[ARCHIVED] Harbor Garage Redevelopment | 70 East India Row | Waterfront | Downtown

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Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

timsox6 said:
The temptation to derail with arguments to that math is extreme...but are those numbers just made up or is there some metric to your argument that we might look at in a separate thread?
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Tim -- the numbers are made-up -- but the metric is real and it is highly non-linear

Look at any number of "Cultural Elite Events" formerly known colloquially as Brahmin photo ops -- the list above is the pecking order [given a few ambiguities where the person's interest in say a hospital might supercede the adjacent museum ranking]

The top of the list is unassailable -- check out how many galleries and curatorships are named at the MFA*1 and how many chairs are "endowed in perpetuity" at the BSO

Younger and less Brahminish [some might even be more moneyed] types have to be satisfied with lower level associations

Any dissent would mostly involve:
  • the impact and cache provided by personal connections of founding and / or long-serving directors and such -- e.g. the small band that played for Isabella and her invited guests Jan 1, 1903, the evening that she opened Fenway Court to the world was her friend Col. Higginson's BSO.
  • long-standing family relationships versus the nouveau-riche and out-of-towners -- e.g. Isabella's father was from NYC and so she was never fully accepted in the land of the Lodges, Cabot's, [e.g. Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge] etc. However, she did use a Sears [uber brahmin family] to design Fenway Court ironically on a site just down the street from where Guy Lowell would soon design the MFA

    As a result of the above kind of machinations some of the specific order can be somewhat ambiguous and may even evolve over time

    *1 while the MFA's founders were all Brahmins of some rank or others with equal standing
    Founders:
    • Martin Brimmer as in the street
    • Charles C. Perkins as in the school for the Blind
    • Charles W. Eliot as in Harvard
    • William Endicott Jr.
    • Samuel Eliot
    • Francis E. Parker
    • Henry P. Kidder
    • William B. Rogers as in MIT
    • George B. Emerson
    • Otis Norcross
    • John T. Bradlee
    • Benjamin S. Rotch

    a whole lot of the galleries are named after people who wouldn't have been invited to the party in 1870, 1876, 1909 or even 1920
 
Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

Yet another Whighlander thread hijacking accomplished......
 
Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

shmessy said:
Yet another Whighlander thread hijacking accomplished......
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With thanks to several of my best fans who ably asissted

Now back to the discussion of the tower which will be built and why the Aquarium's opposition is just a last ditch angle to grab some $ -- but which should have been done as a public homage with a sotto voce plea for some assistance
 
Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

elemenoh said:
And I bet they'd change their tune if the developer offered them a bunch of money toward an endowment.
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This is, no doubt, the reason for the Aquarium's opposition. Can't extract a gift if you line up in support right from the start.
 
Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

Shirley Leung had an op ed piece in the Globe several days ago, wondering why Chiofaro has said nothing since the 600' foot height cap, and maximum size cap of 900,000 gsf was released.

....The silence is deafening, given that until recently Chiofaro has been hard to ignore. The former Harvard linebacker has been hounding the mayor and his staff, lurking around City Hall.

What Chiofaro has made clear in previous encounters is that he needs not only height but density. And in this case, that means he needs to be able to build 1.3 million square feet of development to make the proposed $1 billion project worth his while.
.....
I reached out to Chiofaro to see if he would tell me what’s on his mind. He isn’t ready to talk. The guy has gone from Mr. Chatterbox to a monk who has taken a vow of silence.
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If Chiofaro is struggling mightily to make the numbers work for 900,000 gsf (the original proposal was for 1.5 million gsf) he is very unlikely to be in the position of offering the Aquarium anything.
 
Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

stellarfun said:
If Chiofaro is struggling mightily to make the numbers work for 900,000 gsf (the original proposal was for 1.5 million gsf) he is very unlikely to be in the position of offering the Aquarium anything.
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The converse of this may be what he ends up offering: allow more square footage and I (Chiofaro) will appease the Aquarium folks with some cash money. That's what I'm hoping for, at least-- the Aquarium gets an investment and this project has an even greater scope.
 
Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

timsox6 said:
The converse of this may be what he ends up offering: allow more square footage and I (Chiofaro) will appease the Aquarium folks with some cash money. That's what I'm hoping for, at least-- the Aquarium gets an investment and this project has an even greater scope.
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Leung's opinion in her op ed -- indeed it was the underlying premise of her op ed -- is that 900,000 gsf is as good as Chiofaro is going to get, and that he'll be "lucky" if he even gets that from the Commonwealth.

