11-21 Bromfield Street | DTX | Downtown

[bigpicture7]

From the Globe: Back to the drawing board for proposed Downtown Crossing tower

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...ng-revision/LxMS6ovf7ZFnfbtSIv3cFI/story.html

Of the many things about this proposal that might cause legitimate strain on neighbors, the overall height should not be considered one of them at this location. Yes: improve ground level facade. Yes: fix the driveway issue. But height cannot be allowed as a legitimate gripe in DTX, across the street from a 60-story tower in the heart of the city.

 

[Honshu162]

Of the many things about this proposal that might cause legitimate strain on neighbors, the overall height should not be considered one of them at this location. Yes: improve ground level facade. Yes: fix the driveway issue. But height cannot be allowed as a legitimate gripe in DTX, across the street from a 60-story tower in the heart of the city.

That entire street is old and sad. Tell these people to go pound sand and build something smart for once.

 

[statler]

That entire street is old and sad. Tell these people to go pound sand and build something smart for once.

Both the North End and the West End were 'old and sad' at one point too. Which neighborhood ended up with the better solution to that problem?

 

[Equilibria]

Of the many things about this proposal that might cause legitimate strain on neighbors, the overall height should not be considered one of them at this location. Yes: improve ground level facade. Yes: fix the driveway issue. But height cannot be allowed as a legitimate gripe in DTX, across the street from a 60-story tower in the heart of the city.

The BRA talked up their cooperation with this developer before the 705' proposal was made. If they're telling them to reconsider the height now, that's running away from the NIMBYs with their tail between their legs. I have no problems with telling them to redesign the ground level, though.

What good will it do, anyway? The whiners in this case are complaining about lost views and they live in 45 Province, a building that's significantly shorter than One Bromfield would be. How short does One Bromfield need to satisfy them? Even the same height wouldn't do it.

 

[datadyne007]

Of the many things about this proposal that might cause legitimate strain on neighbors, the overall height should not be considered one of them at this location. Yes: improve ground level facade. Yes: fix the driveway issue. But height cannot be allowed as a legitimate gripe in DTX, across the street from a 60-story tower in the heart of the city.

Agreed. A significant height change should be off the table, but the base needs major fixing. I actually spoke to AS+GG at the BCDC meeting trying to give them suggestions to explore at the base to win neighbor approval by activating Bromfield, but they weren't interested. Sorry, but this isn't Chicago. This is Boston.

That entire street is old and sad. Tell these people to go pound sand and build something smart for once.

That soul-sucking black hole of a porte cochere in the base on Bromfield is anything but "something smart." You really think that would fix Bromfield?

 

[type001]

I am glad that this is going back to the drawing board. I would really like to see a simpler and more elegant design. These are all valid concerns expressed.

For the height enthusiasts, the likely outcome is that this will end up 50-100 shorter... still a tall building with virtually the same skyline impact. This was never meant to be the focal point of downtown.

Nothing is more important the restoring the DTX vibe without destroying it. The right building with new residents will make that happen... not what was currently proposed.

 

[Equilibria]

I am glad that this is going back to the drawing board. I would really like to see a simpler and more elegant design. These are all valid concerns expressed.

For the height enthusiasts, the likely outcome is that this will end up 50-100 shorter... still a tall building with virtually the same skyline impact. This was never meant to be the focal point of downtown.

I'm not a height enthusiast - there's just no reason to reduce the height here. It would resolve any neighbor concerns, nor does it have anything to do with the Porte Cochere or the podium in any way. The exact same tower could be placed on a preserved Payless building, as demonstrated by several AB users.

I get that this tower is not your taste, but a "simpler, more elegant design" is not a "valid concern expressed." No one expressed that concern but you, and it isn't valid, it's your personal opinion. The neighbors concerns were for their views and their privacy, not for the sculptural form of the tower.

If it were up to me, we'd have sent Millennium Tower back to the drawing board as well. I still don't love it from many angles, but I'm happy it's there and at the height proposed.

