50 Post Office Sq (Fomer Verizon Building Tower)

Re: An agreement to sell 185 Franklin Street

Ron Newman said:
(And who is 'Garrett' ?)
Click to expand...

Ahh.. I was wondering about that too.

Turn out it's not a 'who' but a 'what'.

The email has a typo (from I can gather) it should be 'Bell's garret museum'. From what I can tell a 'garret' is an old fashioned type of apartment.
 
Re: An agreement to sell 185 Franklin Street

Banker & Tradesman - October 15, 2008
Seattle Co. Buys Boston High-Rise

Seattle-based institutional real estate advisor Kennedy Assoc. has acquired 185 Franklin St. in Boston from Verizon for $192 million.

Kennedy Assoc. acquired the Post Office Square property with one of its institutional partners, and will ?reposition? the property.

Commonwealth Ventures, a New England-based real estate development and investment firm active in the Boston market, will manage the redevelopment of the 22-story building, which has 700,000 rentable square feet. As part of the repositioning, 60,000 square feet of retail will be added to the building, and tenant naming rights will be offered, the company said.

As part of the transaction, Verizon retained ownership of roughly 100,000 square feet at closing, and entered into a multi-month lease-back arrangement of the entire building.

Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 (Archive on Wednesday, November 19, 2008)
Click to expand...
 
Re: An agreement to sell 185 Franklin Street

Ron Newman said:
I'm also curious how we came to have a Deco building put up as late as 1947, since I associate that style so strongly with the 1930s.
Click to expand...
The Hancock Building with the weather beacon is also postwar Deco.
 
Re: An agreement to sell 185 Franklin Street

And also built in 1947, I believe.
 
Re: An agreement to sell 185 Franklin Street

Ron Newman said:
I'm also curious how we came to have a Deco building put up as late as 1947, since I associate that style so strongly with the 1930s.
Click to expand...

The neighborhood hearings probably started in 1933.
 
Re: An agreement to sell 185 Franklin Street

Padre Mike said:
Yes, there was a pair of buildings, similar in scale but differing in stylistic details that were the headquarters of N.E. Mutual Life Insurance Co.. Tower, statues, mansard roofs, and rich stonework....all were lost for N.E. Telephone's deco tower.
Click to expand...

I was wrong and have to correct myself. Looking at old maps and pictures, these two buildings were indeed on the site of the present Post Office Sq. Park. BEHIND this site were a huge number of non-descript factory buildings throughout the area from Franklin St. to Fort Point Channel. 185 Franklin replaced some of these buildings which fronted on Franklin St. The real tragedy is that the beautiful Victorians on Post Office Sq. were replaced by the horrible garage now thankfully moved under P.O. Sq. park.
 
details announced

I hope someday they do the same thing to the Court House building in Post Office Sq., increase the height of the central portion and create a large tower.

The new owners of 185 Franklin St., the local headquarters for Verizon Communications Inc. in the heart of Boston?s Financial District, are in the early stages of planning a 400,000-square-foot addition to the 18-story tower.

Commonwealth Ventures, in a joint venture with Kennedy Associates, bought the building for $192 million in October. Commonwealth is currently studying design options for the building and has hired Elkus Manfredi Architects Ltd., according to industry sources.

The building now totals roughly 875,000 square feet and overlooks the Franklin Street side of Post Office Square Park. Commonwealth, according to a request for proposals described to the Boston Business Journal, wants to build a 400,000-square-foot tower on the opposite end of the property, which faces Boston?s High Street.

?We?re early on, (we?re) looking at a lot of things,? said Richard Galvin, Commonwealth?s president. ?We really just started with Elkus Manfredi. It?s certainly something that was promoted as an idea by the people selling the building. I?m just not going to comment at this point. It?s just too early.?

Commonwealth has not filed any plans with the Boston Redevelopment Authority. However, any planned addition of more than 50,000 square feet would trigger a review process with the BRA, said Jessica Shumaker, a spokeswoman for the authority. Shumaker said the building, which also is bordered by Congress Street and Pearl Street, is considered a part of the Rose Kennedy Greenway area that is now being studied by the BRA.

Mayor Thomas Menino pledged last year to conduct a review that will establish zoning guidelines regarding the height and density of development along the Greenway.

?If they want to put something tall on the High Street portion it would play into guidelines there,? said Shumaker. ?If they?re talking about significant height it would be reviewed by this.?

Galvin said there has been some discussion about adding office space to the building but said he?s not sure if those ideas will end up in the final design plans. He expects the design to be complete in the next 60 days.

?I?m not denying that it (the 400,000-square-foot addition) was in the RFP for the architects,? he said.

