45 Bromfield Street | Downtown Crossing

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The proposed project would be constructed on an approximately 6,069 square foot site at the corner of Bromfield and Province Streets now occupied by four largely vacant and obsolete commercial buildings. The proposed project would be a 155 foot tall, approximately 97,000 gross square feet building containing approximately 3,500 square feet of retail uses on the ground floor, and residential uses on its upper 16 stories. The building will contain approximately 158 rental apartments
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45 Bromfield Street | Bostonplans.org

Development Projects and Planned Development Areas (PDAs) that the Development Review division is coordinating.
www.bostonplans.org www.bostonplans.org
 
Sounds like the site is this building plus the 3 smaller buildings to the right.

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RandomWalk said:
Alas, there goes the former Marliave.
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The restaurant was great; the building was always a dump--so I think it's more than a bit misleading (in fact manipulative) to say "there goes the Marliave" when in fact the restaurant has been closed since the pandemic. Nostalgia is a helluva drug but it should not hinder clear-eyed assessment of the structure/site and its environmental context.
 
Oh yeah, my nostalgia is for the restaurant. The building nothing special.
 
The Ladder district should be a landmark district. The current situation with long term land banking and eventual parcel consolidation with the accompanying large footprint redevelopment will not make for better long term urbanism in downtown crossing.
 
Isn't the opposite true? Instead of letting NIMBYs and all sorts of nonsense block *towers downtown* we should make them by right and possibly require facade preservation with simple clear rules? There's a reason we just saw two proposals immediately after they became by right --- in fact, we'd have the bromfield + wash tower already if it weren't for a byzantine approval process.
 
commuter guy said:
The Ladder district should be a landmark district. The current situation with long term land banking and eventual parcel consolidation with the accompanying large footprint redevelopment will not make for better long term urbanism in downtown crossing.
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For what it's worth, here's the current map of landmarked buildings in the Ladder District... "eventual parcel consolidation" makes it sound like it's a foregone conclusion, when of course it's not.

Check-out the history of new construction--stuff involving actual demolition, as opposed to the pervasive adaptive reuse/renovations--in the Ladder District since 2000:

125 Tremont Holocaust museum (under construction)
90 Tremont hotel
120 Tremont Suffolk U. law school
165 Tremont residential tower
Ritz hotel/residences/AMC theater

Of those five, only the last involved parcel consolidation, as far as I'm aware...

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One issue I have with the redevelopment is that it reduces the granularity of the blocks. Something is lost when you have a new building taking up all of a block. I would like to see limits on the percentage of a block that can be consolidated into a single building.
 
I would be less concerned if the area was redeveloped using the same footprints of existing buildings. If zoning changes enable increased density on small footprints I don't deny that it could improve the vitality of the neighborhood. I just don't want to see the ladder district lose its variation in the streetscape. You only have to look a few blocks away in the financial district to see what has happened to most of downtown Boston in regard to parcel consolidation and lack of small scale variation. Just because it hasn't happened on a large scale to the ladder district doesn't mean it can't happen.
 
Can at least the current 45 Bromfield Street remain? The other ones can probably go, but I generally do think Boston needs to hold on to older narrow buildings with small storefronts. I think it's one of the underrated amazing parts of NYC.
 
curcuas said:
The reason you need the big assemblages is the thicket of zoning rules involving setbacks, heights (relaxed), lot coverage, etc. Cut these back, you can do smaller projects easier!
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Don't know if this is the case for the new Downtown zoning, but zoning can absolutely mandate first-floor retail with maximum areas and maximum storefront widths. I believe Squares & Streets does this with XS, S, M, and L retail allowances
 
RandomWalk said:
One issue I have with the redevelopment is that it reduces the granularity of the blocks. Something is lost when you have a new building taking up all of a block. I would like to see limits on the percentage of a block that can be consolidated into a single building.
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This isn't a whole block though.
 
RandomWalk said:
One issue I have with the redevelopment is that it reduces the granularity of the blocks. Something is lost when you have a new building taking up all of a block. I would like to see limits on the percentage of a block that can be consolidated into a single building.
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Full block buildings don't have to reduce the granularity, the façade and storefronts can be broken up to resemble individual buildings, mixed sizes, etc. But market forces won't make that happen, it takes zoning regulations.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Full block buildings don't have to reduce the granularity, the façade and storefronts can be broken up to resemble individual buildings, mixed sizes, etc. But market forces won't make that happen, it takes zoning regulations.
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I'm really, really hesitant to support any new zoning restrictions, but something like this does seem like a good idea. Does Boston do any zoning like that?

I know Cambridge does somewhat, at least around the major squares. I can't quickly find the rules, but it's something like at least 70% of the street level has to be storefronts, and each storefront can't be more than 30 feet wide. I'll keep pointing out this one new building in Central Square that did a good job of it.
 
RandomWalk said:
Design regulations that mandate facade articulation lead to the “warts on a box” look. It needs to be something like a pencil tower over a small fraction of a block.
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The Metropolitan in Chinatown did a pretty good job of this. It is a full block development that does not feel like a monolythic development.

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JeffDowntown said:
The Metropolitan in Chinatown did a pretty good job of this. It is a full block development that does not feel like a monolythic development.

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Atlantic Wharf is also interesting. It has a little bit of everything, from the Greenway to the park at the Channel. Metropolitan is basically doing the same thing as an all-new build while this preserves and incorporates historic buildings with the same effect. This doubles as a Manhattan-style setback, really opening up the sky.

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