 

[Mongo]

The BRA talked up their cooperation with this developer before the 705' proposal was made. If they're telling them to reconsider the height now, that's running away from the NIMBYs with their tail between their legs. I have no problems with telling them to redesign the ground level, though.

What good will it do, anyway? The whiners in this case are complaining about lost views and they live in 45 Province, a building that's significantly shorter than One Bromfield would be. How short does One Bromfield need to satisfy them? Even the same height wouldn't do it.

45 Province residents were complaining about lost views with the previously approved proposal that was half this height.

 

[DZH22]

For the height enthusiasts, the likely outcome is that this will end up 50-100 shorter... still a tall building with virtually the same skyline impact. This was never meant to be the focal point of downtown.

Would MT have had the same skyline impact if it was the same height as the plateau towers? (1 International, 1 Financial, The Fed, Mellon Bank, Pregnant Building) If it loses 50-100', it will no longer stand out from the crowd right below it. So no, it will not have "virtually the same" skyline impact. Not even close.

The base should be improved, but the tower design was awesome and the height was appropriate.

 

[JumboBuc]

For the height enthusiasts, the likely outcome is that this will end up 50-100 shorter... still a tall building with virtually the same skyline impact. This was never meant to be the focal point of downtown.

Agree 100%. As long as this building stands more prominently than Millennium Tower it will not be approved. Millennium and Winthrop Garage have the prominent marquee locations that call for focal point towers. One Bromfield--with its narrow streets and current cluster of older, smaller buildings--calls for something more "infill", in a sense.

There is a always natural pecking order when it comes to developable parcels in a neighborhood, and Millennium gets to pull rank here over One Bromfield. It's the same dynamic as how Hub on Causeway gets more latitude with the powers-that-be than Avalon North Station or Equity's Garden Garage project. This might not be fair, but Midwood needs to accept it.

I'm not saying that this should be chopped down to 300 feet, only that it shouldn't try to be the show-stopper in the neighborhood. Scale it down a bit so that it's smaller than Millennium, fix the car access points, and (hopefully) preserve and integrate the Payless façade. Then approve and build it.

 

[type001]

Agree 100%. As long as this building stands more prominently than Millennium Tower it will not be approved. Millennium and Winthrop Garage have the prominent marquee locations that call for focal point towers. One Bromfield--with its narrow streets and current cluster of older, smaller buildings--calls for something more "infill", in a sense.

There is a always natural pecking order when it comes to developable parcels in a neighborhood, and Millennium gets to pull rank here over One Bromfield. It's the same dynamic as how Hub on Causeway gets more latitude with the powers-that-be than Avalon North Station or Equity's Garden Garage project. This might not be fair, but Midwood needs to accept it.

I'm not saying that this should be chopped down to 300 feet, only that it shouldn't try to be the show-stopper in the neighborhood. Scale it down a bit so that it's smaller than Millennium, fix the car access points, and (hopefully) preserve and integrate the Payless façade. Then approve and build it.

Nailed it.

 

[Equilibria]

I'm not saying that this should be chopped down to 300 feet, only that it shouldn't try to be the show-stopper in the neighborhood. Scale it down a bit so that it's smaller than Millennium, fix the car access points, and (hopefully) preserve and integrate the Payless façade. Then approve and build it.

BS. This site is 50 linear feet from Millennium Tower, and MT has no sanctity to it. It could have been 800' itself, and then it would have been king of Downtown forever. Millennium chose not to do that, so it will be surpassed.

MT itself is not a showstopper. It's a ripoff of the Hancock Tower that's too wide and awkward to be an icon, and its windows open, which ruins the facade from up close. It's a fine luxury condo building, but it absolutely doesn't deserve to have the whole skyline built to service it.

 

[type001]

I get that this tower is not your taste, but a "simpler, more elegant design" is not a "valid concern expressed." No one expressed that concern but you, and it isn't valid, it's your personal opinion. The neighbors concerns were for their views and their privacy, not for the sculptural form of the tower.

