Academic Building @ Suffolk U | 20 Somerset Street | Beacon Hill

Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Ron Newman said:
Why was Suffolk unable to adapt this building?
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Not sure. I think the original proposal was to renovate the existing structure for a residential dorm. Beacon Hill residnts balked at having additional students living there so Suffolk switched gears and came up with the plan to demo building and start from scratch for a modern art center. After the luster of new wears off, I expect the new building will leave the area less interesting than it already is with existing frayed fabric. This building is sandwiched between the McCormick building/ plaza, Homicide Memorial Park and the Saltonstall building/ Plaza.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

briv said:
It's pretty ridiculous they're knocking down buildings on a block full of empty plazas.

This city is on quite the pre-War-building demolition spree. Each case taken in isolation may not seem significant, but when you consider it in its entirety I think it's very alarming. We're essentially in the midst of an ongoing piecemeal Urban Renewal.
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I agree, Briv. What's particularly galling for me in this case are two things:

1) The MDC building is a decent structure surrounded by utter garbage: The MDC Building, while hardly a Richardson, is a handsome old building that fits its surroundings (Beacon Hill) very well.

Its surroundings are Urban Renewal's fruits: a hideous Bauhaus state-owned office building (100 Cambridge St.) with a pointless "garden" and low-lying parking garage appended on two sides and cheesy PoMo townhouses surrounding it on two other sides; a windswept Brutalist plaza (otherwise known as an empty lot); and the state offices at the McCormack Building, Beacon Hill's own Darth Vader Building.

Putting up a tower-in-the-park all-glass building while leaving the plazas and other postwar trash will be affirming Urban Renewal's legacy, and depriving the city of what is good (or at least neutral) and shoring up/contributing to the bad. Net negative.

2) The state and city governments are responsible: It would almost be forgivable if there were a "greedy developer" with a profit motive behind this: It would be a question of an individual disposing of his property as he saw fit. But the MDC Building was sold to Suffolk by the state, and apparently at the urging of the City of Boston, eager to defuse tensions between Beacon Hill residents and Suffolk.

So the res publicae -- the thing of the people -- is the driving force here. The state could have sold rights to build over its parking lot at 100 Cambridge, on top of the adjoining garden, or on the Brutalist plaza. It could even have redeveloped its Darth Vader building. Instead, it chose to leave all of that and tear down one of the few structures that separates the area between the State House and Gov't Center from much of Albany. Like Briv said, it's Urban Renewal all over again.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

sorry, but the building looks like a NYC public housing project brick tower. The new building's gonna take up more of the plaza, activate it with student life, and look better
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Is it just me, or will the new building actually be shorter?
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Based on the renderings, it'll actually be shorter.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

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They finished up working on that black tarp thing about 30 minutes before they went on the roof. I noticed that behind the building is a ton of boards which are red on one side, just the same size and color as the ones they used to board up a few of the windows a while ago, maybe they're going to finish the rest of the windows? A few minutes after I took this picture, 3 more guys, who took the stairs, came up on the roof. They all walked around, taking pictures/video it looked like. They cracked out some laptops and clipboards, they looked around at the surrounding buildings and took pictures of them too. Then I noticed some guy was knocking out all the ceiling panels on the top floor with a broom stick.

When walking by, I saw a truck that said "NER Building Restoration" on the door in the driveway between the building and the homicide memorial. There was also some guy assembling what looked like a pulley from what I saw through a window.

I wonder what's up... I'll ask someone next time I see someone on the ground.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

^ This vantage point is very close to my work. I'm at 11 Beacon St. My guess is your either on the roof of my building or your on top of the suffolk dormitory next door
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

You're in the right direction. But it's just the 11th floor of Suffolk's business school. You can't see it from the 12th, and the roof access and 13th floor utilities are all locked.

Suffolk's Miller Dorm requires you to reside on campus to get in the building at all.

I never even considered 11 Beacon, but I don't think I realized I could even see past the dorms from there.




Anyways! Yesterday, Thursday, they were doing just as I suspected they were going to do! Boarding up more windows. I saw them doing one and I believe they were beginning on another. Not sure if they had boarded up any before I saw them. They have a lotttt of plywood in back.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Work seems to be starting up again. The past couple days, lights have been put up in the stairwell (I think) windows and lit up. I just saw someone go in the side door and there's some heavy equipment out front doing utility work in Somerset St (not sure if it's related, looks like a water or sewer junction to the building, though).
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Doesn't look like much has changed, but there's a crisscross of metal strips on the right side of the southern face of the building (as viewed from any one of my earlier pictures of that side of the building). Perhaps to keep the bricks secured if it's in rough shape? That's the only thing new that I can noticed right now. I see one light on in one of the middle floors. I'll go check around a little later maybe.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

I lied, it was actually scaffolding. There's scaffolding on that portion of the side, the back side, and the front of the building. :eek:
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Last week:

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There's more up now, too.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

The building has been completely encapsulated in scaffolding and black construction netting for a week or so. It's a very busy sight but haven't posted until today since there's not much visible difference aside from the building being completely covered now. But today, they had a backhoe/front end loader INSIDE. I don't know where they got it in, but it was shoving a pile of crap out of a 1st floor window and into a dumpster on the homicide/memorial/park/peace-thingy side.

