Celebrated beer garden Fenway Park will mark its 100th baseball season today, and the area surrounding it has reason to take note as well: Fenway (or the Fenway, for purists) is booming, transforming a part of Boston that you hustled away from as soon as they grounded out with two men on in the bottom of the eighth. Said one bar owner in the area to The Globe's Casey Ross, "The streets are not just pass-throughs anymore. There's a population here that can sustain business 365 days a year, not just the 80 days when the Red Sox are in town." What exactly is going on?
A lot of new development, that's what, and the residents and retail which come with it. We told you last month about the five-building, solar-powered, mixed-use Fenway Center (rendered above) that's supposed to soon get under way. Its first phase alone is slated to add not only 418 apartments but an organic grocer as well—so you know the neighborhood's changing. But there's also:
· a Marriott Residence Inn on Brookline, the first new hotel in the area in years;
· Boylston West, which will include 170 apartments, 220,000 square feet of office space and a Target;
· three more mixed-use complexes on Boylston, enough to turn now-desolate Van Ness Street into what a developer calls a "mini Newbury Street;"
· the existing Trilogy and 1330 Boylston apartment buildings, where one-bedrooms start at $2,200 a month;
· and, finally, all the restaurants, including a Yard House on Brookline, which has 142 beer taps.
Skoal, gentlemen! But not until post-game.
· A Remarkable Renewal in Kenmore Square, the Fenway [Globe]
· Epic Solar-Powered Fenway Project to Start: 5 Buildings, $450M [Curbed Boston]