I should have been clearer and started a new paragraph. The valid concerns relate to those spoke out against it, not mine about the initial proposal. I share the same view that you have on 1 Franklin... 1 Bromfield had been built on initial spec, great.

I think some of you have to go back and reread the article more carefully, specifically the middle 2 paragraphs.

At that height, it would be one of the tallest buildings in Boston. But critics has raised concerns about its impact on traffic circulation on narrow Bromfield and Province Streets, about its large driveway breaking up Bromfield Street and about the sheer scale of the project. In an e-mail Thursday to people who have commented on the project, BRA staff said those concerns led the agency to ask for changes.

“We have asked [Midwood] to focus on the points brought up by community members including, but not limited to, height, transportation, operational logistics and street scape,” wrote BRA senior project manager Chris Tracy, in an email obtained by the Globe. “Once the proponent has made revisions, they will come back to show BRA staff,” and the agency will re-start the public review process.

The concerns are traffic, the ramp, and scale (note - not height specifically), and the BRA never said that the height had to come down, just that the reconsiderations are not limited to it. The Globe made the inference about the height.

Lastly, Midwood is not a team of idiots, and they know how this process goes... and please, it's not strictly a Boston thing. They never intended to build a building that big anyway. I find it amusing that some of you actually thought this would ever get approved the way it was and are any bit surprised.

Would MT have had the same skyline impact if it was the same height as the plateau towers? (1 International, 1 Financial, The Fed, Mellon Bank, Pregnant Building) If it loses 50-100', it will no longer stand out from the crowd right below it. So no, it will not have "virtually the same" skyline impact. Not even close.

Except that it's on the very edge of downtown and will be the first building you see from the common, garden, most of the back by, and Framingham even if it's 450 feet tall. And MT is already topped out pushing 700 feet so your plateau is no more. 2 crisis's averted for you.

 

[Equilibria]

Lastly, Midwood is not a team of idiots, and they know how this process goes... and please, it's not strictly a Boston thing. They never intended to build a building that big anyway. I find it amusing that some of you actually thought this would ever get approved the way it was and are any bit surprised.

The point is that the process SHOULDN'T work that way, and the BRA is trying very hard to give developers the impression that the game had changed. Now, they need to prove that words like "iconic" aren't just buzzwords (which they are when they're used for every site), but a legitimate commitment to no longer take their pound of flesh from every project.

Height in Boston should be set by right in the zoning code, and that height should be 730' in DTX. All of it. A design review should assess tall buildings, but for design, not for height.

And yes, we're focusing on the height, because that was the only part that legitimately surprised me. The BRA and the developer had promoted their collaboration on choosing 705' for this tower, so I was naive and believed that the BRA had some integrity. Silly me.

 

[JumboBuc]

BS. This site is 50 linear feet from Millennium Tower, and MT has no sanctity to it. It could have been 800' itself, and then it would have been king of Downtown forever. Millennium chose not to do that, so it will be surpassed.

MT itself is not a showstopper. It's a ripoff of the Hancock Tower that's too wide and awkward to be an icon, and its windows open, which ruins the facade from up close. It's a fine luxury condo building, but it absolutely doesn't deserve to have the whole skyline built to service it.

Linear feet doesn't mean much in a dense and labyrinthine downtown, but if you really want to measure it's more like 150 ft at the buildings' closest points and 350 ft core-to-core.

There is no way any unbiased observer could look at these two sites and think they are of equivalent prominence. Millennium Tower has better street frontage, better auto access points, better abutters, better siting relative to the T, a much larger parcel, and its own pedestrian plaza.

Millennium didn't design their tower in a vacuum, they had to deal with the same regulatory framework that Midwood does. The massing that we have now is a product of that. You can't just assume this all away now that someone else is before the neighborhood meetings and approval boards. So, no, Millennium Tower has no "sanctity" to it, but there's no way in the real world that a clearly inferior parcel (as One Bromfield is) will be granted more development rights than the prime location kitty-corner from it. And even if we did have clear, reasonable, across-the-board guidelines for zoning and less of an ad hoc approval basis, we'd still end up with a much more significant tower at MT's location due to how FAR would apply to its significantly larger parcel (approx. 32k sf vs 24k sf).

