Hurley Building Redevelopment | 19 Staniford St | West End

I'm in favor of its adaptive reuse, ideally with a plan that goes tall and reconnects the street grid in some way. Will we give this to a team talented enough to pull it off? I'm skeptical.
 
type001 said:
Does one person on this forum agree with this at all? Because if this claim has ANY truth to it, the proof is here.
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vanshnookenraggen said:
I stopped trying to convince people that "ugly" buildings are worth saving because most people can't get past the cover of a book. The discourse about architecture on this forum stopped a generation ago and now all people care about is how tall a new tower is. Architecture, everywhere, is dead. I can live with that (I'm ready for a rebirth). But what I can't live with is the blanket rejection of something.

Many of the historic buildings that are sacred in Boston have had many lives and been altered. That's a GOOD thing. It means that they have earned their place in history and are worth celebrating. So when I hear people talk about wanting to tear down any of these Brutalist buildings, I hear the same voices from 60 years ago who were calling for the wholesale demolition of everything they deemed ugly. Boston is unique in having a high concentration of literally the best examples of this era in the world. How are we not celebrating this?

Sure, these buildings are far from perfect. But that is a design challenge. This proposal has the basic ideas right, but the execution is terrible. This is a building that needs someone who understands its inner beauty to bring it out.
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^ I really dont get the impression that most people here only care about how tall a building is. Some do, but then you get a chorus of people who always bash them for it.

Me personally if I could pick anything I wanted Id rather have the site broken up into very small streets and have it made up of low rise brick buildings that tie bulfinch triangle back to beacon hill. Preferably rebuilding the original streets that were there before as someone else shared above. If 1 or 2 towers need to be added in order to make it work financially thatd be fine, as long as they were set back and the ground level was consistent with the rest of the neighborhood. Also making them brick or terra cotta or something would be much more preferable to glass.

-Also as far as brutalism I personally have no problem with the style as a whole and dont want every brutalist building torn down. Ive posted before examples of brutalist buildings in Boston that I absolutely love. In this specific example of the hurley building, I would like to see this building torn down and redeveloped. The scale is just not appropriate for the area and chopping it up and trying to fix it will just create a Frankenstein building. Hating this example of a terrible and inappropriate brutalist building does not equal a blanket condemnation of all brutalist buildings.


Examples of brutalist buildings in boston I love:

Obryant school
1751916120702.png

1751916140008.png


Prudential tower
1751916280061.jpeg


Massachusetts general life building
img_9874.jpg


Brookline town hall
ghows-WL-71680582-c483-45c7-a0b3-c0dab46a848b-b329d0ed.jpeg


133 federal st
1751916886961.jpeg


Federal reserve
1751917273019.jpeg


Center plaza
1751917568692.jpeg


Hayden memorial library MIT
1751918172336.jpeg


And Ill probably get hate for this, but I like the harbor towers. Its like if you went in a lab and designed the perfect background buildings for your skyline imo.
1751917358125.jpeg
 
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How about ugly buildings that take up huge swaths of prime land? Why are some of you ignoring that it’s not so much the ugliness that’s the issue but how much of a street killer this thing is for multiple blocks in 3 directions.
 
And just a reminder that there is already an embarrassing POS right down the street where supposedly important people work in.

Brutalist history? Let’s celebrate it in pictures.
 
They clearly didn't learn a damn thing from the last round of proposals if they are still requiring the buildings be preserved. I predict this round of RFP's will also fail and they will finally figure out the 3rd time they when they request proposals that includes demolition of the existing buildings. In other words, don't expect construction to start here before 2030, and for it to be done before 2035.
 
At the time of Van's original comment, there were plenty of comments regarding how tall the redevelopment should be (myself included). Following the recent article Wednesday, 2 more calls for more height, and 5 calls for complete demo.

If this "thing" is really killing the street, we can't foresee any way to fix that, other than tearing it all down? The BPL’s Johnson Building is a pretty solid precedent for doing this right. It surely wasn't a street-facing gem in its original form, but it was thoughtfully redone without razing history. Libraries aren’t even meant to engage the street as directly as retail or restaurants, yet the renovation created a much more porous, activated frontage. I can easily see a similar treatment here, but with retail, restaurants, and public spaces.

And yes, the street grid needs to be broken up, but there's many ways to do that in a creative and respectful approach that engages with the existing building.

