls it conforms with adopted policy plans or development guidelines for the kendall square area of the city And in making these findings, the Board should consider the objectives set forth in the Kendall Square Final Report, the K2C2 Planning Study, and the Kendall Square Design Guidelines. We have to determine that it provides benefits to the city which outweigh its adverse effects, considering quality of the site design, traffic flow and safety, adequacy of utilities and other public works, impacts on the existing public facilities, potential fiscal impact, and that the project will have no substantial adverse impact on city traffic within the study area. upon review of the traffic indicators analyzed in the Transportation Impact Study and mitigation efforts proposed. And finally, with regard to the IDCP, that the project is consistent with the urban design objectives of the City. So we have received information from, it's been reported that traffic and parking has no particular issues since we're simply transferring GFA from one building to another. And we've received information from Public Works that they have been in touch with the developer who understands the requirements of the city. I think the understanding is that there are some new findings or some new requirements that the developer will have to comply with when they make the changes to this building and to 250. Does anyone have any problems with making any of the findings I've just discussed? I DON'T SEE ANY PROBLEMS. WITH REGARD TO THE REDUCTION OF THE REQUIRED GREEN ROOF AREA, THE PLANNING BOARD CAN GRANT SPECIAL PERMIT TO REDUCE THE REQUIRED ROOF AREA, PROVIDED THAT EACH SQUARE FOOT SO REDUCED BE COMPENSATED BY UNION PRICE CONTRIBUTION TO THE CAMBRIDGE AFFORDABLE HOUSING TRUST. anyone have any difficulty with making the finding that there can be a reduction in the green roof requirement and finally the special permits are required to comply with section 10.43 of the zoning ordinance which i think we're all familiar with and uh obviously the original PUD complied with that does anyone have any difficulty in making a determination that we can comply with 10.43 uh if that being the case uh there is a question about whether board members would like to oppose any conditions upon the special permit My understanding is that there are numerous conditions that staff has set forth in their memo that I think ought to be incorporated into the granting of the special permit. Many of the conditions are similar to or identical to the conditions that were previously imposed, but there are some issues with regard to retail and how frontage is calculated. that I think ought to be in the special permit and would continue through the design review stage and that they would continue to work with staff on those issues and the other issues with regard to uh comfort zones uh shadow studies and the impacts on the east west connector and the impacts on this central plaza um anyone have any other conditions they would like to see imposed on the special permit

A question for Tom and Jeff for a moment. I'd like to discuss some of those conditions, but I don't believe I'm a member of the planning board. like to be a little bit clearer on if i have suggestions where during this discussion should we be sharing them and i don't know if the planning board should be considering my opinions um as i'm not a member of the public making a comment sort of making it under the auspices of the redevelopment authorities consideration of the updated updated plan

Jeff Roberts, do you have any comment about that? Obviously, we don't want to have two approvals that differ. And, you know, a question of how do we best prevent that from occurring.

Yeah, this is Jeff. I would just say along similar lines, the purpose of having these joint hearings is to share the discussion among the two boards so that, you know, we don't have actions that are diverging from each other. So I don't know, with Ted's, you know, consent and the planning board's consent, maybe it does make sense to hear some from CRA board members before the board takes a final decision just in case there's anything that the board needs to then look at again or talk about to make sure that the decisions are in alignment.

That sounds fine to me. Conrad, do you want to proceed?

Yeah, Kathy, did you have a comment?

You're muted.

I was just going to bring up the issue of the now about to be mothballed, temporarily mothballed building on Benny Street. And we've been sort of, BP had been holding off on some streetscape improvements, specifically cycling track improvements, because they needed confirmation that that building was not going to be the one that the development would fall on. And particularly with cycling improvements such a hot topic in the city. This is one that should go ahead expeditiously and not be further delayed because the construction isn't going to be taking place on that side of the site.

Thank you, Kathy. And yeah, so the phasing that's sort of not in the special permit, but we understand is put that cycle track off indefinitely. And so sort of understanding the staff memo correctly, you know, in our discussion last week, seeing the Greater Cambridge Energy Program work and Eversource's interventions into the streetscape is to sort of have the completion of that work sort of be the the timeline for the cycle tracks to be completed and not for the completion of these buildings. If if that could be made a condition is my understanding Kathy's correct.

Yeah.

Okay. That's fine.

Were there other conditions that had been proposed by the planning board that you or the CRA have comments about, issues with?

