South Station Tower | South Station Air Rights | Downtown

Sorry for the bad pictures, but what is supposed to eventually go in here? And on what timeline?
It's kind of crazy that after all that construction, the ground floor along Atlantic includes a couple hundred feet of blank wall. Or, blank except for a couple of new curb cuts.

sst1.jpg

sst2.jpg
 
Built to accommodate future phases of development on that site. Narrow lobbies to elevator banks, with development up that wall and on top. Yellow and green buildings in the rendering below, but haven't heard any plans to start anything here. Seems pretty unlikely it'll be anytime soon:

Project Overview — South Station Air Rights

Project Overview
southstationairrights.com southstationairrights.com

Following completion of the South Station Transportation Center and mixed-use tower (Phase 1), two other project phases will follow. The construction schedule only includes the South Station Transportation Center and mixed-use tower work (Phase 1).

Phase 2 has been approved as residential and/or hotel building above the bus terminal expansion (built in Phase 1), which will include 440,000 square feet of space and an additional 368 parking spaces.

The third and final development phase has been approved as 510,000 square feet of office and amenity space above the existing bus terminal structure.

Overall, completion of the three phases will create 1,980,000 square feet of mixed-use space. Additionally, 895 parking spaces will be created.

1763142419605.png
 
Is there any way they can go back to the drawing board on the yellow and green renders above, and improve the height and proportions on one or both? The current massing is just awful. I know there's height limits due to the airport but I think they're still leaving some height on the table here.
 
Justbuildit said:
Built to accommodate future phases of development on that site. Narrow lobbies to elevator banks, with development up that wall and on top. Yellow and green buildings in the rendering below, but haven't heard any plans to start anything here. Seems pretty unlikely it'll be anytime soon:

Project Overview — South Station Air Rights

Project Overview
southstationairrights.com southstationairrights.com

Following completion of the South Station Transportation Center and mixed-use tower (Phase 1), two other project phases will follow. The construction schedule only includes the South Station Transportation Center and mixed-use tower work (Phase 1).

Phase 2 has been approved as residential and/or hotel building above the bus terminal expansion (built in Phase 1), which will include 440,000 square feet of space and an additional 368 parking spaces.

The third and final development phase has been approved as 510,000 square feet of office and amenity space above the existing bus terminal structure.

Overall, completion of the three phases will create 1,980,000 square feet of mixed-use space. Additionally, 895 parking spaces will be created.

View attachment 68520
Click to expand...
That's exactly what I was looking for, thanks!
So the blank wall I took pictures of would be the yellow building, which is phase 2 of 3. So... decades, but within my lifetime? Who knows.

There's a lot of good things to say about this project. But that's a pretty crummy pedestrian experience to build at our main train station.
 
DZH22 said:
Is there any way they can go back to the drawing board on the yellow and green renders above, and improve the height and proportions on one or both? The current massing is just awful. I know there's height limits due to the airport but I think they're still leaving some height on the table here.
Click to expand...
A second tower would be great, if its physically possible to wedge one in.
 
DZH22 said:
Is there any way they can go back to the drawing board on the yellow and green renders above, and improve the height and proportions on one or both? The current massing is just awful. I know there's height limits due to the airport but I think they're still leaving some height on the table here.
Click to expand...
Actually I don't believe they are leaving much on the table in terms of height. The current tower required the FAA to "look the other way" a bit as it encroaches into the precipitous drop in allowable (insurable) height at the south edge of downtown.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Actually I don't believe they are leaving much on the table in terms of height. The current tower required the FAA to "look the other way" a bit as it encroaches into the precipitous drop in allowable (insurable) height at the south edge of downtown.
Click to expand...
Why not a second tower the same height as the first? That would certainly be within FAA height limits.
 
Here's a different render, and a snippet from the original presentations about how the ground level would interact. I believe the plan left it open to whether it'd be all-hotel or mixed residential, but if I recall correctly the skypark is meant to be a shared amenity between the two buildings. That combined with the complete "substructure" work of the garage and terminal, I would assume constrains Phase 2's footprint and possible massing. Equally, I would assume that that substructure work is a significant portion of the cost of these two buildings - its a sunk cost, and the cost of going vertical on this next portion likely relatively cheap for the potential returns.
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As of 11/22. Fare gates going in.
 

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Here are some criticisms. None of this is to say I don't like the whole project. The building is fine and bus terminal expansion is pretty nice. But there are parts of the pedestrian experience that seem really half-assed here.

Walking in from Summer Street, this is the wayfinding you see to help you find your platform.
sst4.jpg

Tracks 13-....???? Other numbers are posted somewhere but almost totally obscured. Because of how we normally write number ranges, a person would reasonably expect the hidden number is larger than 13, but it isn't. I think that says 13-10, but I don't remember. The same problem pops up from so many vantage points near the platforms. This is terrible wayfinding.


Which tracks are back there?
sst5.jpg


And then there's the arches. They look nice. But they feel so plopped in to the space. I think it's because they so totally half-assed the ground there, which is just brushed concrete. Some of it is an ugly patchwork of brushed concrete. This really detracts from whatever grandeur they were going for with the arches.

sst3.jpg



I've already pointed out I don't like a lot of the new construction along Atlantic. Big blank walls and two new curb cuts for the new parking makes for a bad pedestrian experience. And people have pointed out that there is a gap between the new and old buildings when walking out towards track 1, so you can rained on. That's pretty inexcusable. This isn't a problem at other doors, so this was avoidable. This was a massive collaboration between the private developers and the MBTA. They should have figured this out.

I don't hate the project as a whole. But some of this looks sloppy.
 
ritchiew said:
Here are some criticisms. None of this is to say I don't like the whole project. The building is fine and bus terminal expansion is pretty nice. But there are parts of the pedestrian experience that seem really half-assed here.

Walking in from Summer Street, this is the wayfinding you see to help you find your platform.
View attachment 69047
Tracks 13-....???? Other numbers are posted somewhere but almost totally obscured. Because of how we normally write number ranges, a person would reasonably expect the hidden number is larger than 13, but it isn't. I think that says 13-10, but I don't remember. The same problem pops up from so many vantage points near the platforms. This is terrible wayfinding.


Which tracks are back there?
View attachment 69048

And then there's the arches. They look nice. But they feel so plopped in to the space. I think it's because they so totally half-assed the ground there, which is just brushed concrete. Some of it is an ugly patchwork of brushed concrete. This really detracts from whatever grandeur they were going for with the arches.

View attachment 69051


I've already pointed out I don't like a lot of the new construction along Atlantic. Big blank walls and two new curb cuts for the new parking makes for a bad pedestrian experience. And people have pointed out that there is a gap between the new and old buildings when walking out towards track 1, so you can rained on. That's pretty inexcusable. This isn't a problem at other doors, so this was avoidable. This was a massive collaboration between the private developers and the MBTA. They should have figured this out.

I don't hate the project as a whole. But some of this looks sloppy.
Click to expand...
100-498-x-498-gif-bx4esb4p7wyyklm4.gif
 
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