The idea that there's no opportunity to do something interesting here just doesn't hold water:
1751918026958.png

And the fact that we have to argue this on an architecture forum is kind of surprising.

Honestly, my core argument is still that the State is managing this poorly, and to be fair, DCAMM is probably boxed in. Multiple departments and agencies likely all have their own demands layered onto this site. Instead of piecemealing requirements and narrowing the field before developers even get to the table, they should open up the entire parcel and let the team propose the best way to use it within a clear set of urban design guardrails (unfortunately the last study done establishing those guardrails was poorly executed, in my opinion. Again, I suspect various demands led to an easy and careful response rather than a thoughtful one).

Ideally, that means something like:
  • A porous podium or base at Staniford and Merrimac (a la South Station Tower), responding to the stepped and open geometry of the Lindemann
  • A clean, slender tower rising above (can respond well to the new One Congress tower)
  • A break in the Hurley along Staniford to push a pedestrian-heavy street through the block, connecting up to New Chardon
  • New buildings flanking that new spine, creating an actual urban experience with scale, texture, and flow
Van sketched out a version of this a while back, and it still holds up. This approach allows for height, density, and activity, but does it in a way that respects what’s already on the site without locking us into a preservationist freeze or a wipe-it-all-down free-for-all.

The State keeps saying they want housing, activation, and character, but they’ve boxed themselves into a framework that makes all three harder to deliver. Developers and architects (good ones) don't lack good ideas, but they can't pursue them here. We’re probably heading toward another round of RFP responses like the last one, except labs aren’t getting built right now and housing rarely pencils, and the State’s just piling on more conditions without offering any incentives or taking on any risk. They can put up land all they want, but unless they shift something financially, I don’t see anyone seriously biting for something that's worth it. It's just poor timing.

And while I think the State's not doing its part, I also don’t see how scraping this block down to dirt gets us anything better. What’s the endgame there? A Chase Bank and a sterile, optimally engineered fast casual restaurant with fake wood, bad acoustics, and $20 salads? It’s the same formula people already complain about in the Seaport: oversized, over-polished, and underwhelming, and I fail to see what makes us think this would be any different.

I don't see the path forward being binary - I still haven't seen an argument that convinces me full-scale demo is the path forward. There’s opportunity here to layer in something new while keeping a piece of the city’s character intact. That feels more meaningful than another photo series about a building we gave up on.
 
Regarding the desire for the height increase, 600 feet != height fetish. It’s a very reasonable height to allow the developers to make some profit and to be consistent with what’s nearby.
 
stefal said:
I still haven't seen an argument that convinces me full-scale demo is the path forward. There’s opportunity here to layer in something new while keeping a piece of the city’s character intact. That feels more meaningful than another photo series about a building we gave up on.
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The basic problem with keeping the Hurley Building is that it occupies most of the entire superblock, making it impossible to establish a network of small blocks and small streets.
 
Saving the extant buildings also ignore that so doing will cost a fortune that the Commonwealth is not paying for....
 
stefal said:
At the time of Van's original comment, there were plenty of comments regarding how tall the redevelopment should be (myself included). Following the recent article Wednesday, 2 more calls for more height, and 5 calls for complete demo.

If this "thing" is really killing the street, we can't foresee any way to fix that, other than tearing it all down? The BPL’s Johnson Building is a pretty solid precedent for doing this right. It surely wasn't a street-facing gem in its original form, but it was thoughtfully redone without razing history. Libraries aren’t even meant to engage the street as directly as retail or restaurants, yet the renovation created a much more porous, activated frontage. I can easily see a similar treatment here, but with retail, restaurants, and public spaces.

And yes, the street grid needs to be broken up, but there's many ways to do that in a creative and respectful approach that engages with the existing building.

The idea that there's no opportunity to do something interesting here just doesn't hold water:
View attachment 64647
And the fact that we have to argue this on an architecture forum is kind of surprising.

Honestly, my core argument is still that the State is managing this poorly, and to be fair, DCAMM is probably boxed in. Multiple departments and agencies likely all have their own demands layered onto this site. Instead of piecemealing requirements and narrowing the field before developers even get to the table, they should open up the entire parcel and let the team propose the best way to use it within a clear set of urban design guardrails (unfortunately the last study done establishing those guardrails was poorly executed, in my opinion. Again, I suspect various demands led to an easy and careful response rather than a thoughtful one).