Again, in past meetings, I know I've brought up the Biogen playground at 15 Cambridge Center as a potential opportunity to expand open space offerings and parcel two. So the idea of having that area open to the public was part of the special permit for that building from 1999. I reviewed documents there. So I was thinking if that... If the team finds a way for that to be made a component of mitigation, especially as open space might not be accessible during construction, perhaps that is another option. My understanding is that the BXP is current owner of the building and not Biogen at the moment as well. So just really sort of looking at assets in place and how they might work for the project, sort of moving back thinking about moving the square footage and sort of what's been proposed in terms of the construction of the buildings. I'm favoring that proposal as a design change, but I continue to be sort of concerned about the ongoing construction activity and thinking that we can address that as part of our approval as well.

okay um mr lohenberg do you want to respond to the comments yeah i um i want to delicately balance because i i do feel there's there's support for us moving forward i conrad and in both members of the board i think we'd we'd really like to kind of keep the open you know encumbering the the playground at 125 when the future OF THAT, YOU KNOW, JUST NOT SURE. WE CURRENTLY HAVE A LEASE ON THAT FOR 28. THAT BUILDING, THE INFRASTRUCTURE IN THAT BUILDING, ALL THE MECHANICAL SYSTEMS ARE ALL ORIGINAL TO WHEN BIOGEN FIRST BUILT THAT. SO THAT'S GOING TO REQUIRE A SIGNIFICANT RENOVATION, WHICH GIVEN THAT WILL LIKELY, YOU KNOW, ENCUMBER THAT PLAYGROUND. YOU KNOW, HOW THAT BUILDING GETS RELEASED. It's very difficult for us to kind of make kind of a commitment today given kind of the uncertainty of kind of how that building gets, you know, the needed improvements to kind of meet the city's sustainability carbon goals. It's going to be required when that gets released starting in 28 and You know, we are committed to bringing a playground forward with the Center Plaza. So, you know, I would just respectfully, you know, ask that we could continue that discussion and not create a hard condition as part of this approval.

Mr. Rafferty? If you are muted.

I was going to support what Mr. Lohenberg said and just say that, as board members know, conditions and special permits are something that get continually reviewed right up until the issuance of a building permit and a certificate of occupancy. So if they're on specific... milestones as to when those things need to happen it becomes very complicated later on in the life of the special permit so since neither of those recommendations are contained in the in the staff members we've seen i'm wondering if um it might uh be more appropriate for the CRA approval to address these issues and we could come back as part of the ongoing design review certainly on something like the cycle track yeah okay okay okay that's I was I was waiting for the cycle track as well I understand I hear the valid

um, hesitation and sensitivity around the playground with its existing lease and, and then the subsequent use and design of that building. So that's, that's reasonable. I heard that. Um, I, I still think that if we could address the cycle track opportunities, um, that would be, that would be fine with me, not about the other members of the CRA board.

Um, jim i was going to say that we have at times had um some additional notations in our approval letter that are not um perhaps don't carry the logistic weight of a special permit but we do usually carry those as mitigations we work with um bxp on so I can't think of a really good example right now.

But following up on that, Tom, I don't think anything that's being discussed here is contradictory to what the findings are going to be in the special permit. But at least certainly one or two of them are largely unrelated to the conditions on which the special permit needs to be based. So I do think having a... I mean, the ongoing relationship with CRA and the applicant would provide ample opportunity to address these other priorities.

Yeah, no, this makes sense. And I was, um, uh, I think it had some, uh, additional transportation, uh, issues identified in our approvals and related like pedestrian easements and, um, traffic reporting and and like the parking monitoring and so forth so i i think i think that we can handle it that way if that's okay with you i don't know i don't want the um planning board to feel like we're adding on to things that they are not um party to i guess that's the only and and the idea that makes sure

we're all in agreement of how we're moving forward but again sometimes we do get a little bit more in the weeds on this project because it's because we're here and it's our main focal point well jeff roberts if you have any comments on that but it seems to me that you know the the planning board would approve with the conditions that we've been talking about and that if It doesn't seem that if CRA wanted to impose conditions or comments and whatever approval you give, they're not necessarily going to impact upon the Planning Board's jurisdiction and what will continue to go forward with design review and working with staff. Jeff, do you have any thoughts on this?

uh no i'm glad we talked through all this uh it was good to hear all of it but i i agree i think that um you know one of the concerns i i wouldn't want to try to come up with another condition especially one related to uh cycle infrastructure without getting input from the input from the transportation department um i looked back just to see just to remind myself and and remind the board that there is a memo from dot which lays out their recommended conditions for this um and you know we would we would still ask that those be incorporated into the planning board's decision but any additional items I think we'd want to get input from them before you know taking any any action on them

So if that's satisfactory to the CRA, then I think the planning board could move forward with the conditions we've just discussed, the ones that are in the department's memo to us about this. And Jeff, was there anything else we have not covered?

