115 Federal St. (Winthrop Square)

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The Winthrop Tower would make a nice counterpoint to the Winthrop Building, which was Boston's first steel frame skyscraper (a term used advisedly, given the height of the building) when it was built in 1893.
 
Wow I live in Pompano Beach which is about 35 miles north of miami and I just opened my local newspaper and they have whole page on this tower and a picture, i think its an associated press article but its still cool that beantown's tower is taking up a whole page of a newspaper all the way down here.
 
cityrecord said:
The Winthrop Tower would make a nice counterpoint to the Winthrop Building, which was Boston's first steel frame skyscraper (a term used advisedly, given the height of the building) when it was built in 1893.
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Best name I've heard yet.

Plus: Governor Winthrop and all that Bay State history.
 
I like Winthrop Tower, but try to find someone who will pay a few million to name it that.

That's why it'll probably be Trans-National.
 
I just got back from the BRA. They had a sort of skeleton crew on today - almost all the offices were empty. I went to the "viewing room," but there was no binder for 115 Winthrop Square. But when I asked about the project, they gave me the proposal to look at (again, no copies of photos allowed). There were two books: an over-sized one with lots of large renderings and generalizes ideas, and a smaller one with specific details. There were a bunch of renderings showing how the building would appear in the skyline from different points of view. In my opinion, the rendering we've all see shows the tower at its best. It's perfectly square, and the sides are all identical, except for the addition of the spire, which runs up the south side of the tower. The building is aligned so that the eastern side of the square is parallel to Federal Street. In fact, its address is 111 Federal. The portion of Devonshire Street next to the site has been closed off, combining the Winthrop Square park with this "town green" which stretches underneath the tower to Federal Street.

There's a construction time-line that shows the actual vertical construction as starting in early 2009 and finishing in September of 2011. But they allotted a bunch of time for the "selection process," so maybe it could start sooner, since there is no competition.

There's no residential element, and they explain why they don't think its economically feasible. However, they mention that some of the lower floors could be converted to residential if necessary.

I went over to the model room, too. If anyone has never seen this, it's a large room with a scale model of all of downtown Boston on a big table. All the buildings are there, made out of wood, plus they have models of proposed buildings too. If you recall, in the RFP, one of the requirements was that developers submit a wooden scale model of their building. Sure enough, there is was. The room was locked, and the lights were turned off. I asked the guy in the next room if I could go in and he said that it was closed, because it contained "sensitive information." I really wish I could have gotten in and taken a few photographs. The building simply towers over everything else, and is a really effective focal point for all the buildings around it. I could also see the model of the latest version of the SST, which looked pretty bad (it is wide as hell, and only looks good from one angle - from Dewey square). The SST is going to look really ugly from the harbor.

Anyway, I'm going to call and ask about the map room, but I won't have a chance to down there again until Christmas break. If someone can get in there and take a few photos...
 
Is the BRA open to the public or do you need to have some form of permission to go in and view the new buildings? That's really sweet that you got to see all the different renderings of the building, it's a shame you weren't allowed to take photos of the renderings. If the BRA is open for everyone, where is it? That is definitely a place I would be interested in venturing to when I get back for Christmas vacation.
 
It's open to the public. For some reason, though, they're being really secretive about this project. It's located on the 9th (top) floor of city hall.
 
Hell, I'm heading over when I get back from Thanksgiving break. Maybe I can sneak a few pictures out with my cell cam.
 
sort of related

Building Next to Planned Megatower to Sell for $250M

Transwestern to spend $300 per square foot for 75-101 Federal St.



Boston Business Journal - November 24, 2006
by Michelle Hillman - Journal staff

Transwestern Investment Co. LLC will spend $300 per square foot to acquire 75-101 Federal St. -- the building next to the site where Mayor Thomas Menino has proposed building an 80-story tower -- from Equity Office Properties Trust.

Transwestern is said to be near closing on its acquisition of the 815,000-square-foot office complex located in the Financial District for about $250 million. Real estate executives familiar with the deal said the building sale should close by the end of the year.

"I can't comment on that," said Kevin Hites, a senior vice president in Transwestern's Chicago headquarters. Hites said the company prohibits him from discussing "deals in play that we don't already own."

Transwestern owns one other office building in downtown Boston, 40 Broad St., which it purchased in February from Prudential Real Estate Investors for approximately $50 million.

Real estate sources said Transwestern was selected as the buyer for the two-building office property located next to a dilapidated city-owned garage that the city has proposed demolishing and replacing with a 1,000-foot-tall office tower.

Though 75-101 Federal shares an alley with the garage at 115 Federal St., it is unclear what role, if any, the new owners could play in the planning of the new tower. The 75-101 Federal property comprises a 31-story, 561,000-square-foot Class A office building at 101 Federal and a connected, 21-story, 250,000-square-foot Class B office building at 75 Federal.