 

[timsox6]

There is a always natural pecking order when it comes to developable parcels in a neighborhood, and Millennium gets to pull rank here over One Bromfield.

Why? I understand the pecking order logic for Winthrop Square > One Bromfield, but I don't see it for One Franklin vs. One Bromfield. They're in very similar locations, proposed at very similar heights, and will be considered, in the future, as having been built at about the same time. I see no reason for Midwood to "have to accept" their fate of building an infill tower when their circumstances are so similar to Millennium Partners.

 

[bigpicture7]

Why? I understand the pecking order logic for Winthrop Square > One Bromfield, but I don't see it for One Franklin vs. One Bromfield. They're in very similar locations, proposed at very similar heights, and will be considered, in the future, as having been built at about the same time. I see no reason for Midwood to "have to accept" their fate of building an infill tower when their circumstances are so similar to Millennium Partners.

Agreed, they are on either side of Washington St. at the heart of downtown.

The city needs to decide how it wants DTX zoned.

 

[odurandina]

For the height enthusiasts, the likely outcome is that this will end up 50-100 shorter... still a tall building with virtually the same skyline impact. This was never meant to be the focal point of downtown.

i respectfully disagree. 1 Bromfield should be 735-780' and YES, WE DO need 5 or 6 700' towers in this part of the city to break up the *brown boxes like McCormack, 1 Boston Place, Beacon, and Preggo tower.

111 Fed should be 825'.

Ditch the cars at 1 Bromfield. Save Payless if you must.

Rich millionaire nimby should move to Nashua and join the commuter week.





*see, how nice it is that i didn't call them by a proper term such as brown horse manure.

 

[Equilibria]

There is no way any unbiased observer could look at these two sites and think they are of equivalent prominence. Millennium Tower has better street frontage, better auto access points, better abutters, better siting relative to the T, a much larger parcel, and its own pedestrian plaza.

Millennium Tower fronts two of the same streets as One Bromfield. It's auto access is only better if you accept Hawley St. as an alley for cars and trucks (which it wasn't before MT tore down the facade on that corner - funny how everyone forgets that it did that). MT only has a plaza (actually, a woonerf since it has cars on it) because they tore down a historic building and replaced it with a void. T access is a silly argument, since MT doesn't have direct access into the station, the Burnham Building does.

Millennium didn't design their tower in a vacuum, they had to deal with the same regulatory framework that Midwood does. The massing that we have now is a product of that.

That's not how I recall it. The City (and AB) was so grateful that Millennium was proposing something tall on the pit that they basically approved the first render without alteration. I don't believe a single thing changed from the first picture I saw of MT to what's standing today.

 

[JumboBuc]

Why? I understand the pecking order logic for Winthrop Square > One Bromfield, but I don't see it for One Franklin vs. One Bromfield. They're in very similar locations, proposed at very similar heights, and will be considered, in the future, as having been built at about the same time. I see no reason for Midwood to "have to accept" their fate of building an infill tower when their circumstances are so similar to Millennium Partners.

From my last post:

Millennium Tower has better street frontage, better auto access points, better abutters, better siting relative to the T, a much larger parcel, and its own pedestrian plaza.

Even if you assume that their frontages on Washington are equivalent (although I'd argue that Millennium has the better Washington frontage) Franklin is better frontage than Bromfield and Hawley is better frontage (for access) than Province Ct (which is practically just a little driveway). Plus MT has a 33% bigger parcel, is integrated with the (amazing) Burnham in a way One Bromfield can't be integrated with its neighbors, and has its own pedestrian plaza with T headhouse.

I'm honestly surprised I'm getting pushback on this. Take a walk around the neighborhood and pay attention to the details of the parcels and I think it's pretty obvious. If you were given the option of purchasing either parcel at the same price, which one would you buy?