I don't believe so. I think everything is laid out. As you've probably noticed, we address some of the areas of uncertainty related to the zoning. And we did our thing we sometimes do of putting things in boxes to indicate where we think the resolution could happen. So just to kind of make sure that that's clear. And then at the end, we summarize just what the main... amendments would actually be but for the most part the special permit already lays out lots of you know all the the conditions around the um design review process and and timing and other aspects of mitigation um i would just because there were a number of questions related to design which i think are probably items we'd want to record as carryover items into the design review phase i'll ask if eric has any clarifications that he'd like to discuss

No, I think it was a really good and interesting discussion, and I appreciate the comments, especially from Kathy and Mary Lydecker. Yeah, basically, the issue of what's the experience of Broadway going to be like is the thing on my mind. It is the primary urban space in this area, and how does this building contribute to

it's kind of enlivenment and definition well okay if there's nothing else then um i think we're ready for a vote so um Before we take the vote, Dan Anderson has to be appointed to vote on this case. And then Could I have a motion to grant the requested special permit with the conditions that we have been discussing this evening, based upon the determination that we have made all the necessary findings of the zoning ordinance? I have such a motion.

This is Mary, so moved.

And I have a second. Diego, second. Diego, second. Jeff, could we have a roll call vote on this?

We can. Mary Light, on that motion, Mary Light-Ecker?

Yes.

Diego Macias? Yes. Ashley Tan?

Yes.

Carolyn Zern? I'm sorry, Carolyn Zern is not sitting on this case. Dan Anderson?

Yes.

and Ted Cohen. Yes. So that's five members sitting on this case all voting in favor. Thank you.

We also need an extension of time is needed to draft and file the decision. Does the permittee agree to an extension of time to January 30th, 2026 to file the decision?

This is Jeff Lomberg from BXP. That is fine.

So, yes, they've agreed. Is there a motion to agree to the extension of time to file the decision to January 30, 2026? Could I have such a motion?

Ashley, so moved.

Ashley, motion and a second.

Mrs. Mary, second.

Mary Lydecker second. Jeff, roll call vote on that motion.

On that motion, Mary Lydecker?

Yes.

Diego Macias? Yes. Ashley Tan?

Yes.

Dan Anderson? Yes. And Ted Cohen? Yes. So that's all five members on this case voting in favor.

well thank you uh that is all the action the planning board needs to take on this matter right now uh does the cra need to take any action at this time yes yes we we do um the the draft motion on our um

on our sheet reads approved with conditions, the third amendment to the infill development concept plan, Kendall square urban redevelopment plan. I just trying to capture our conversation without sort of diverging too much from what the planning board did. I know the staff memo does contain transportation in the section under transportation on page five, um, sort of some language relative to streetscape improvements. Um, you know, Tom, does that language and its inclusion in the staff memo, um, sort of suffice to address the conditions in this draft motion, or does it need to speak more, more clearly about that?

Um, I mean, it certainly can place a reference in the motion to issues in the staff memo. I'm trying to figure out how to align with Jeff Roberts' comments about coordination with parking and traffic. I'm sorry, Cambridge Department of Transportation. So the last sentence of the paragraph we wrote here was the CRA city and BXP should finalize interim and long-term strategies to manage the phasing and transitions for the completed streetscape implementation. So if something like that is, worth referencing um i'm not sure there's any other elements of um our memo worth specifically referencing or if you would just wanted to speak to the memo more broadly in the motion

That was the one item I wanted to pull out. I think speaking more broadly doesn't necessarily include that. I just wanted to make sure we carried that forward without, again, diverging too much from the planning board's vote and what they voted on. So, you know, vice chair born or anyone else on the CRA, if there are other items from the staff memo that like to include, I didn't, I didn't hear that. So I don't want to suggest that mind you just wanted to stay on that one point, my perspective.

Mr. Chair, am I muted?

No.

I hear you. I think at this point we should probably try to keep it clean. I think it's a little late to be trying to wordsmith conditions. And I think we work closely enough with the BP staff so that they know what's on our minds. Help me understand something. Did the planning board incorporate their staff memo into the vote? I don't think so. Not in its entirety, am I right?

