Everyone's understandably agog about the new West Station in Allston. The commuter rail stop, slated to open in 2020, will connect the area to Back Bay, South Station and maybe even tech-heavy Kendall Square. It might also become a trolley stop routing Allston residents all the way through to North Station. Such connectivity via public transit, of course, makes the environs of West Station all the more desirable as a place in which to buy or rent. What other transit stops, planned or recently launched, have also opened up a box of real estate goodies?
Green Line at Union Square in Somerville
The Green Line extension through Somerville into Medford is a truly transformative Event in Greater Boston, a way of definitively linking one of the nation's most densely populated cities with the rest of the region's faster public transit. At Union Square, one of the planned Green Line stops, the changes are expected to be particularly acute. Rents alone could increase more than 25 percent and condo owners/developers are already using the Green Line to sell units. Plus, the city has lined up a Chicago-based developer to lead the construction of 2.3 million square feet in residential and commercial development in Union Square.
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Fairmount Line at Newmarket and Four Corners/Geneva
The Fairmount Line extension began its ambitious life as a commuter-rail branch mainly through Dorchester to Hyde Park in 2012 with the opening of the Talbot Avenue Station between the Uphams Corner and Morton Street stops. It could, however, soon evolve into the Indigo Line, just another (faster) branch of the T. For now, the openings of the Four Corners/Geneva and Newmarket stops in the summer of 2013 have heralded not only a victory for residents who fought for the access they brought but a change in thinking about development in the neighborhoods the extension runs through. That change? Thinking in terms of transit-oriented building. You can't do that if you don't have the transit.
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Orange Line at Assembly Square in Somerville
Assembly Square along the banks of the Mystic in Somerville is one of the game-changing-est developments to land in the region in a long while. The city's mayor, Joe Curtatone, has called it, not unconvincingly, "the best brand-new neighborhood on the Eastern Seaboard." Its Assembly Row component could include up to 50 outlet stores as well as big-time (for Somerville, at least) office and hotel development. Moreover, thousands of new homes are going up or have gone up at Assembly Square. Much of this development was predicated on the opening of an Orange Line stop. That Assembly stop opened on Sept. 2, the first new subway stop in Greater Boston since way back in 1987.
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Silver Line at downtown Chelsea
It's not quite clear where in downtown Chelsea the Silver Line will stop, only that it will stop in the area someday (that day will probably be in 2016). It will connect the long-struggling city's core much more directly to downtown Boston, via South Station, than other buses currently do, and will therefore open up a whole new level of access to the rest of the T. In anticipation, construction in Chelsea has been booming of late, with hundreds of new apartments coming online or into the pipeline, many of them targeted toward young professionals who would love, love, love to lead the hip Boston lifestyle but can't quite afford it yet. We're talking yoga studios and full-service dog daycare. In Chelsea.
· Somerville Is Doomed to Be a More Desirable Place to Live [Curbed Boston]
· Green Line Now Part of Somerville Sales Pitches [Curbed Boston]
· Meet the Residences at Fairmount Station; More! [Curbed Boston]
· Indigo Whirl: Boston's Busy Building Plans for Fairmount Line [Curbed Boston]
· Somerville's Big New Assembly Row Focuses First on Small [Curbed Boston]
· Somerville's 'Best Brand-New Neighborhood' In Eastern U.S. [Curbed Boston]
· Silver Line Extension Just in Time for Chelsea's Boom [Curbed Boston]
· Chelsea Morning! Boston's Northern Neighbor Builds Bigger [Curbed Boston]
· Priciest Chelsea Apartment Building Ever Readies for Opening [Curbed Boston]
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