115 Federal St. (Winthrop Square)

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does a construction start date in early 2008 seem really optimistic to anyone else? I'd love for that to be the case, but that seems a bit too hopeful.
 
If he's set on beginning construction in '08 hopefully that means he'll be releasing the new renderings soon so they can be reviewed by the BRA and all the other groups that are going to bitch about the building. Lets hope the solution to creating more office space isn't just simply making it fatter, ruining the elegance of the building. Hopefully they'll make it tiered or something tapering up as it gets taller.
 
The Herald said:
Garage on the skids! Critic: It crumbled ?cuz city fumbled
By Scott Van Voorhis
Boston Herald Business Reporter
Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Nearly half of a city-owned parking garage in the heart of Boston?s financial district has been condemned, raising new questions about City Hall?s oversight of a key asset.
City inspectors cordoned off the bottom two floors of the 1950s-era Winthrop Square garage after an review last week found concrete peeling away from its supports, officials said.
However, news of the garage?s crumbling condition comes on the heels of a critical report on the city?s oversight of the garage by a municipal finance watchdog group.
City officials are receiving just $76,875 a year from a garage that should be contributing anywhere from $2.5 million to $3 million a year to city coffers, the Boston Finance Commission recently reported.
The garage is in the center of the city?s business district, right across Federal Street from the old Bank of Boston tower, now home to Bank of America. It has been slated for eventual demolition to make way for Mayor Thomas M. Menino?s plan for a 1,000-foot tower that would become the centerpiece of the Hub?s skyline.
Menino?s press secretary, Dot Joyce, argued that the garage?s current woes simply reinforce the city?s decision to redevelop the property into a large tower complex. She also said the city has kept an eye on the garage?s condition, with structural tests a year ago.
In the meantime, city officials have said they plan to make changes when the garage?s lease expires this summer.
?We are not in the business of running garages,? Joyce said.
But some are questioning whether City Hall has fallen short in overseeing the garage, from its finances to basic safety.
?Certainly letting the garage disintegrate is the more serious of the problems,? said Shirley Kressell, head of the Alliance of Boston Neighborhoods. ?It?s basic stuff. What can you say??
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A good solution has been proposed: tear it down and build something amazing.

Now move on to all the other dilapidated buildings in the city and come up with a solution for those.
 
The Herald said:
Talk is cheap, but where are tower payments? Belkin hasn?t coughed up
By Scott Van Voorhis
Boston Herald Business Reporter
Wednesday, May 9, 2007

City Hall insists that Tommy?s Tower is for real.
There?s no reason at all to doubt that the mayor?s vision of a 1,000-foot tower rising above Boston?s skyline is right on schedule, I?m told.
After all, local businessman Steve Belkin has been showing off stunning renderings of what would be the city?s tallest tower, and with a park on top. He wants to start work next year, in time to open his 80-story behemoth in 2011.
But one sure way of proving it?s a serious plan would be to start showing weary city taxpayers the money.
Belkin unveiled plans for his billion-dollar tower last fall. In January, Mayor Thomas M. Menino gave his official blessing to Belkin?s proposal to replace a crumbling, city-owned parking garage with a Renzo Piano-designed tower.


So far, so good.
So the next step, one might assume, would be a check for the site, or at least a little downpayment, right?
Not exactly.
While word is the garage is worth as much as $70 million, there is no deadline yet for Belkin to make his first payment, city officials acknowledge. The property, which has been eyed for a possible sale by city officials for years, is still being assessed.
Nor is there any timeline for when Belkin?s first payment for the garage site might be made, either.
All of which sounds odd given that Belkin, the tower?s would-be developer, has been freely talking up plans to begin work next year.
But it gets stranger.
Menino?s blessing in January was supposed to have triggered a chain of payments to the city, eventually culminating with Belkin owning the garage site.
The mayor, in a press release, recommended to the Boston Redevelopment Authority that Belkin be ?tentatively designated? as the developer.
With tentative designation, Belkin was to pay 1 percent of the purchase price. Another 24 percent was to have been paid 90 days later upon formal designation.
Based on an estimated value of $70 million - that?s roughly $17 million - nothing to sneeze at as city officials scramble for a million here and a million there to put extra cops on the streets.
But a funny thing happened on the way to designation.
Four months and counting, City Hall?s development arm, not known for refusing to carry out the mayor?s marching orders, has yet to implement his recommendation.
A spokeswoman for the Boston Redevelopment Authority blamed complicated negotiations, but insisted everything is on track.
Still, when it comes to any business deal, nothing says it like cold, hard cash.

sbvanvoorhis@bostonherald.com
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Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this still have to go through a bunch of hoops before it's actually approved? I mean why would Belkin finalize (or even put a down payment on for that matter) the sale of a lot that it's not certain he can develop as he wants?