Not in its entirety, no. That's correct. But sort of the conditions that were pointed out in the memo have been highlighted, have been included in our special permit.

okay so we've already we've gone through issues about the cycle track and we've gone through cycles about and issues about the playground at the existing biogen property is there let me ask our director was there anything else were there any other salient points in our memo that you think should be written in and hopefully they'd be ones that we've already discussed or referenced

And the only other element that I think actually has been picked up by the planning board and the planning memo as well is regarding... uh the retail access and some of the um streetscape improvements uh around the building um i think a lot of that's actually uh has was in the presentation um updated from the actual materials we'd had before um so that i think those um items are well covered and I think the active ground floor use and the 75% component was something that the planning staff had also mentioned. I don't think there's, I mean, wind and shadow were discussed. I can't find anything else that was not otherwise covered by CDD staff's memo and the discussion herein.

Okay. Are we ready to go?

Yeah. So thank you, Tom. I find that I feel comfortable with that just to make sure. And frankly, the The fact of our conversation here also will sort of carry forward in our discussions with the proponent and its design team, so I think we've made our our concerns and our interests clear and I trust that will continue to address those.

And on the issue of the cycle track, I think I know who to call if the cycle track isn't worth calling. I think we have a pretty active lobby of people. I could probably choose amongst 500.

It took a lot longer to say what you just said. Yeah.

And I'll note that I do think there's a fair amount of coordination currently underway with DPW and DOT about some design refinements and then also phasing. And I know DPW understands the coordination issues with Eversource better than anyone right now. Okay. So...

So I'm ready to entertain.

How about that? So I just sort of pulled that again. I'll read it again. I'll take a maker of the motion after I read it. Approved with conditions, the third amendment to the infill development concept plan, Kendall Square urban redevelopment plan. Do I have a maker of the motion?

So moved.

On the motion, Kathy Borden?

Yes.

Kathy, yes. Joe Camillus?

Yes.

Joe, yes. Filo Castori? Yes. Filo, yes. Conrad Crawford? Yes. Conrad, yes. Aviva Rothman-Shore?

Yes.

Aviva, yes. Thank you.

Thank you all.

Thank you very much. And Conrad, if I could just make a really quick observation, Kathy, I heard a bit of wistfulness in your voice as you looked at the model from afar. And I just, I want to assure you that as we move into the design phase, we're looking forward to collaborating with the team to refine the design. I would also say, I feel like a tiny bit that you're selling you all out. A BIT SHORT, BOTH BOARDS AND STAFF. WHEN I THINK ABOUT THIS AREA BEFORE AND THE TRANSFORMATION, THE REMOVAL OF THE BLUE GARAGE AND BROADWAY, THE ACTIVITY, YOU HAVE DONE TREMENDOUS WORK. AND WE DO WORK ALL OVER THE WORLD. AND I WILL TELL YOU, THE CARE THAT YOU'VE TAKEN TO CRAFT A GREAT URBAN SETTING, BOTH ON THIS PARCEL AND THE ADJACENT MAKIMKO PARCEL, THE NETWORK OF PUBLIC SPACE, I THINK I think some recognition of your hard work and the transformation that's occurred is due. And I promise you as we go forward, balancing this notion of the personality of the building with the greater whole, we heard you loud and clear and just want to thank both boards.

Thank you, Tony. Thank you for your comments. And we wish Boston Properties success in moving forward. And I want to thank the CRA for joining us. I always enjoy it when we have a joint meeting. It's great to hear everybody's side and everybody's position on everything.

You also had an opportunity to see the difference between architects and attorneys tonight, Mr. Chair. With the attorneys, the flattery always comes before the vote. We find it to be more effective. So Tony's post-vote flattery must be quite authentic.

Excellent. Ted and Tom, more specifically, will you take a vote to adjourn? Please. I'll accept a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

On the motion to adjourn, Kathy Bourne?

Yes.

Kathy, yes. Joe Camillus?

Yes, please.

Felix Story? Yes. Billy, yes. Connor Crawford? Yes. Aviva Rothmanshore?

Yes.

All right. Thank you. We'll see you next month.

Well, thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. The Planning Board has another matter we have to attend to. You are all welcome to remain and observe or you may happily leave the meeting. Have a good night. Thank you all and good night. And Planning Board members, The next item on our agenda is a design review for case PB368, a previously approved plan unit development by Matimco, known as Volpe. Again, CDD staff will begin by summarizing why this before us. Jeff.