Cool stuff.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Pre-demolition asbestos removal?
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

I asked a couple guys if they were doing pre-demo work and they confirmed they were preparing for demolition. So I asked "So it's coming down sometime soon?" And with a big grin one said, "Oh yeah!" Ha.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

They should have saved the building and built on the ugly plaza that always closed off!
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Building Canceled? From the Herald:
Boston Herald said:
Suffolk may redraw plan for art school
By Thomas Grillo | Wednesday, April 13, 2011 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Real Estate
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Suffolk University?s plan for a $68 million New England School of Art and Design campus on Beacon Hill is expected to be put on hold indefinitely, sources tell the Herald.


The university board of trustees is meeting today and will reportedly reconsider its grand development plan for 20 Somerset St., where a 10-story building would have replaced the former Metropolitan District Commission headquarters. The project would have included 450 seats for art school classes and another 400 for general classroom use.


?Suffolk has a new board of directors who are reconsidering some decisions that were made, taking a look at their finances and evaluating how any new project will impact their balance sheet,? one source told the Herald.
Suffolk University Board Chairman Andrew Meyer would not provide a copy of the meeting?s agenda and declined to comment on the project?s future. ?The university is constantly re-evaluating its real estate needs and what?s in the best interest of its students,? Meyer said yesterday.


It?s not the first time the project has had the board?s attention.


In 2006, the university withdrew plans for a high-rise dormitory at the site due to strong neighborhood opposition. Members of the Beacon Hill Civic Association argued ? and Mayor Thomas M. Menino agreed ? that the college?s construction of a 19-story dorm at 10 Somerset St. in 2003, the one-time commuter school?s second residence hall, had already put a strain on the close-knit, well-to-do neighborhood.


But two years later, Suffolk and the neighborhood group reached an agreement that paved the way for construction of the classroom space in exchange for a promise by the university that prevents the school from expanding on Beacon Hill.


As a result of the accord, the Boston Redevelopment Authority approved the school?s plans for the New England School of Art and Design in 2009.
While the school was scheduled to open this year, little work has been done and the existing building has yet to be demolished.


Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/real_estate/view.bg?articleid=1330363
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Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

That would explain why there has been no work in 2 weeks or so.... I thought they were finished gutting it, and maybe they were waiting for the semester to end to demolish it. Oh well.

I don't know why they're questioning it, it has to be done at some point anyways.

What if they were putting this on hold in order to target One Franklin/Filene's? Hmm. They expressed interest in Filene's before (and the mayor got giddy with excitement), so I wonder what's up...
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

Perhaps the new admin feels it's a better investment to eventually rehab a larger building than replace it with a new smaller building. I'm guessing the current building is larger.
 
Re: Suffolk Plans for Beacon Hill Arts Center

I'm hoping they save the MDC headquarters -- it's a fine-looking building in apparently good structural health, and infinitely more appropriate for Beacon Hill than the proposed building.

The proposal was pretty derivative of the the "intelligentsia" commercial/institutional architecture trend du jour of decent-quality glass and decent-quality wood gift-wrapping a typical Modernist box. That trend is more likely to please Robert Campbell than another, intelligentsia-unfriendly trend du jour typified by hulking SOM-style glass boxes but is still unlikely (IMO) to look like anything other than an out-of-date trend in a few years. It's not bad-looking and is welcome on the Seaport (case in point, Liberty Wharf) but would be a sore thumb in the proposed location.

On the other hand, the MDC building has gone through the ages pretty well, especially given its location. If the hideous plazas around it could be infilled, the area would be fairly nice, despite the unfortunate McCormack, Saltonstall and other Modernist government buildings flanking it. If they can reuse the MDC building, once Suffolk -- or anyone else -- is ready to build, they should do it on the plazas.

Of course, Murphy's Law tends to hold in Boston architecture/development; the city will probably remove the windows to the MDC building, watch "helplessly" as its integrity is undermined by the New England elements, and then be "forced" to raze it. Maybe the Machado/Silvetti-style design will be brushed off for the site, or maybe the plaza will just get that much bigger (or turned into a surface parking lot), both of which are perversely viewed by the city as the greatest of "community" amenities.
 
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