Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)
Thanks -- Lovejoy is a great example.
So question, if Chiofaro could get access to the public land between the garage and the water, could he expand out into the water more to "create" his 50% open space (since piers and quays seem to count)?
Very likely not. The submerged land east of the narrow strip east of East India Row is not owned by him, and its exact ownership is unclear. It would depend if historically there was a wharf in that location. If that were the case, the submerged land is likely owned by the BRA. If there was no historic wharf, then the submerged land is likely owned by the Commonwealth.
Assuming either the BRA or the Commonwealth was amenable to his building the stairs to the sea and the tidal pool, the Corps of Engineers would ultimately decide whether he could do so, and the odds of their approving this feature are between slim and none.
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If one goes back through the long and now-becoming-painful history of his efforts to develop this site, his approach has consistently been one of teasing with eye candy renderings, and being woefully short of specifics. In his initial PNF for the arched towers (which was skimpy to the extreme) the BRA responded with a long set of questions they asked him to answer, to fill in the gaps, so to speak. One question was, how did he intend to address the property interests of the HT residents in the garage itself, with respect to their utilities infrastructure, and their easements for parking?
In the intervening years, I've not seen any information produced that responds to those questions.
Similarly, when the FAA said 407 feet was as high as he could go, did he adjust the height, or did he engage in discussions with the FAA on whether there were alternatives that might allow him to exceed that cap. Not that I can tell. (Link below is nearly five years old.)
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2009/10/26/daily55.html?jst=m_ln_hl&surround=lfn
All we get is more renderings. He unveiled iteration 2 without talking to the Aquarium, and created this great square/meeting place by taking ownership of land he didn't own. Iteration 3 featured a beach extravaganza. That seems to have been washed out into the harbor.
And the latest iteration has a feature, the stairs to the sea, that is unlikely to be approved and is on land he doesn't own. (See also iteration 2.)
What is so friggin' difficult at this stage about producing a straightforward site plan? Or would a simple site plan simply raise more questions than it answers. Where is the garage entrance and exit? Where are the loading docks? Where is the hotel entrance? Is there going to be a taxi stand? What site-related measures will be used to reduce/eliminate effects of sea level rise / storm surge?
http://www.bostonredevelopmentautho...es/climate-change-preparedness-and-resiliency
His odyssey with his double tower design reminds me of Coleridge, who began
Kubla Khan in an opium dream, and when he woke, couldn't remember most of what he wrote in his mind, but assured everybody it would have been the greatest poem ever.
If Chiofaro kept the current garage, reclad it with spiffy material, used it as a podium, built 35 stories on top, with a 50,000 sq ft floorplate, he gets 1.75 million gross sq ft of new building (450,000 sq ft more than what he presently proposes) with none of the cost of excavating deep into primordial muck for a new garage, he stays within the FAA limit, and he avoids the 50 percent open space requirement. But maybe he likes the conflict, and controversy, and pushing people's buttons, or maybe he took too many hits as a very undersized but very good Harvard linebacker.