Thank you. Jeff Roberts, once again. So this is a matter of design review. It's related to a planning board special permit, case 368, that was approved in 2021. And several of the sites have been approved for design review at this point, including the site we're talking about tonight, which is referred to on the PUD plan as building C3 at 75 Broadway. and I was going to tell you when it was first approved, but it wasn't, it wasn't written down here and I, I don't think I was part of this review. So I, I think I might've been on leave when we did this one, but, um, it didn't suffice to say it was, it was approved. Um, and there is a, um, change that's being proposed at this stage, which the, um, the, the permittee and their design team, um, can tell us about a little bit and, So it's a detail, but one that we thought it was relevant for the board to review and give approval of before that aspect of the development proceeds. So, and CDD staff are present, I believe. Yeah, Eric is also still here and has been working on this one as well.

Right. That's it. So the presenter is Benjamin Lavery on behalf of MIT Investment Management Company. You will have up to 30 minutes for your presentation, though again, we hope you can be as concise as possible. Would you please introduce your project team and begin?

Good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the planning board. Yes, my name is Ben Lavery, and I'm joined here by Mike Cheney of Biogen. also David Manfredi and Christine Song with Elkus Manfredi Architects. We are pleased to be here and we'll try to make good use of our time given the late hour. I'd like to thank the CDD staff for their input and to help Jeff that was in July of 2023 that the design approval was granted. So it's been some time since we've moved forward and fortunately we are moving forward. We started construction in March and are nearly complete with the deep foundational elements. But tonight we're here to review the external bulk gas tank enclosure on the east side of the building, Kendall Way. It is a modest change, but as Jeff indicated, one that we wanted to bring forward. All of this work in this project will culminate in 2028, just a little looking forward with Biogen being the commercial tenant, the single commercial tenant for the building. And at that time, the Sixth Street Park, which we looked at quite a bit in the prior presentation, will also be delivered to just help frame it out a little bit for you. Before I turn it over to David Manfredi to review the design, I wanted to turn it over to Mike Cheney of Biogen for a few brief remarks, and then David and his team have a brief presentation to put forward.

