The Boston Parks Department, the Boston Transportation Department (BTD) and private developers like Hood Park will convene an overall series of visioning meetings for what will be a transformative change in open space from Ryan Playground all the way down the Rutherford Avenue corridor.
The Parks Department has said it is raring to go on the major reconfiguration and renovation of Ryan Playground, and they want to make those renovations in concert with the BTD that will be bringing new open space to Sullivan Square in the next five years, and private developers like Hood Park that will bring online the large Hood Green fronting Rutherford Avenue within the next three years.
“Boston Parks and Recreation will be starting off the community process for Improvements to Ryan Playground in Charlestown,” read a meeting notice from Parks. “Boston Parks will hold an online meeting to discuss the goals of the community for this renovation and any current concerns with the site that the Ryan Playground project could address. Please come and share your thoughts.”
That meeting will be on Weds., Sept. 15, at 6 p.m. via Zoom.
However, there are many projects on the corridor, and within the Ryan Playground discussion, all parties want to make sure the community can give input on planning them all so there is a cohesive plan for that massive influx of open space into a small and emerging area of the neighborhood.
The Hood Green will be a one-acre open space that is only loosely defined at the moment and would come when the company starts to build the 10 Stack St. tower on their campus, which could be estimated at about three years out.
Mark Rosenshein, of Trademark Partners and representing Hood, said they wanted to have a larger conversation within the Ryan Playground discussion that would include their property as well.
“Over the next two months, a number of these dialogs about open space will begin to take place,” he said. “We all want to plan all three concurrently and make sure there is no duplication in what we offer.”
The project page for that renovation is boston.gov/Ryan-Charlestown.
While those two will be held together, the BTD piece will happen a little separately, but not in a vacuum.
A Sullivan Square Open Space meeting will take place on Thursday, Sept. 23, at 6 p.m. on Zoom. That will take into consideration Ryan Playground and Hood Green, but will focus on the large amounts of new open space created by the Rutherford Avenue/Sullivan Square Re-Design process. That project is still a few years out, but it will create tons of new open space on the Square when the traffic circle is closed down, and it will also create a massive green corridor down Rutherford Avenue to City Square. In essence, it will make from City Square to Ryan Playground a new green space corridor for the Town.