He was the only bidder on the project, he owns the adjacent lot, and with Menino backing him, the lot isn't going anywhere unless Belkin decides it is. I think it's safe to assume that the approval processes are what's holding this (and any other high rise development in the city) up; Not Belkin.
 
Hey! I have been following this thread for a while, and i finally got an account on archboston lol but ya i def want this building up, and i do like the design a lot and i agree with a lot of other ppl above me lol
nd as for it being built in the next year i agree with the person above me, it prob will not be built for like 2 yrs or longer....lol
that's boston for you...getting a project going is hard enough, and then getting it built is even harder lol
but i really hope it will be built sooon!!!!!!!!!!!
:D
 
caaaaaarrrreeful bostonboy.... careful.... the Internet police are watching. the posh Internet elitist frown upon usage of shortened words like "ur, def. lol, ya" etc. that have been popularized by text messages. :shock:

welcome to the board
 
haha thanks for having me! Glad to be here....ya sorry I will write properly, I am too used to typing on AIM lol
 
Don't' want it, don't need it
everyone is on Ritalin these days
it's sad :?
 
Lrfox said:
Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this still have to go through a bunch of hoops before it's actually approved? I mean why would Belkin finalize (or even put a down payment on for that matter) the sale of a lot that it's not certain he can develop as he wants?
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Exactly. I don't understand the article either, how can he be forced to pay for something that he doesn't know if he can develop or not? It's like Boston's Architectural Fuzzy Math.
 
Winthrop Square garage revenue will pay for BHA upgrades
Boston Business Journal - 1:44 PM EDT Friday, May 11, 2007


Mayor Thomas M. Menino will use revenue from the city-owned Winthrop Square garage to help pay for public housing facility upgrades.

Menino expects the dilapidated garage at 115 Winthrop Square which fronts on Federal Street in downtown Boston will generate $2.5 million in revenue over the next two years. The revenue will be used to repair Boston Housing Authority facilities which are in need of $500 million in capital improvements over the next five years, according to a recently released BHA report. The revenue will also fund the Boston Housing Police and create more human service programs in the communities where the facilities are located.

The garage -- which is slated to be redeveloped into Boston's tallest skyscraper-- will remain open for the next two years until it is sold to Trans National Properties. The sale of the garage property is expected to be between $70-100 million. Until the sale is completed, the city of Boston will continue to receive revenues from the garage. The Boston Redevelopment Authority issued a request for proposals for new management and a new lease agreement for the garage. The new management and lease contract is expected to by finalized by July 1.

Trans National Properties was the only developer to apply for the right to build the tallest tower in Boston. The tower, called Trans National Place after the developer Steve Belkin's company, was being designed by architect Renzo Piano until he dropped off the development team in March.



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Two years?! What happened to starting construction at the end of this year, early next year? Instead of using the $2.5 mil in revenues that the garage will generate for upgrading housing projects why don't they use a chunk of that $70-$100 million from selling the garage?
 
Haha tmac9wr you make a very good point!

so 2 years? wow that is ridiculous! TOO LONG
 
If this started in two years, I'd be more than happy considering the way things run around here. Maybe it will happen sooner, at about 650 ft. boston sucks in so many regards its not even funny. wonder if it will ever catch up with the times....
 
The Weekly Dig said:
"Taking a Bath"
Big building won?t stop making big waves

* by Paul McMorrow
* Issue 9.20
* Wed, May 16, 2007

Good news, everybody! Tom Menino?s 1,000-foot Winthrop Square tower?the one that?s going to look like a big middle finger on the skyline?isn?t a force for evil anymore! Menino and City Councilor Sam Yoon struck a deal last week that turns the city-owned Winthrop Square parcel into an instrument of the people.

