One Post Office Square Makeover and Expansion | Financial District

The One Post Office Square overhaul will feature both recladding and overcladding design techniques. Recladding involves removing a building’s existing facade and putting up a new glass exterior. Overcladding, meanwhile, involves erecting a skeletal framing system that contractors will adhere glass to, rather than taking the existing facade off the building, said Brian R. Chasson, managing partner with Anchor Line Partners.
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Anchor Line and JLL plan three levels of amenities facing Post Office Square, including a full-service restaurant on the first floor, a fast-casual dining concept on the second floor and a third-floor gymnasium with a lounge, conference and deck area. The intention is to open and activate the ground plain at a tower that fronts Post Office Square and Norman B. Leventhal Park, some of the city’s most-visited public open spaces.
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The project will also feature outdoor patio space reserved for building tenants on floors 4, 18 and 25-26, as well as a penthouse-level private club on floor 41.
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For the adjacent six-level parking garage, the plan is to develop a 300,000-square-foot, 18-story facility. The development team is still determining whether to demolish the garage and build from the ground up, or develop space atop the existing structure.
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The firms aim to begin the garage addition in the third quarter of 2018 and start the One Post Office Square facade work in the first or second quarter of 2019.
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SRC: https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/...ete-to-glass-downtown-office-tower-could.html
 
Thanks Justin.

cadetcarl said:
225 Franklin is one of my favorite buildings in town. I have no idea how it works inside but I sometimes go out of my way to walk to lunch in POSq so I can see/sketch it. Might just be me.
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Stahl's 225 Franklin is the complete opposite of 1POS. It is brimming with architectural merit & principles and is a modernist gem among Boston's towers, having been completed much earlier (1966) than other late-modern & post-modern towers that went up in Boston during the boom. It's a typical high-rise with a central core of elevators, restrooms & MEP chases and then office space around the core. Classic & functional. I've been to Perkins+Will's office in there many times.
 
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Goodbye to Tai Tung Village North. And good riddance.
 
I feel like if 1POS is reclad in glass it will look exactly like Exchange Place. Not a bad look, though.
 
From characterful to featureless in 3...2...1...

Shiny can still be ghastly.
 
I too miss the colorful former lobby...the bland and boring white marble has been overused in nearby lobbies...terrible waste of space. Apparently some kind of retail will go into the newly redesigned, redesigned lobby. I don't object to the glass per se unless it ends up being dark and smokey and we're fooled once again by renderings that reflect a clear blue sky or that show interior lighting at dusk. The biggest problem I have is in destroying the proportions of the building from various angles by "in-fill" without adding at least 15 floors to the top and doing something interesting with the facades.
 
With the exception of the cantilevers I hate everything about 1 pos. It's the worst looking tower downtown. The windows, the awful dreary brown color, the garage. I could not be happier to see it go. The glass tower will be a huge upgrade and will be a nice addition to the skyline especially when viewed from the harbor side.

I also remember that comment from ablarc years back, he's right ...

Boston skyline from the Harbor by Dominic Labbe, on Flickr
 
Mike said:
With the exception of the cantilevers I hate everything about 1 pos. It's the worst looking tower downtown.
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Its not worse than 225 Franklin (I cant believe that concrete pos has fans) or 1 Federal.

1 Federal should be redone with glass (maybe dark glass) and have floors added to make it about 625-650'ish. Then it would look nice.
 
I would never argue taste, mine or anyone else's. There's no accounting for it. To each his own.

However, I would argue the merits of biography. Forgive me if I overstate this - but a city without a biography is an empty, uninspiring place. Buildings, streets, parks, venues represent the chapters of history, the irreplaceable life story of any city. Yes, we're Boston and we have history to spare. True.

But shouldn't we take care of the blessings we have? The good with the not as good?

Okay. The change of this one building does not by itself threaten Boston's biography. That's silly. But is the trend significant?

This one building is not significant enough to warrant special concern. I agree with Ablarc on this point. It does, however, to my thinking, represent an era and a moment in time for Boston. Is it a good example? A worthwhile one? Good questions. Are these questions being asked?

I do worry that we are nibbling too aggressively in too many places at the fabric of our city. Covertly diminishing bit by bit the very character that makes our city so special.

What many commenters feel today about "boring brown towers" is likely to be the same comments in years to come to describe generic glass cubes. And then what?

Every city needs to evolve and change. Stasis means dying. I for one, like many here, are grateful for the building boom we have enjoyed this past decade. I, like you, thrill at buildings going up, especially worthwhile ones.

Is this my favorite building? Hardly. Not close. But I worry what this change may represent.
 
Idk we do have plenty of different era pieces around the city, with this probably being the worst. If its not a trend I dont think this 1 building will do much harm to the history of the skyline.
 
stick n move said:
Idk we do have plenty of different era pieces around the city, with this probably being the worst. If its not a trend I dont think this 1 building will do much harm to the history of the skyline.
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Also, many buildings built in recent decades have design lives of facade materials that require outright replacement at some point. I am not sure if 1 POS is one of those, but others (Copley Place Towers, The Pru) are going to need new skins sooner rather than later.

These building were never designed to "last forever" as a "biography" of the city.
 
Meh. They want to get higher rents so they're recladding. Glad to hear the lobby will get some activity, especially since it's right next door to the hotel.

It's been nice to see these older buildings in the neighborhood getting refreshed by the big corporate developers over the past decade.
 
How long does cladding usually last before it needs replacing? (i.e. How long until the Pru would need it given it was built in 1964? We're on year 53.)
 
cjbski said:
How long does cladding usually last before it needs replacing? (i.e. How long until the Pru would need it given it was built in 1964? We're on year 53.)
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My understanding is that it varies with the cladding system.

I would expect that the Pru is coming up to (or is even over) design life of the glass fiber reinforced composite panels secured with aluminum channels.

I remember when Copley Place was built, there were "shocked" discussions in the media about the cladding only having a 30-40 year design life (also coming due).
 
One would have to think the Suffolk Court tower leads the way an alarming loss of the integrity of its cladding.... then the Sheraton for looking so bad.

i'm shocked that people don't like the cladding of 1 Boston place.

from a wide range of distances it looks very good, imo.
 
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