[ARCHIVED] Harbor Garage Redevelopment | 70 East India Row | Waterfront | Downtown

[DZH22]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

Am I totally missing something or am I just an architecture n00b? What exactly is mediocre about the design given the economics, footprint, 600ft height cap, and opening up a portion of the base to the sea? I believe I asked this a few pages back as well, and I am not trying to be a jerk. I really want to be enlightened here, because I am obviously missing something that a good portion of you seem to share and believe.

I love the designs of the towers themselves and hope they are built as is. (with appropriate/workable ground floor interaction)

Half the people here would probably object to the JHT if it was proposed today. I have learned to ignore that half.

I'd love to see a 500' brick wall built around the footprint of the Harbor Towers. Just a giant FU from the city of Boston. Screw 'em.

 

[pel_north]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

Maybe there should be a petition to demolish the HT because it's ugly, old, and ruins the skyline from the harbor, while simultaneously blocking the view to the ocean from any future development behind it.

+10000000000

I think that we should all submit that to them with a bottle of turpentine disguised as wine.

 

[BPLange7]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

Maybe there should be a petition to demolish the HT because it's ugly, old, and ruins the skyline from the harbor, while simultaneously blocking the view to the ocean from any future development behind it.

Seconded.

 

[shmessy]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

I don't think the city has the luxury to stall projects until developers propose buildings that can be considered pretty enough.

Wahddaya talking about?

The city has had the luxury of putting off this project for the past decade due to the last Mayor's personal enmity towards the developer!

 

[stellarfun]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

As has been explained ad nauseum, the HT residents have an ownership interest in the HT garage, and Chiofaro & Co. can't do diddly-squat without that ownership interest being satisfied. So the residents of HT will object, as a matter of course, to anything and everything until that property interest is satisfied or extinguished. All the fulminating on this forum thread about their posturing doesn't even amount to a hill of beans.

 

[Semass]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

Wanna tell Don about your thoughts in person? Go to this event sponsored by The Emerging Professionals Committee of the Boston Harbor Association:

Join TBHA's Emerging Professionals Committee for an exciting professional development series featuring leaders and topics shaping Boston's waterfront.
On November 20, 2014, our guest is Don Chiofaro, founder of The Chiofaro Company, talking about his vision for Boston's waterfront in the form of the Harbor Garage Project, a parking facility with multi-use space, amenities, and services. The Chiofaro Company is a Boston-based real estate development and management company whose flagship development is International Place. Thanks to the generous sponsorship of Equity Office Properties, the event is free with a donation of any amount and includes refreshments.

Call the BHA to get details.

 

[TheRifleman]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

As has been explained ad nauseum, the HT residents have an ownership interest in the HT garage, and Chiofaro & Co. can't do diddly-squat without that ownership interest being satisfied. So the residents of HT will object, as a matter of course, to anything and everything until that property interest is satisfied or extinguished. All the fulminating on this forum thread about their posturing doesn't even amount to a hill of beans.

This is not true. You're Pipedreaming-- Harbor Towers residents does not have ownership interest. The only interest Harbor Towers has is that Chiofaro and Pru are responsible for their Mechanical Systems and Parking arrangement if their project gets approved.

The reality is I would have more respect for the Trustees if they said the truth and would rather the garage than having a new development blocking their views along with having more foot traffic in the area.

These Harbor Tower trustees are the biggest hypocrites --It's okay that we live in (2) 400ft towers by the ocean and monopolize the ground floor to our development with a fenced in pool that does not allow the public access to cross over to the ocean--after the public has poured billions of dollars in tax dollars to improve our area.

No matter what you say---The Green-light will be coming for this project in the next year. The Wall will be knocked down.
The Mayor wants it
The Taxpayers want it
The BRA wants it
The unions want it.

The only people that don't are the Trustees at Harbor Towers--

 

[stellarfun]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

This is not true. You're Pipedreaming-- Harbor Towers residents does not have ownership interest. The only interest Harbor Towers has is that Chiofaro and Pru are responsible for their Mechanical Systems and Parking arrangement if their project gets approved.

You must have forgotten the definition of easement from your law school days.

Easement: the right to use the real property of another for a specific purpose. The easement is itself a real property interest, but legal title to the underlying land is retained by the original owner for all other purposes.
___________________________________________
The attorney for the HT residents is John H. Rogers. Perhaps you ought to write him with your legal advice. His address is below.

http://www.rflawyers.com/attorney-profiles/john-rogers.html

Gotta keep up with the playahs.
http://www.commonwealthmagazine.org...-Harbor-Towers-hires-Rogers.aspx#.VGPa3DTF9xU

 

[atlantaden]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

It's hard to believe that Don Chiofaro would spend literally tens of thousands of dollars, actually more likely hundreds of thousands of dollars, on architectural drawings, lawyers fees (yes, he must have consulted an attorney or two) along with his own personal time, knowing that the easement from HT is an unbreakable, un-doable easement belonging to an intractable group of holders who would never, ever change it.

 

[datadyne007]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

NU Prof's Rendering Shows 'Visual Consequences' of Proposed Harbor Square

Now in comes Thrush, the NU professor tasked – along with other professionals – with offering alternative development plans. Thus far, Thrush and co. have pitched a shorter, one-tower proposal and some other alternative design concepts, featuring, what one Harbor Towers resident calls "real open space for views and pedestrians."

