Which building should be redeveloped

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JohnAKeith

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Anyone have an opinion?

If you could renovate an existing building into residential / mixed-use, which one would it be?

It seems some people think the Shreve, Crump & Low building could be saved. Should that be renovated into residential (or commercial / office space)?

Any others?
 
I always thought the old Shreve, Crump, and Low building would make for a nice location of the Boston Museum.

#1 building that needs to be torn down is the Post Office.
 
JohnAKeith said:
Anyone have an opinion?

If you could renovate an existing building into residential / mixed-use, which one would it be?

It seems some people think the Shreve, Crump & Low building could be saved. Should that be renovated into residential (or commercial / office space)?

Any others?
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Isn't the Shreve Crump and Low building already offices for Greg Selkoe's company Karmaloop?
 
The State Services building needs MASSIVE rehab. It seriously looks like it's about to fall into the ground. I know those offices need to go somewhere convenient, but I don't think there's ever going to be a state office willing and/or able to pay the appropriate amount for upkeep that the building needs (and deserves as an architectural landmark). If the state agencies could be moved, and a private operation with money to burn could move in, the building itself would benefit hugely. Especially if they figured out some way to activate the ground floors.

In that same area, the Federal Building and low rise portion of the JFK also need to be either completely replaced or completely renovated. They're straight up street level killers. Again, the issue is that A) no government agency is going to want to go through the hassle and burn through the money; and B) those agencies need to stay in convenient locations.
 
Scalziand said:
Boston needs more sliver buildings. And this burned out tenement is right across from South Station.

http://goo.gl/maps/wvgK1
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From the otherside. The former Boston Edison's building is the one next to that burnt out one.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boston_Edison_High_Street_Station_(3575693932).jpg

The ten story pink building to the left is the MBTA Operations Control Centre. (45 High Street) aka (O.C.C.) Used to work in there. They offered that Hardware store MONEY many times to take over that property, tare it down and add to their own building. They turned it down. Instead the MBTA retrofitted their own building using that bracing on the outside and built upward.

The man used to only open that hardware store a few days a week and then it caught fire one day. The MBTA now no longer has the money to buy the building next door since Romney's little Wall Street deals which are bleeding the MBTA/Commonwealth of millions annually.
 
^Thanks for sharing the backstory on that building. It's understandable that the owner might not have wanted to sell previously, but it's a shame that they won't fix it and keep in this blighted condition.
 
Trying to find other threads with this conversation in it but unable to do so.

I don't know if it's been mentioned on the forum before but the building at 51-53 High Street (between High and Purchase streets) is for sale.

I'll drink gasoline if "a 350’ tall building with 29 floors," equating to approximately a 70,000 GSF 'skinny skyscraper' under the current footprint of 2,440 SF" is proposed, much less built, on this site.

Screenshot-2016-03-09-at-7.19.12-PM.png
 
^ This has been discussed over here in the Rose Kennedy Greenway thread, starting at post #5949
 
^ Another gift from the 1960's BRA "redevelopment" of Boston.

Seeing all these gruesome mistakes from that era reminds me of when the Berlin Wall came down, and all the ugly Soviet developments in East Berlin stuck out like sore thumbs, exactly like these BRA relics do in Boston from the 1960's. Time to do like Germany has done, and clean up the mess.
 
That building is rather ugly, but I don't think it's all that bad from a functional point of view. The "sidewalk" here is gigantic, the ground level is entirely retail, the overhang provides shelter from inclement weather, and despite its impermeable appearance, there are several pedestrian cut throughs that keep it from actually being so.
 
It's ugly as sin, but I agree: highly functional with a great street interface. The retail row really helps to keep the block commercially vibrant as yin-yang to the Christian Science Plaza, especially in winter when the plaza is cold and empty. I don't think that positive effect can be much improved upon. It also is narrow enough in width to not have destroyed any of the neighborhood along Westland immediately behind it, so I wouldn't call that an urban renewal warcrime either. The residential and small retail between Boylston-Huntington-Riverway-Mass Ave. retains its character.

It could use some lipstick on that concrete cladding next renovation, but that's about it.



Now, if you want an ugly fucker to gawk at on that block, try the parking garage immediately behind it on Westland: https://goo.gl/maps/FSWTTYzADx12. Although that too does a good job with functionality, cramming a full-size Whole Foods on the ground level.
 
The apartments inside that monstrosity are quite nice too. It needs recladding at most.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
It's ugly as sin, but I agree: highly functional with a great street interface. The retail row really helps to keep the block commercially vibrant as yin-yang to the Christian Science Plaza, especially in winter when the plaza is cold and empty. I don't think that positive effect can be much improved upon. It also is narrow enough in width to not have destroyed any of the neighborhood along Westland immediately behind it, so I wouldn't call that an urban renewal warcrime either. The residential and small retail between Boylston-Huntington-Riverway-Mass Ave. retains its character.
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I agree that the Mass Ave. side is functional enough.

It's real sin though is cutting the nose off the acute intersection of Mass Ave. and Westland, across from Symphony hall. The short side of the building there totally disrepects the geometry of the intersection and the relationship to Symphony and Hort Halls. Before this went in, there was a rounded tower / turret there. There's a good write-up of this in Cityscapes Boston - will see if I can find and scan tonight.
 
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