Birch Street Plaza
The Birch Street Plaza has transformed Birch Street, in Boston’s Roslindale Village, from a street for cars into a plaza for people.
In response to community desire to transform Birch Street into a pedestrian plaza, the City and design team conceptualized and installed a six-day pop-up plaza in Spring 2019. The temporary installation prototyped, in real-time, the locations of future plaza elements utilizing duct tape to replicate paving patterns, milk crates to mimic seating, and wooden dowels to visualize trees. Through in-person and online surveys, observation, and conversation the team gathered feedback from the community, directly informing the final design of the permanent Birch Street Plaza. Construction of the future permanent plaza is expected to continue through Summer 2024.
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Still have questions? Contact:
Transportation
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1 City Hall Square
Room 721Boston, MA 02201-2026
2024 Construction Update
In 2021 and 2022, the Boston Transportation Department attempted to hire contractors to build the Birch Street Plaza, but ran into numerous issues with procurement, contracting, and legal issues to get the appropriate contractor hired to build the plaza to match the design produced by Merritt Chase and agreed to by the community. Unfortunately the City was not able to uphold its commitment to the community to deliver a beautiful and comprehensive tactical plaza on Birch Street as swiftly as promised.
Since the Fall of 2023, the Transportation Department and its contractors have been working to install elements of the plaza per the designs below. The elements have not been installed all at the same time, so some elements (i.e. painting of the street, arrival of new moveable furniture) were installed weeks or months before others (i.e. installation of planters with trees or lighting installation). We appreciate it's been some time since work has occurred on Birch Street, but in June and July of 2024, the planters will get vegetation (soil, plants, and trees) and a semi-permanent mural will be installed. The rest of the furniture has been ordered and will arrive throughout the summer. We're working closely with Roslindale Village Main Streets and affected businesses to make sure any disruption to pedestrian access or the outdoor patios currently on Birch Street are communicated in advance.
Interim Condition
Since the pilot demonstration of Birch Street Plaza in Spring 2019, the plaza's approval for permanent transformation was formally announced in September 2019. The plaza's design was approved by the Public Improvement Commission later in the Fall of 2019. Subsequent legal agreements and construction documentation proceeded in late 2019 and early 2020.
As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in the Spring of 2020, implementation of the Birch Street Plaza as designed was temporarily paused as city priorities shifted to emergency response. However, Birch Street was pedestrianized in Summer 2020 without the elements in the approved plaza plans as part of the City's Healthy Streets and Outdoor Dining initiatives. Adjacent restaurants and breweries were able to utilize space on Birch Street for outdoor patios and community members, particularly Roslindale Village Main Streets, were able to use the street space for gathering and other outdoor programming. Since Spring 2021, Birch Street has remained in its interim state as a year-round, car-free space with patios for adjacent businesses and open space for people to walk or recreate.
Plaza Design
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Still have questions? Contact:
Transportation
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1 City Hall Square
Room 721Boston, MA 02201-2026