Thrush's digital rendering at the top, created using digital files of the Harbor Square proposal submitted to the BRA which are already available to the public, is an attempt to provide a look at the "visual consequences" the proposed towers would create, our Harbor Towers source said. It's included in Thrush's presentation, dubbed "The Public Interest at the Waterfront," which we hope to check out in its entirety soon.

http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2014/...bor-towers-residents-george-thrush-rendering/

I'm glad to see architecture professionals working with the community to develop alternate proposals.

 

[stellarfun]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

It's hard to believe that Don Chiofaro would spend literally tens of thousands of dollars, actually more likely hundreds of thousands of dollars, on architectural drawings, lawyers fees (yes, he must have consulted an attorney or two) along with his own personal time, knowing that the easement from HT is an unbreakable, un-doable easement belonging to an intractable group of holders who would never, ever change it.

When Chiofaro unveiled his first design, the 'arch', he also filed a PNF with the state; it was seven pages long. It did not mention the HT easements, and the BRA wrote back to Chiofaro with a set of questions at least as long, IIRC, as his PNF. One of the BRA questions was what do you intend to do about the HT easements?

Chiofaro has never replied to the BRA set of questions.

The original proposal for the garage was to demolish half and excavate down, and keep the other half open. Then repeat for the other half. Soon thereafter, Ted Oatis publicly abandoned that idea as infeasible. Chiofaro then 'floated' the idea of the massive floating parking garage, to be built for the HT residents while the new underground garage and the towers were being built. That idea ran aground, at least in part, because of an apparent inability to find a place to dock the behemoth.

Anyone care to compare Chiofaro's seven pager with the PNF for the Congress St garage and decide who was serious about a proposal?
http://www.hyminvestments.com/images/appendixb_pnf.pdf

____________________
IMO, the most recent HT letter was vetted through their attorney first. And they are simply putting down markers to what will ultimately be a negotiated resolution of their present and future parking. For all of Chiofaro's struggle to find parking for HT residents, he could have looked no further than the Congress St garage, which operates at 45 percent capacity.

 

[aaaaaa]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

I'm glad to see architecture professionals working with the community to develop alternate proposals.

The headline seems to suggest negative visual consequences, but I don't see them. The towers will block the Custom House Tower, sure, but cities are not static.

Ps. And we need the housing.

 

[MBTAddict]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

The headline seems to suggest negative visual consequences, but I don't see them. The towers will block the Custom House Tower, sure, but cities are not static.

Ps. And we need the housing.

That's what I noticed too, and if the rule of thumb for new development is that it can't block views of something that already exists, we're screwed.

Now, that was a bit hyperbolic - the Custom House Tower is a very unique feature of Boston, BUT if you really wanna see it, there will be plenty of other vantage points.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

Now, that was a bit hyperbolic - the Custom House Tower is a very unique feature of Boston, BUT if you really wanna see it, there will be plenty of other vantage points.

People flip out when you build something that obstructs the Old North Church. It's all part of Boston's fear of new things disrupting the old. The irony is that when the new becomes old everyone wants to save it.

 

[coleslaw]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

The custom house tower is my favorite building in Boston but part of what makes it so amazing is being surrounded by modern skyscrapers. Build this.

 

[stellarfun]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts wrote Chiofaro a 28 page letter in 2009, basically telling him the PNF for his original proposal was a piece of crap, that it in no way would be approved, and to start over. On p. 11 of the letter, there is a paragraph setting out the studies he needs to do to assess the impact of any garage project on the Custom House National Historic District.

http://www.env.state.ma.us/mepa/pdffiles/certificates/071709/14411enf.pdf

With respect to views of the Custom House, IMO, a viewshed analysis should be done on the effect of the project on a view of the Custom House from the harbor side. Viewshed analyses are not typically done for new buildings, but there are exceptions. (If someone hypothetically wanted to throw up a building on the Common opposite the State House, that's the type of urban project that ought to be subject to a viewshed analysis.) The view from the harbor of the Custom House, compared to the view from other perspectives, is important because the Custom House existed and was sited where it is because of the harbor.

THere's a reason why some historic buildings become so in the context of their geographic surroundings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Air_Terminal

 

[DZH22]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

IP refinanced http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/r...refinances-500-million-for-international.html

 

[type001]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

You must have forgotten the definition of easement from your law school days.

Easement: the right to use the real property of another for a specific purpose. The easement is itself a real property interest, but legal title to the underlying land is retained by the original owner for all other purposes.

So you're saying that the easment gives HT residents 100% veto power over the entire development and is not restricted only to their usage of the new garage portion of the development? Can please confirm if that is true or not?

 

[pel_north]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

HT residents are the reason that we can't have nice things. Can't they just remember that they live in a major city and not the suburbs? If they are worried about the views, the views will only be enhanced by the presence of the new towers in question not detract from it.

Do they not realize the shadows that their building imposes on the Greenway and other structures or are they that narrow-minded?

 

[dirtywater]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

As a point of reference, the easement for all those hundreds of Harbor Tower parking spaces in the Harbor Garage expires in 2022, and the easement for the Harbor Towers HVAC expires in 2069.

Stellarfun addressed the easement question back in August of 2013. If someone is really interested, they should search the title and see what these easements actually say. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a provision permitting relocation of the easement upon satisfaction of certain conditions.