321 Harrison Ave | South End

Mike

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The development team of Burlington’s Nordblom Co. and Philadelphia’s Rubenstein Partners this week filed more detailed plans and renderings with the Boston Redevelopment Authority for their proposed approximately 230,000-square-foot office building on top of the existing parking garage at 321 Harrison Ave. in Boston’s South End.

The 300-car garage will see a loss of 60 spaces, and the current loading dock area at the adjoining 1000 Washington St. office building will be pulled back from the edge of Harrison 
Avenue for new public open space.

http://www.bostonherald.com/business/real_estate/2016/05/detailed_plans_filed_for_harrison_ave_site


http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/projects/development-projects/321-harrison-avenue
 
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The "curving facade with white vinyl siding" motif will never die.
 
Sorry to go OT, but has there been any talk of decking over the highway between between Harrison and Clarendon Streets?
 
I love how they kept the Pike graffiti in the third rendering.
 
^Obviously none of that plan has been built, but it should be noted that improving the south side of Herald St.-- aka this project and the Ink Block parcel down the street-- are a part of the plan too. I'm guessing all of the parcels that aren't air rights along Herald St. will be built out before we get air rights, but that doesn't mean that they aren't, ever-so-slowly, helping that old plan come to fruition.
 
Well, some things did change:

- Parcel 16 went from a parking lot to a park/playground;
- Parcel 17 went from a parking lot to a construction staging area for Liberty Mutual to a vacant lot and back to a parking lot; and
- Parcel 18 went from a fenced off urban lawn to a construction site for Columbus Center back to a fenced off urban lawn (with 4 additional Bay Village resident parking spots since the Pike on ramp access from Cortes/Arlington was closed off and pushed up to the existing on ramp access from Marginal/Arlington).

-1 commercial parking lot, +1 park/playground and +4 resident parking spots since the June 2000 vision!
 
^ We have also had one of the biggest construction booms in Boston history since the June 2000 vision. Its not like nothing has been done in the city since that came out.

The pike will be covered one day, its just not time yet.
 
Who in their right mind would look at 1000 Washington and say "that's something I want to emulate!?"
 
^ We have also had one of the biggest construction booms in Boston history since the June 2000 vision. Its not like nothing has been done in the city since that came out.

The pike will be covered one day, its just not time yet.

After being a construction buff in Boston since I was a kid and the Pru was built, I no longer think the Pike will be covered in my lifetime and honestly there's no need for it to be covered. The expansion of the highly urbanized area of Boston to North and South Stations, the Seaport, Fenway, Somerville, Cambridge, 93 N and S corridors as we have seen in recent years makes a lot more sense IMHO than packing everything into a few blocks in the old FIDI and Back Bay, especially when nice old buildings are lost or bastardized in the development process.
 
^ I agree and I love the greenway but that doesn't mean I cant miss the views from the old elevated high way. This stretch is all there is left and once its closed you just get in a tunnel at one side of the city and come out at another. Development is great and necessary, but I don't mind whats left of the view in the mean time.
 
Looks nice, but it's a bit too low. It could get a bit more creative engineering and 18-22ish stories... but instead will just be 1 more to debunk the steel and glass canyons narrative.

They should be building much taller on these 9 blocks.

https://www.google.com/maps/search/...,-71.0646957,421a,20y,3.16h,55t/data=!3m1!1e3

Perhaps, but we just went through a heavy public input multi-year master planning study for the Harrison-Albany corridor, and this is the zoning that resulted. You are not going to start overruling it out of the gate.

As it is, we cannot even get developers to build to the approved heights in parts of this area (National Development/Ink Block is a prime example). The Albany Street side should be more like the Troy (the height you want IS as-rights zoning there)!
 
What's the FAR of Ink Block? That much less than 6.5?
 
What's the FAR of Ink Block? That much less than 6.5?

With all the open surface parking, the FAR at Ink Block is way below 6.5. FAR includes the total lot potential, not just the building footprint.
 
I understand this; the buildings are also 8 stories tall for the most part. I'm curious what it ends up being for the site as a whole.
 

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