The building, which was sold by Verizon New England Inc., was constructed in 1947 and was the former headquarters of New England Telephone. Approximately 1,700 Verizon employees worked in the building at the time of the sale. As part of the sale agreement, Verizon has the right to lease back space for a certain period of time.
Click to expand...
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2009/02/02/daily12.html
 
Re: An agreement to sell 185 Franklin Street

That would be a very interesting assignment!
As to the Court House, it always interested me that the "tower" part is made out of a different colored stone. I hope that the renovation preserves the Art Deco details inside.
 
Re: An agreement to sell 185 Franklin Street

In honor of Scott Van Voorhis,

Soaring tower proposed for Verizon building?

You don't have to click through; it's just a blog entry on the Herald site talking about Verizon's plans for 185 Franklin.

Laugh, and the world laughs with you.
 
Verizon Building Tower

Commonwealth Ventures announced plans for a tower to be erected above the existing Verizon building on Post Office Square. The article appeared in Friday's BBJ.
 
Re: Verizon Building Tower

185 Franklin owners eye major addition


221938-0-0-1.jpg


The new owners of 185 Franklin St., the local headquarters for Verizon Communications Inc. in the heart of Boston?s Financial District, are in the early stages of planning a 400,000-square-foot addition to the 18-story tower.

Commonwealth Ventures, in a joint venture with Kennedy Associates, bought the building for $192 million in October. Commonwealth is currently studying design options for the building and has hired Elkus Manfredi Architects Ltd., according to industry sources.

The building now totals roughly 875,000 square feet and overlooks the Franklin Street side of Post Office Square Park. Commonwealth, according to a request for proposals described to the Boston Business Journal, wants to build a 400,000-square-foot tower on the opposite end of the property, which faces Boston?s High Street.

?We?re early on, (we?re) looking at a lot of things,? said Richard Galvin, Commonwealth?s president. ?We really just started with Elkus Manfredi. It?s certainly something that was promoted as an idea by the people selling the building. I?m just not going to comment at this point. It?s just too early.?

Commonwealth has not filed any plans with the Boston Redevelopment Authority. However, any planned addition of more than 50,000 square feet would trigger a review process with the BRA, said Jessica Shumaker, a spokeswoman for the authority. Shumaker said the building, which also is bordered by Congress Street and Pearl Street, is considered a part of the Rose Kennedy Greenway area that is now being studied by the BRA.

Mayor Thomas Menino pledged last year to conduct a review that will establish zoning guidelines regarding the height and density of development along the Greenway.

?If they want to put something tall on the High Street portion it would play into guidelines there,? said Shumaker. ?If they?re talking about significant height it would be reviewed by this.?

Galvin said there has been some discussion about adding office space to the building but said he?s not sure if those ideas will end up in the final design plans. He expects the design to be complete in the next 60 days.

?I?m not denying that it (the 400,000-square-foot addition) was in the RFP for the architects,? he said.

The building, which was sold by Verizon New England Inc., was constructed in 1947 and was the former headquarters of New England Telephone. Approximately 1,700 Verizon employees worked in the building at the time of the sale. As part of the sale agreement, Verizon has the right to lease back space for a certain period of time.

http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2009/02/02/daily12.html
 
Re: Verizon Building Tower

WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE SHADOWS

But seriously, this could be pretty nice, if they do it right.
 
Re: Verizon Building Tower

Just by doing a measurement of the current footprint in Google Earth, the addition should be about 6-7 floors to reach 400,000 SF... assuming they're using most of the existing building...
 
Re: Verizon Building Tower

I merged the two threads since now we have some action.
 
Re: Verizon Building Tower

I read it to mean the addition footprint would only cover the mid-rise (12 story?) portion of the property along High St, and where the HVAC equipment is if viewed from Google Earth. You could probably get about 18k sq. ft. floor plates there meaning the addition is probably 20-25 stories making the building a rather impressive 40 stories or so total above High St.
 
Re: Verizon Building Tower

Okay, but I would be against that tower because it would put shadows on the Post Office Square Park.
 
Re: Verizon Building Tower

"be" = "bet"?
 
Re: Verizon Building Tower

No shadows on the Common.. no shadows on the so-called "greenway"

The urban heart of the city is constricted from both sides, growth is effectively choked off, and Fidelity opens a 1,000 employee money management center in Rhode Island, while announcing another 1,000 layoffs in Boston.

Hurray us and our pathetic little median strip of poorly-maintained grass and pre-cast concrete "bricks".
 
Re: Verizon Building Tower

But Pelham...we now have a specially created board to oversee the "greenway". Think flowers and trees and frolicking wildlife. It'll be just like Camelot with crosswalks! I can only hope that they will have yet another dedication chock full of Kennedy Kousins.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top