Marketed for sale by Cushman & Wakefield of Massachusetts Inc., 75-101 Federal attracted attention from buyers who are looking to take advantage of an improving market for Class B office space where, as in the Class A market, rents have been steadily improving, said Marci Griffith Loeber, whose was hired to sell the property by Equity Office Properties Trust.

"We had significant amount of interest," said Loeber, who added that the second round of bids which left about 10 potential buyers standing.

Transwestern's impending purchase of the tower from Equity Office (NYSE: EOP) comes as Equity has reached an agreement to be bought by private equity firm Blackstone Real Estate Partners for $36 billion. It's unclear if this merger would affect the tower sale.

Transwestern's Hites would not comment on 75-101 Federal but said his firm will continue to acquire property in Boston as part of a $800 million equity fund raised two years ago. The fund gives Transwestern about $3 billion in buying power, said Hites.

In addition to 40 Broad St., which Transwestern acquired with funds from the Aslan Realty Partners III LLC fund, the investment firm owns two other assets in the suburbs.

Michelle Hillman can be reached at mhillman@bizjournals.com.
 
Doesn't Belkin own this building or am I confusing it with another building.
 
Hmmmm.....

DW.jpg
 
Oh, to answer your question, Belkin owns 133 Federal which is where I work. We are relocating next year, possibly to 1 Financial.
 
type001 said:
Hmmmm.....

DW.jpg
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Hmmmmm.....not a bad idea, t1. You could take it one step further...
115W-rend1_mod1.jpg


Two steps further...
115W-rend1_mod2.jpg


Even three steps further, though that's one step too far.
115W-rend1_mod3.jpg
 
Agent 007-kz infiltrated the Ministry of Menino bunker and escaped with classified documents. This is highly sensitive so please DO NOT REPOST THESE ON OTHER SITES!! Consequences for being caught are unknown, and it's best they stay that way.

This information will self destruct if and when the bulletin board crashes.

bra5zw9.jpg






Roof zen garden and restaurant section, plus a nifty skyline silhouette



hot!





OK, now that that's out of the way, I come back to you all with a much more favorable opinion on this project than before. Although the boxiness still leaves plenty to be desired, the details more than make up for it. There's about an acre's worth of public space on the ground floor, and, like shiz already said, Devonshire Street is demapped in front of the building (it will now lead underground to the parking garage and loading docks), creating one big continuous open space with Winthrop Square. Given the security concerns, just how open the indoor space will be remains to be seen, but on paper it looks great. There will be some smaller retail areas off to the side of the open space, along with what looked to be one entire floor's worth in the level just below ground. Overall retail space is supposed to be around 40k square feet.

The tower's lobby is located in the northwestern portion of the site, filling in the space that 101 Federal wraps around. Escalators will bring you up approximately 50 feet from ground level to where the elevator banks begin, and the actual office floors start 20 feet above that. The exterior spire/shaft also holds four elevators which will make stops at the 31st/32nd and 47th/48th floors transfer/mechanical zones, along with all the way up to the restaurant level. The shaft will also hold what looked to be solar or reflective panels up near the top, getting thicker with them the higher you went (the diagonal lines seen in the restaurant section above). So although this shaft looks rather dinky in the first rendering, in reality it will be pretty substantial (4 elevator shafts plus lobby space).

Along with the environmental panels on the exterior elevator shaft, there will also be other reflective panels on the outside of the tower itself, placed about 650 ft up (the white things visible in the original rendering) that, combined with reflective panels mounted on top of surrounding buildings such as 101 Federal, will direct sunlight down to the vegetation at ground level. The glass will also be "low emission" and up to triple glazed, depending on which cardinal direction it will face. And although I didn't see it anywhere else, it looked like there was some kind of second skin on the northern facade, a la the ceramic rods used on Renzo's New York Times tower. That building was shown more than a few times throughout the book more or less as an example as to how to design in a green manner, and it's quite obvious that this tower is through and through a product of Renzo Piano.

A diagram I did:



Other stats:

Height: 1,087 ft to the floor of the roof garden (glass extends up another 20-25 ft), 1,270 ft to the top of spire

Width/Length: 140 x 140 ft (not including exterior shaft), 32 x 32 ft structural bays

1.336m sf office space, 40k sf retail, 54k sf indoor public area (not including roof zen garden),1200 parking spaces, and 40.3k mechanical space
Total = 1.470 million square feet
 
With the spire I do believe that it is taller than the Empire State Building.

Amazingly, these new images make me like the building less.
 
Yeah! its height taller than the empire state building according to emporis
 
Good Stuff

Finally! Thank you, dude you rock. I've been so pissed that there wasn't anything else coming out about this project. I think it will be a great addition to the city. Yeah we all want this and that but think about it! BOSTON is getting a 1000 footer, I never thought I'd see the day.
 
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