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Developer shrinks Lagrange Street proposal; would sell condos instead of renting apartments
By adamg on Thu, 02/11/2016 - 7:28am
The Bulletin reports local landlord Michael Argiros has revised his plans for the burned-out inhaler plant on Lagrange Street in West Roxbury again; he's now proposing 40 condos instead of 46 apartments.
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Comments
Classic Boston Nimby story
Armstrong made Primatene Mist OTC there for asthmatics. Neighbors didn't like an industrial operation in what had become a residential neighborhood. They moved that operation to a subleased former grocery warehouse on University Avenue in Westwood. Then, since the product was aerosol, the government told them to take it off the market as a threat to the environment, screw the asthmatics. THAT building was demolished for the new retail/residential project there. THAT project was delayed for years when it turned out the equity was trapped in financial derivatives by Commonfund Investors of CT. (Also meant thousands of college freshmen didn't get promised scholarships).Derby Street Shops was first to market, grabbed all their tenants and there it sat until recently. Maybe the West Roxbury residents (asthma sufferers?) should think about this when they shop at the new retail there?
Nope
Nice revisionist rhetoric, though. Complete bullshit, actually.
It had to do with best practices in care of asthma - which primatene and similar products were not. Asthma is best treated with a management plan consisting of a "preventer" (usually a daily steroid administration), a "reliever" (which primatene sort of was, but wasn't very affective compared to albuterol), and patient monitoring and education.
Primatene wasn't removed from the shelves, but it became far less popular because of more aggressive diagnosis and treatment of asthma. Otherwise, people would go buy that and then suffer worsening asthma or expensive hospitalization for exacerbation of asthma, rather than get vastly more effective and often preventative treatment.
But don't let advances in epidemiology, pharmacology, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and pulmonology get in your way.
With respect to University
With respect to University ave, they should have left the warehouses intact instead of trying to force in another high end mallerama. Somebody would have filled them. maybe even utilized a rail siding or two.
This is why its so hard to
This is why its so hard to afford housing in Boston, every development gets shrunk, so each unit has to be priced that much higher to pay for the costs. Then people complain theres only high priced housing being made....well thats because every project is scaled down (and parking added) so high priced housing is the only one that is financially possible. The city should be pushing developers like this one to increase the amount of housing units in each development. Instead they take the short term easy way out and push 1950s style development.
That's only one part of the
That's only one part of the issue. Huge amounts of non local speculation are driving up prices as well. The demand does not only reside in the Boston area. This has been written about in the Globe and other national newspapers repeatedly. More building would help, but it's not the only issue driving up home prices.
You could
Equally blame subsidized housing, for the same reasons you outlined above.
Build, baby, build!
I live on Lagrange Street and it completely baffles me why anybody would oppose this project. It is quite literally, a burned out inhaler plant. It's not like West Roxbury is in a position to gentrify anyway--we're too low-density and have no mass transit. This area of Centre St is also a bit run down in comparison to the end with the Real Deal, Eat With Jack O'Neil, etc. and this would be a great opportunity to create some more foot traffic and investment in the area.