DOT Parcels | 25-28 Kneeland Street | Chinatown

Isn't this where the proposed Gateway/South Bay tower was to be? I think it was supposed to be ~800" when they initially proposed it back in '07 (or '08?)?
 
Also I cant see a developer paying at least 179 million for land for a place he can only build a 300ft tower.
 
bakgwailo said:
Isn't this where the proposed Gateway/South Bay tower was to be? I think it was supposed to be ~800" when they initially proposed it back in '07 (or '08?)?
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The people talking about that were on drugs.

This is a clear takeoff/landing corridor for runway 9-27. Airspace restriction is not going away!
 
JeffDowntown said:
The people talking about that were on drugs.

This is a clear takeoff/landing corridor for runway 9-27. Airspace restriction is not going away!
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Always what I figured, but I thought maybe there was (a tiny chance of) some horse trading with the FAA or something not publicly known. Kind of funny how it just misses the border though, with the South Station Tower being OK.
 
bakgwailo said:
Always what I figured, but I thought maybe there was (a tiny chance of) some horse trading with the FAA or something not publicly known. Kind of funny how it just misses the border though, with the South Station Tower being OK.
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South Station Tower just makes it in. Even the rest of the complex (other planned buildings) are in the 300 ft. restricted zone.
 
it wont be 1 tower. multiple buildings with over 2M SF.
 
Massport is really handicapping the city, there is no working with city at all, the city should stand up to Massport and come up with a solution , between Chinatown,east boston ,seaport and downtown they are hurting multiple development areas in the city.
 
ShawnA said:
Massport is really handicapping the city, there is no working with city at all, the city should stand up to Massport and come up with a solution , between Chinatown,east boston ,seaport and downtown they are hurting multiple development areas in the city.
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?
... is there new news?
 
Better article about this in the globe that mentions Massdot still negotiating about SST, Simons scrapped Copley tower, Fenway center that didn't work...etc etc

Nicely done
 
617 said:
Better article about this in the globe that mentions Massdot still negotiating about SST, Simons scrapped Copley tower, Fenway center that didn't work...etc etc

Nicely done
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Here's the link.

It's better in that they actually got a couple of quotes, but still a very short, one-off article. The headline doesn't necessarily demand a deeper journalistic inquiry, but back in the day when the Globe had an army of reporters, they'd also have deeper rolodexes and I expect a comparable story might easily be twice as long with more substance than this has. I'd like to see more discussion of how the government could put some money down and wait for the slow returns, as the quoted person proposes.

It's still soft on the government which everyone knows is shaking down developers... and it's hard not to imagine that developers also aren't took keen on planning a giant building only to argue with the neighborhood for years about heights. Another way to make this more palatable, I would guess, is to get approval, hands down, for a certain height and design criteria to avoid this.
 
Would it be possible for MassDOT to deck the highway from Comm Ave in Brighton to the I-93 intersection, then sell the parcels as immediately developable? Would having a pre-made deck limit the engineering of a new development in any way (assuming MassDot did a reasonable job with the deck)?
 
FenwayResident said:
Would it be possible for MassDOT to deck the highway from Comm Ave in Brighton to the I-93 intersection, then sell the parcels as immediately developable? Would having a pre-made deck limit the engineering of a new development in any way (assuming MassDot did a reasonable job with the deck)?
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I always wondered about this too. They did something similar for the Big Dig air rights near North Station.

Regarding no bids on the parcel, good. These shakedowns have to end. If anything on this parcel, given the complexities of building, there should be less community giveaways than usual, not more because of the difficulties in building there.
 
20% affordable + the extreme conservative buildout plan + the extreme complexities + Wu and Tito & the endless Chinatown bullshit... ~35-$45M? Didn't someone suggest 'the better you can afford to build, the more you can tax it.' ??
 
I agree with some other comments. The State should get about 80-100 million for this parcel and then use that money to help pay for the decks of the other mass dot parcels. This is only the way I see all of the parcels being built.
 
ShawnA said:
The State should get about 80-100 million for this parcel and then use that money to help pay for the decks of the other mass dot parcels.
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Use part of that money on an updated airport radar. Then the air rights parcels could get the height they need to be profitable enough to build.
 
I feel like state probably should learn a lesson from this, but it probably will not. Though with Baker at the helm maybe. Hopefully he reaches out and asks the developers why they didn't submit bids and he gets feedback in the form of:

1. Too expensive given site constraints and issues.
2. Bureaucracy and Process
 
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