Southie is changing forever this year. Nowhere is that clearer than in the Seaport District, which has become fertile ground for ballyhooed developments like Fan Pier, Pier 4 and Seaport Square. Meanwhile, phenomena like micro-apartments and the Innovation District are reverberating in Southie's northern reaches. Change in the rest of the neighborhood? Not so noticeable. And that leaves a dose of discombobulation. As Paul McMorrow writes of the Seaport District in this morning's Globe: "It's one jarring transition after another. One block has nothing to do with the others."
D Street, along the neighborhood's interior, can solve this disconnect between a changing Southie represented by the Seaport District development and the more traditional parts of the neighborhood, according to McMorrow. Or, we should say, the development along D Street can. Take the West Square apartment building (one of so many new ones, not just in Southie, but Hub-wide!). It promises 225 units with 255 parking spaces; and takes the entire block between C and D streets, from West 1st to West 2nd. Or the two-building 411 D Street, which would add 197 apartments. And then there are the hotels planned by the convention center as well as the 236-unit Waterside Place at D and Congress streets, one of the tallest new residential developments in Boston. Finally, there's the new Liberty Wharf at the head of D Street.
· D Street Is Key to the Seaport's Identity [Globe]
· Tall Tales! Introducing the Boston Towers Heatmap [Curbed Boston]
· Our Latest Rental Heatmap: the Hub's New Apartment Buildings [Curbed Boston]
· The Departed: South Boston to Change Forever This Year [Curbed Boston]
· South Boston to Get Hundreds of Manhattan Apartments [Curbed Boston]
[rendering of West Square via The Herald]