Good evening. Thank you. Well, not quite sure what just happened to my camera, but it seems to have decided not to function. My name is Michael Cheney. I'm head of engineering and facilities at Biogen. I've been with the company for 29 years based in Kendall Square. for all of that time. So I've seen a lot of the changes you folks have been talking about. As you know, Biogen was founded in Cambridge and as a corporation, we've been in this section for many years. You know, we were pleased to be able to stay in Cambridge with the partnership with Matimco. And we continue to be committed to the Cambridge community. One of the, probably the most widely used programs Avenues is our community lab program, where we use internal resources and really teach several local children annually through the platform. It's a very beneficial use. The new facility will be our corporate headquarters, and it will also serve our laboratory community, which will primarily house our research and development center of excellence. And as such, the use of stored gases is critical to the work that we do and that we perform on a daily basis at the location. And we ask you to take that into consideration this evening. And thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mike. And now I'll turn it over to David for the design presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Ben. Good evening, everybody. I'm David Manfredi from Elkiss Manfredi Architects. And we will try to be very brief. Many of you know this site well, although many of you are new from when this was originally reviewed and approved by the planning board. You are looking at the building footprint in the center of the image with Broadway at the bottom and the 6th Street walkway to the left and Kenville Way to the right. and we're really going to talk about kendall way today kendall way is a new street and it is east of our building and what you're looking at is what we call the current site plan which means the approved site plan and you can see that kendall is entered from broadway it does not run through it is a street that provides service to both the building that is being built now for Biogen and the future building, which we call C2, also 55 Broadway, so that trucks will enter here, will use loading docks in this building, 75 Broadway, in the future enter this building loading docks and closed loading docks, 55 Broadway, and will exit back out onto Broadway. YOU'LL NOTICE THAT IT IS A BUILD LINE, BUILDING TO BUILDING OF APPROXIMATELY 60 FEET, 30 FEET OF VEHICLE SURFACE, WHICH IS ASPHALT, AND THEN 15 FEET ON EITHER SIDE, WHICH IS SIDEWALK. AND WHAT YOU'RE SEEING IS THE ORIGINAL LAYOUT THAT WAS APPROVED BY THE PLANNING BOARD THAT INCLUDED trees and bike racks on both the west side of the street and the east side of the street and you'll notice that the asphalt ran up to a point almost to the north edge of this where our building meets the ground on the north side when we reviewed this with the planning board and with staff there was quite a lot of conversation about creating a kind of paving event here we worked with John Grove and Gary Hildebrand from Reed Hildebrand on this intersection of Broad Canal Way and the passageway. For those of you who don't know this project well, the building on the upper floors actually comes out over the passageway and provides covered space, but space that is open and connects through to the project you just reviewed this evening. What we are here to talk about tonight, as Ben mentioned, was the bulk gas enclosure. And this is the bulk gas enclosure that is proposed. It is 15 feet wide. It's about 40 feet long. It is open to the sky. And it includes three tanks, two tanks that are 10 feet tall, one tank in the middle that is 32 feet tall. AND WHAT IT HAS CAUSED IS SEVERAL CHANGES THAT WE ARE PROPOSING HERE TONIGHT. ONE IS THAT WE WILL REARRANGE THE BIKES IN THE TREES ONLY NOMINALLY. WE ACTUALLY HAVE AN ADDITIONAL TREE, BUT WE'RE MOVING TREES FROM THE EAST SIDE OF THE STREET FOR NOW UNTIL 55 BROADWAY IS BUILT TO THE WEST SIDE. BUT WE'RE ALSO MOVING THESE BIKE RACKS over to a temporary location until on the northwest corner of the site until what we call R3, the residential building, is built. We've reduced the amount of asphalt. We've increased the amount of pavers in order to signal that this is truly a pedestrian environment and that something special is happening here. And that is in reaction to this enclosure. Remember, this is for service only. No vehicles will run through to Broad Canal Way or onto Potter. There are bollards here. The bollards would be typically up and only in the event of an emergency or a very special event would those bollards come down. And again, it's only the trucks that are servicing these two loading docks. BROADWAY, WE WOULD EXPECT IF IT'S COMING FROM THE EAST, IT WOULD, AND HEADING NORTH, HEADING TO POTTER OR TO THE, EVEN BEYOND THE BINNY, WOULD USE THE SIDEWALK ON THE EAST SIDE, WHICH IS BASICALLY ON CHANGE. IF YOU'RE COMING FROM THE WEST, WE THINK YOU'RE ALSO LIKELY TO USE THE SIDEWALK ON THE EAST SIDE. IT WILL BE THE TYPICAL NORTH South Path because this is the crosswalk to the island that brings you over across the street to what was always known as Cambridge Center. That's the crosswalk that brings you to the Marriott Hotel. There is no crosswalk on the, and never was a crosswalk on the west side of the street. You can see why. This is the turn lane into Ames Street. This is just a little bit more detail. It lists the current, when we say current, what was approved by the planning board, the number of trees and the number of bike racks, and then the proposed, and you can see there's an increase in trees. There's kind of a redistribution of trees and then a relocation of the total number of bike racks. But as I said, there's actually an additional tree, the number of bike racks remain a constant. THEY DO MOVE AROUND A LITTLE AS ALL OF THESE BUILDINGS GET BUILT OUT. A LITTLE BIT MORE EXPLANATION ABOUT PEDESTRIAN CIRCULATION. AND REALLY, WE DO, WE KNOW THAT PEDESTRIANS ARE GOING TO MOVE UP AND DOWN KEMPA WAY. IT IS A CONNECTION ON TO POTTER AND THEN ON TO BINNY AND TO THE VOLPE SITE. really this uh there is no true through traffic here and we do think the right side of the street uh both before and after because of especially because of the crosswalk will be the primary uh pedestrian way you can also see here that we have expanded those pavers um reduce the amount of asphalt again as another visual and tactile symbol um that that this is where SOMETHING IS CHANGING IN THE PEDESTRIAN ENVIRONMENT REALLY TAKES OVER FULLY INTO THIS INTERSECTION. I WANT TO SHOW YOU THIS IN ELEVATION AND MAYBE THERE SHOULD BE A LITTLE BIT MORE WHITE BETWEEN THESE TWO DRAWINGS. YOU CAN SEE IN PLAN WHAT I'VE JUST DESCRIBED. SO THIS IS BROADWAY ON THE LEFT, BROAD CANAL WAY IS ON THE RIGHT. THIS IS THE CURRENT without that bulk tank storage. You can see the trees and the bike racks and our loading docks. The loading docks have not changed. And on C3 and on C2, the loading docks, the building is not yet fully documented, but hasn't changed as well. And I should mention that You can see the loading dock in elevation. You can see the loading docks here, a pair of docks, and then an additional third dock here as well. You'll remember that there, some of you will remember that second floor of the building has, we have a small first, second, and third floor because of the passageway. And then the building gets bigger on the fourth floor. So we have a lot of equipment on the second floor of the building. And this is basically louver space for mechanical equipment within. And here we've got a series of vertical louvers, vertical blades that are kind of masking some of that mechanical beyond. Now what is proposed is this fence. As I mentioned, there's three tanks. The lower tanks, the 10-foot tanks, you see one here and one here, and then the large tank in the middle, which is 32 feet. There's a requirement that any fencing has to be 50% transparent. Again, we're taking that idea of these kind of blades and bringing it down to this fence. It will be 50% transparent and direct air, natural ventilation, It's a two inch wide blade and three inches of fresh air and no roof over top of this. And you can see we've moved those bike racks. We've added trees. These look like they're very close together, but they're actually birch trees that live and prosper close together. And you can see we brought the pavers down, reduced the amount of asphalt. and we've checked all of our turning radii, all of the movements work as they did before. We had talked way back in 23 about how some of this very functional wall, meaning overhead doors, would be a great place, a great placeholder for artwork that would be applied to those overhead doors. It has not been designed. It's not what you see in the drawing, but it does give you a sense that really almost all the way from Broadway to our passageway, it does create kind of a palette to do something on that has not yet been designed. And you can see when you think about that wall that way, we think we can take the same attitude about design whether that's applied to the louvers or applied to the back wall or applied to both, all to be determined as this artwork gets designed. You see this now in kind of in three dimensions. You are looking south and west on Kendall Way to Broadway beyond. You can see what was originally approved and you can see what is proposed in terms of those three texts. I think I mentioned that the tanks are 10 feet tall, the fence is nine feet tall, trying to keep the fence relatively the same height, but it also aligns with this horizontal band of metal that runs all the way around the building. And of course, if you're walking on either sidewalk, they'll feel very close in height. And then just another view, with the approved design and the proposed design. You can see the louvers. You can see the idea of artwork that would come. And that's really the whole story. Happy to try to answer any questions. I think you all are very familiar with Kendall Square and the activities in Kendall Square. These bulk tanks are quite familiar in the neighborhood.

