City blocks

Channel Center Street between Binford and Iron streets

 

Retro lamp shades hang along Channel Center Street. Photo: NICOLAUS CZARNECKI/METRO

 

Three reasons

Before you move here or visit, you should know:

• There’s both cleanliness and quiet, two traits not found in many Boston neighborhoods.
• Both the number and quality of eateries is growing.
• Although Red and Silver lines are close, there’s a slight feeling of isolation.

 

The transformation in Boston’s Seaport District is on full display on Channel Center Street, which is seeing most of its brick industrial dinosaurs transformed into sleek offices, trendy residential units and prime studio space.

An old rail line that once fed the region its raw materials is now lined with potted flowers and youthful trees, a symbol of a renewed cityscape.

The centerpiece is Channel Center itself, a 1.1 million-square-foot mixed-use development so imposing it forced a change to the strip’s old name, Midway Street.

That name lives on across the way in Midway Studios, which filled three warehouses dating to 1912 with live/work studios and other arts-related space, including a theater the Boston Conservatory calls home.

The conservatory will eventually move out when the company’s renovation on Hemenway Street is complete. Rest assured, with the way space is being filled in the Seaport District, a replacement will come along soon.