IMO, he can't make the numbers work when he's paid $150 million for the garage, would spend $150-200 million building a new underground garage, and then can build only 900,000 gsf. Forget about how much he might give the Aquarium. His path out is probably going to keep the existing garage as a podium, and hope he can get 500,000-600,000 gsf on top. The current garage is around 420,000 gsf.

Week after next it will be two months since the BRA released the height and size caps. Any developer worth his/her salt would not need more than a week to see if they can make the numbers work.
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Let's pretend a bit.

The site is about 57,000 sq ft. If, as the developer, I propose to the city that I will build a 'tower' above my garage podium that occupies 60 percent of the site, or 34,000 sq ft, will you, the city and commonwealth, count only 60 percent of the garage within the 900,000 gsf cap? If the city and the commonwealth say, 'okay', that allows me, as developer to build about 670,000 gsf.

Garage is 420,000 gsf, with seven floors of garage at 60 percent, that's 230,000 gsf. 900,000 gsf - 230,000 gsf = 670,000 gsf. (190,000 gsf of the retained garage is not counted within the 900,000 gsf cap.)

Building 20 floors of tower at 34,000 gsf per floor = 680,000 gsf

Residential at 11 feet vertical between floors, building height including 70 feet of garage podium is 290'. Office at 13 feet vertical between floors, building height is 330' including 70 feet of garage. (height does not include mechanicals, elevator overrun, crowns, turrets, neon signs on top.)
 
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Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

Stellar, by reading your posts about the garage development, it seems you really have it in for Chiofaro!
 
Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

atlantaden said:
Stellar, by reading your posts about the garage development, it seems you really have it in for Chiofaro!
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Not really.

Ten years ago, Fallon supposedly paid $115 million for 20.5 acres of Fan Pier. Chiofaro paid $153 million for 1.3 acres (plus parking garage) for the Harbor Garage site two tears later. Fan Pier is next to the water; a roadway, owned by the city, separates the Harbor Garage from the water. Fallon is almost built out. Chiofaro,........

I'm reviewing two proposed buildings (not very big) by two starchitects (neither of whom have a Boston building) at the moment so I'm gaining an appreciation of design tradeoffs. One of the proposals has two alternatives, one of which would shrink the footprint while retaining the height, because there is too much inefficient space included in the larger footprint: i.e., space you can't get premium dollar for.
 
Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

stellarfun said:
Not really.

Ten years ago, Fallon supposedly paid $115 million for 20.5 acres of Fan Pier. Chiofaro paid $153 million for 1.3 acres (plus parking garage) for the Harbor Garage site two tears later. Fan Pier is next to the water; a roadway, owned by the city, separates the Harbor Garage from the water. Fallon is almost built out. Chiofaro,........

I'm reviewing two proposed buildings (not very big) by two starchitects (neither of whom have a Boston building) at the moment so I'm gaining an appreciation of design tradeoffs. One of the proposals has two alternatives, one of which would shrink the footprint while retaining the height, because there is too much inefficient space included in the larger footprint: i.e., space you can't get premium dollar for.
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Fallon is a private developer who got almost 70 Million dollars in city and state tax breaks to help persuade Vertex to move out of Cambridge to Boston. This is the most insane deal I have ever heard being a taxpayer. The city council claimed it was because of Jobs? It's not like Vertex was recruited out of state.

the taxpayers basically built out the infrastructure for Fallon and lowered his RISK to nothing along with maximizing his profits off the taxpayers dime.

http://www.universalhub.com/2011/city-council-approves-tax-break-vertex-waterfront

the FAN PIER deal was nothing more than backroom swindling by the elected representatives and Fallon the private developer.

Chiofaro seems like a Saint compared to these criminals. Think your views are backwards in my opinion. Chiofaro like any other developer is asking more height or width. Who wouldn't ask for that?

Seems like Chiofaro built IP along with moving the state infrastructure to make it work out of pocket.
 
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The easiest way around the Globe's subscription popup is to copy and paste the link into an incognito window.
 
its a bit more work but you can also clear out all your history and it'll clear off the the pop-up message.
 
People have been killed for lesser things....bring me new info if you're going to drag up old threads
 
Preserving a view is no excuse to hold back good development.
 
JSic said:
Preserving a view is no excuse to hold back good development.
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Agreed. Im a huge fan of the most recent render. I could care less about shadows on long wharf or the greenway or blocking views of the custom house tower from a certain angle. I'm all for preserving what makes Boston unique, but It's a freaking city. We only have so many spots to build up, so lets do it where we can.
 
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