Thank you. Do board members have any questions? Ashley?

Thank you. I have one question, and I apologize if it was in the plans. I just missed it. But it looks like there is a entrance or exit at the corner of the building near the tanks, or I guess there's two entrances or two proposed. What are those leading to or leading from? Thank you.

You're talking about this one? Correct.

Yes.

Yeah. So this is actually an entrance. This was designed as retail space along the passageway. And the Biogen has other active uses intended for it that it will be publicly accessible space. And so it will conform to the uses, but not in a truly traditional way. I don't know, Michael, if you want to say any more about that.

Well, yeah, I mean, I think what we can add is that, you know, it's anticipated that that will be the home of the community lab. And the plans associated with that and where the primary entrance will actually be located, I think is really on the north face, not the elevation we're looking at, but those doors would be included in the design for a possible future use.

And then you also asked about the second pair of doors. This is actually a hookup in the event of we lose a generator. We can't obviously let the power go down in the building. And in an event like that, an unusual event like that, that is simply a kind of closet where we would hook up an emergency generator for a short period of time. Yeah, that's right.

And it's a code requirement.

Okay. Carolyn?

Thank you. So the earlier presentation was helpful in seeing the kind of active uses on the other three facades. And I understand the back of house experience along Kendall Way. I do worry that I understand that Kendall Way is intended just for service vehicles, but in this era of Uber drivers and Amazon drivers and DoorDash drivers stopping anywhere and everywhere that they can, that they will come down Kendall Way, regardless of what the intent is, and end up doing kind of an awkward multi-point U-turn at this location. So I'm curious if you intend to have bollards inside the fence, perhaps, or anything to prevent... some lost driver from driving into those. I had a question about kind of corrosion prevention, and I assume this is all something that's regulated. But now that these are outside, what kind of environmental protections are part of the plan? And I had another question, but I can't think of what it is at the minute.

We can come back to you.

Thank you.

Dan?

Thank you. So I guess two questions. One was the relative placement of the tanks, whether there is a rationale for which one is tallest and where it goes. And the other is whether you considered making the enclosure rather than aligning with the cross mullion, maybe seeing it as a continuation of the bottom of the terracotta of that first floor and being maybe more of a wrap. Get more into what I might think, but those are two questions about whether those things were considered.