Ideally, that means something like:
  • A porous podium or base at Staniford and Merrimac (a la South Station Tower), responding to the stepped and open geometry of the Lindemann
  • A clean, slender tower rising above (can respond well to the new One Congress tower)
  • A break in the Hurley along Staniford to push a pedestrian-heavy street through the block, connecting up to New Chardon
  • New buildings flanking that new spine, creating an actual urban experience with scale, texture, and flow
Van sketched out a version of this a while back, and it still holds up. This approach allows for height, density, and activity, but does it in a way that respects what’s already on the site without locking us into a preservationist freeze or a wipe-it-all-down free-for-all.

The State keeps saying they want housing, activation, and character, but they’ve boxed themselves into a framework that makes all three harder to deliver. Developers and architects (good ones) don't lack good ideas, but they can't pursue them here. We’re probably heading toward another round of RFP responses like the last one, except labs aren’t getting built right now and housing rarely pencils, and the State’s just piling on more conditions without offering any incentives or taking on any risk. They can put up land all they want, but unless they shift something financially, I don’t see anyone seriously biting for something that's worth it. It's just poor timing.

And while I think the State's not doing its part, I also don’t see how scraping this block down to dirt gets us anything better. What’s the endgame there? A Chase Bank and a sterile, optimally engineered fast casual restaurant with fake wood, bad acoustics, and $20 salads? It’s the same formula people already complain about in the Seaport: oversized, over-polished, and underwhelming, and I fail to see what makes us think this would be any different.

I don't see the path forward being binary - I still haven't seen an argument that convinces me full-scale demo is the path forward. There’s opportunity here to layer in something new while keeping a piece of the city’s character intact. That feels more meaningful than another photo series about a building we gave up on.
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-Ill give it a shot:

The bpl johnson wing fits into the existing street grid and its scale matches bpl central next door one for one. Each building takes up 50% of the city block. When you go along boylston its scale/size matches many other buildings along the street. Fairmont copley plaza diagonally up and to the right of it is just about the exact same size, and it takes up 50% of its block with the hancock. It doesnt have to combine any extra city blocks to make it fit, it fits perfectly onto half of a back bay city block.
IMG_3066.jpeg


The hurley building on the other hand is probably the size of 5 combined city blocks in its immediate area. It has beacon hill on one side, the bulfinch triangle on the other side, and bowdoin square on the third which are all made up of similarly sized blocks and small buildings on tight streets. Yes you have the west end on the 4th side with much larger sized city blocks but even then the buildings themselves are much much smaller than the hurley with average sized footprints. Then in the middle of all of this wonderful human scaled urbanism you have an absolutely enormous superblock with concrete fortress walls, no ground floor activation, and a parking lot at its corner.
IMG_3067.jpeg
 
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stick n move said:
Examples of brutalist buildings in boston I love:

Obryant school
View attachment 64635
View attachment 64636

Prudential tower
View attachment 64637

Massachusetts general life building
img_9874.jpg


Brookline town hall
ghows-WL-71680582-c483-45c7-a0b3-c0dab46a848b-b329d0ed.jpeg


133 federal st
View attachment 64640

Federal reserve
View attachment 64644

Center plaza
View attachment 64646

Hayden memorial library MIT
View attachment 64648

And Ill probably get hate for this, but I like the harbor towers. Its like if you went in a lab and designed the perfect background buildings for your skyline imo.
View attachment 64645
Click to expand...


Most of these are literally worse than the Hurley Building.

Charlie_mta said:
The basic problem with keeping the Hurley Building is that it occupies most of the entire superblock, making it impossible to establish a network of small blocks and small streets.
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Why is this an issue? What is it about the West End that would be improved by opening up this super-block?

And I'm not even arguing that it shouldn't. What I mean is that so many people here seem to think that breaking this into smaller blocks will somehow create a new, vibrant neighborhood. In reality, it will create a far less interesting section of boring boxes, with overpriced coffee shops that no one will go to.

I still stand by that far too many people here fetishize height over urban vitality. This complex is not perfect, but I guarantee that ripping it down and redeveloping it will replace it with something far more bland and banal that no one will be proud of.
 
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