There?s a decrepit garage sitting on the land now. Starting in July, the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) will take the garage?s revenue and use it to pay for the Boston Housing Authority (BHA) police force. When the BRA eventually sells the garage to make way for developer Steve Belkin?s wicked big tower, money from the land sale will go toward fixing up decrepit BHA buildings.

Menino and Yoon make for an odd pairing. But forget, for a moment, the seeming absurdity of a vocal good-government advocate cutting a hush-hush deal with the mayor and the BRA behind closed doors (the BRA being the very same agency that Yoon and his Team Unity colleagues are currently pillorying because it refuses to abide by recent agreements it has struck with the City Council.) There are far larger questions in play here.

It?s no surprise that Menino?s looking for assets to liquefy. The war in Iraq has monopolized federal budget writers? attention, and the feds have left Boston?s mayor holding the tab for a number of line items that they used to bankroll?public housing and community policing chief among them.

Along comes the Winthrop Square garage. It just so happens that with the amount of money the garage should generate, Menino could pay for the BHA?s cops for the next two years. Menino takes his oval peg, pounds away at it until it?s lodged into a circular hole, and calls it a nice fit.

Born of necessity, the arrangement is far from ideal, and certainly untenable?two years from now, we?ll be looking around Boston for something else to pawn. But it?s not like the mayor had a lot of other options.

Still, the deal came together disconcertingly quietly. And while Menino was working to identify creative revenue streams for public housing, most of the city assumed he was cooking up a way to hand the Winthrop parcel to the BRA, so the imageagency could take all that money for themselves.

Three months ago, the Boston Finance Commission (FinCom)?an agency appointed by the governor to watch over city finances?issued a scathing report, warning that the BRA was preparing to seize Winthrop Square by eminent domain, and pocketing the substantial windfall that will follow the parcel?s sale. It implied that whenever Menino sees a chance to leverage public assets to satisfy personal desires, he takes it, and Winthrop Square presented just such an opportunity.

?But for that Finance Commission report, and the city council, the BRA would already be collecting that $2.5 million a year,? says one City Hall official.

Still, as Menino works to get ground broken on the tower, things will only get tougher?and, potentially, more embarrassing.

?The city?s already at a disadvantage,? says a second City Hall official. ?The fact that, after a worldwide search, nobody else stepped up and bid probably tells you it?s a bad idea.?

This official suspects that Belkin is having trouble making his profit margins fall into place, and that when the developer begins seeking every tax break and give-back in the book in order to break ground, the city will ?wind up taking a bath to get it done.?

Indeed, most observers now take it for granted that the tower?s property tax bills will wind up being significantly lower than once promised; the larger question now is whether the BRA will wind up chopping the sale price of the parcel?and, in the process, devalue the compact between Yoon, the BRA and the BHA.

On the other hand, observers also believe Menino is likely to squeeze Belkin for every community benefit he can extract.

?Belkin has been designated as the developer by the BRA, but he hasn?t made any payments,? says Councilor Jerry McDermott. ?And you?ve got 12 council members sitting here scratching their heads, looking for money for street workers, police and basic city services.? As the requests for handouts pile up, the developer?s tab climbs, making it harder for him to work within his margins. Last week?s BHA compact will only increase these pressures, as interest groups frozen out of the deal cry out for a piece of the action.

Add to that the fact that tower plans call for a block of Devonshire Street to be seized, ripped up and converted into a park?a significant alteration of downtown traffic patterns that, when noticed at all, hasn?t sat well with the city councilors who have to approve the transaction. It could prove to be a significant sticking point.

?My focus is not on the tower; it?s on what we do with the garage when it?s not a tower, which will be for a while,? Yoon said last week.

How long will that while last? It may be a long while, indeed.
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Are you serious?
city?s already at a disadvantage,? says a second City Hall official. ?The fact that, after a worldwide search, nobody else stepped up and bid probably tells you it?s a bad idea.?
It's because developers know something proposed in Boston will take years to get approved, let alone built. God I can't stand that.
 
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