I'll answer that, and then I'll come back to Ms. M's question. The taller tank is... It's located where it is because, as I mentioned, these are louvers here. We've got electrical gear up on the second floor. And if we go south or north with the taller tank, we're actually blocking our own louvers. And so that's why it is what it is. I could say it was symmetrical, but it's really much more practical than that. It's where we don't want to block the louvers. And then the other, the issue that you brought up, oh, YOU MENTIONED THE HEIGHT OF THE SCREEN. AND REALLY THAT WAS A CHOICE. YOU CAN SEE THAT LINE THAT WE'RE TRYING TO CONNECT TO. I DON'T, YOU KNOW, THE TANKS ARE SET BACK. AND, OF COURSE, WHEN YOU'RE WALKING DOWN THE STREET, THERE'S A CUTOFF ANGLE THERE. YOU KNOW, OUR INTENT WAS, AND I GOT TO TELL YOU, WE TALKED ABOUT THIS A LOT, THAT, YOU KNOW, THE SLIGHTLY SHORTER SCREEN ACTUALLY MAKES THEM A LITTLE BIT LESS OBVIOUS OR A LITTLE LESS PROMINENT. IT WASN'T ANY MORE, I CAN TELL YOU, IT WASN'T ANY MORE SCIENTIFIC THAN THAT. AND THEN THE EARLIER QUESTION ABOUT BOLLARDS HERE, YOU KNOW, IT'S A VERY GOOD QUESTION. ONE OF THE REASONS WE'VE GOT A 60-FOOT BUILDING TO BUILDING DIMENSION HERE, ONE IS THESE ARE TALL BUILDINGS, BUT ALSO BECAUSE YOU'RE RIGHT, SOMEBODY IS EITHER GOING TO MAKE A MISTAKE OR SOME UBER DRIVER IS GOING TO THINK THIS IS THE FASTEST WAY TO DROP SOMEBODY OFF OR WHATEVER IT IS, BUT THERE IS ENOUGH DIMENSION IN THAT 60-FOOT DIMENSION TO TURN A CAR AROUND AND GET OUT, AND HOPEFULLY PEOPLE WILL LEARN THAT VERY QUICKLY.

There are bollards, though, on the inside of the tank wall here.

That's right. Not on the outside, but on the inside.

There are bollards. They're just on the inside to hide them, but they are there.

And Christine reminds me, we do have a drop-off area on Broadway for the Uber and Lyfts, designated for Uber and Lyfts.

Thank you. Diego?

um yeah i was i guess a little disappointed to hear that the artwork is not i was i really like the artwork and uh it kind of leads to my question about the gas tank whether or not like the material of it and whether or not it could be integrated into the artwork but uh that's that's it uh well it it it's possible and we haven't eliminated that um idea that you know you might be seeing through the movers and to something on the on the tanks as well so that's a um that that's

That's possible. As I say, we haven't really designed the artwork or commissioned anything there.

Okay, any other questions from the board? Okay, if not, any comments from the board? Okay, then the options we have is to approve the design revision as presented, subject to continuing design review by staff and certification that's in conformance with the approved plans, or we could request changes or additional study. I haven't heard anything that would necessitate additional material. So are we prepared to approve the revisions to the design subject to continuing design review by staff? Everybody thumbs up. Okay. Does staff need any further clarification regarding the design review before we take a vote?

I'm going to look to Eric. I wonder if we could maybe take the presentation down briefly for a second so it's easier to see.

I've heard enough. I'm happy with what you've discussed.

Okay.

Jeff, does Dan get appointed to vote on this too?

Yes. So this is a... an action related to a special permit case. So, um, so Dan is an associate member would be appointed and I'll point out also Mary Lightacre is not sitting on this case.

Okay. All right. So Dan, you, you are appointed to vote on this case. Uh, could I have a motion to grant the request to design review revisions for building C3 site plan subject to continuing design review by staff?

This is Carolyn. So moved.

So moved. And is there a second? Diego second. Diego second. Jeff, roll call vote.

On that motion, Diego Macias. Yes. Ashley Tan.

Yes.

Carolyn Zern.

Yes.

Dan Anderson. Yes. Ted Cohen. Yes. So that is all five members sitting on this case voting in favor.

Well, thank you all. That concludes our business on our agenda. Is there any additional comments from staff?

Just a reminder to vote and we'll see you in three weeks.

See you in three weeks. Any comments from board members? If not, then we are adjourned.

Thank you very much.