Suffolk Downs park and bike paths will connect under new plan

The developer behind the 16.5 million-square-foot redevelopment of the 163-acre Suffolk Downs racetrack in East Boston is planning to add a public park along Waldemar Avenue near the Blue Line’s Suffolk Downs stop.

The park will in turn connect to paths that would themselves in turn run through the park and connect to proposed bike paths and walkways on the Suffolk Downs site.

The park will go along a Waldemar space that had once been slated to be part of a continuous run of townhouses. The greensward and the connection with the pedestrian and bike paths is meant to break up that run and to better connect with the rest of Eastie what’s going to end up being one of Boston’s biggest new developments in recent memory.

The changes could prove especially significant given the possibility that e-commerce giant Amazon might make a redeveloped Suffolk Downs its second headquarters. A decision on that is supposed to come before the end of 2018.

Either way, the HYM Investment Group, the racetrack’s developer, is moving forward with construction. Stay tuned.

• HYM makes design changes for Suffolk Downs project [Times-Free Press]
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• Suffolk Downs redevelopment moving forward, possibly toward Amazon [Curbed Boston]