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

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chrisbrat said:
you're a senior member here and no doubt know a lot more than i do, but it seems -- just from dropping by here semi-regularly -- that you frequently bring up how there are "no more places to build" tall and then one of a handful of people reply by pointing out that you are incorrect. this is usually accompanied by any number of pretty colored maps of the city and longwinded exposition.

i take it that their counterarguments to your claim don't convince you.

NIMBY nonsense is not a phenomenon unique to Boston. I hear about it from friends in S.F., Seattle, and even placed I wouldn't expect, like LA and Atlanta. Boston is notoriously parochial, so if this type of issue is prevalent throughout the country, is it terribly surprising that it has a particularly fierce hold here? I agree it's frequently frustrating, but: A) it's not "just Boston" and B) if it really irks you so much, there are other places to live.

they've knocked the shit out of another round of towers? Even if literally none of the many towers being proposed or having already been approved actually get built, this "round" has already brought MT (not "tall" by Manhattan standards, but it's tall for Boston) and 1 Dalton is about to go vertical and will be the second-tallest in the city upon completion.

if, to you, that's the result of "knocking the shit" out this round of towers, then i'd suggest you've never seen anything or anyone knock the shit out of anything.
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Yes......but do you understand what this specific development we are talking about: Take a look at this CROWN JEWEL according to the Barr Foundation.

According to the Barr Foundation CEO this priceless Garage is considered a crown jewel to the public.
Not only that the lack of planning/developments from the BRA according to more friendly transit locations has created a frenzy of congestion in the city:



don-chiofaro-boston-harbor-garage.jpg
 
TheRifleman said:
Yes......but do you understand what this specific development we are talking about: Take a look at this CROWN JEWEL according to the Barr Foundation.

don-chiofaro-boston-harbor-garage.jpg
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oh, i get that, believe me. i was (perhaps unsuccessfully) pointing to the aspects of his post that were far more broadstroke/general and not specifically pertaining to the aquarium garage parcel -- the notions that there is "nowhere left" to build tall and that this cycle of development has been totally squashed by the NIMBYs, both of which are, to my mind, gross exaggerations.
 
not a senior member. it's got to be a typo. as far as tall; i barely crest the yimby plateau. i'm for agressive, yet sensible development.... Yes, i counted them off in the Globe. a few minutes ago. They knocked the shit out of the grand finale of what would have really been spectacular (by Boston Standards) in the West End, at TD garden (including rooftop height of about 660'), then the Garden Garage lost like, 125', then 1 Congress lost over 150' and significant height off the other... then no Harbor Garage; the 600' tower was killed. We lost height in closed meetings over Back Bay Station, 40 Trinity, and elsewhere... nimby effectively killed Columbus Ctr, and now Fenway Ctr will be lost.

i have a shared residence in Malibu. Come to Nobu for nimby chatter talking down proposed condo towers off Hollywood and Vine. They're doing 1200' off Wilshire, and another ~800' and a couple of 600' planned...but not much more going up. ..or much of ANY construction in Malibu or the Palisades.
 
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chrisbrat said:
you're a senior member here and no doubt know a lot more than i do, but it seems -- just from dropping by here semi-regularly -- that you frequently bring up how there are "no more places to build" tall and then one of a handful of people reply by pointing out that you are incorrect. this is usually accompanied by any number of pretty colored maps of the city and longwinded exposition.

i take it that their counterarguments to your claim don't convince you.

NIMBY nonsense is not a phenomenon unique to Boston. I hear about it from friends in S.F., Seattle, and even placed I wouldn't expect, like LA and Atlanta. Boston is notoriously parochial, so if this type of issue is prevalent throughout the country, is it terribly surprising that it has a particularly fierce hold here? I agree it's frequently frustrating, but: A) it's not "just Boston" and B) if it really irks you so much, there are other places to live.

they've knocked the shit out of another round of towers? Even if literally none of the many towers being proposed or having already been approved actually get built, this "round" has already brought MT (not "tall" by Manhattan standards, but it's tall for Boston) and 1 Dalton is about to go vertical and will be the second-tallest in the city upon completion.

if, to you, that's the result of "knocking the shit" out this round of towers, then i'd suggest you've never seen anything or anyone knock the shit out of anything.
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One of the posts of the year. Well done.
 
Chrisbrat -- all that you need to know is that the NIMBY's are led by the Eco-left Barr Foundation -- located in the historic Pilot House and now expanding
Situated on the Boston Harbor, the Barr Foundation’s office is housed within the historic Pilot House, built in 1845 as part of the flourishing shipping trade along Boston’s waterfront. In April 2016, Barr’s offices expanded into the adjacent building at Two Atlantic Avenue.
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This kind of opposition is worse than the traditional NIMBYs many of whom are driven by fear of losing the neighborhood where they were raised. This opposition to the Harbor Garage project is driven by the olde "I've got mine -- and you can't handle any of it -- so you don't get any"

You'll note that if Barr Foundation really believed any of the catastrophic global warming scare mongering -- their HQ would be located up on Beacon Hill not at Sea Level on the harbor's edge
 
Talk about a developer taking on Menino, BRA, Barr Foundation, NIMBYS, Commonwealth, Stellarfun.
Who is next the NEW WORLD ORDER looking to stop the development of Harbor Garage.

This is Batshit Crazy not allowing Chiofaro/Pru to build something spectacular in this location for the public.
This development is not even close to the North End, SouthEnd, Beacon Hill or Backbay type style. 400ft towers are the closet vicinity of this location. This is how out of control this is gotten. You can't build higher than us mentality.

I can honestly say Chiofaro/Pru have the public best interest and everybody else has an agenda.
 
TheRifleman said:
I can honestly say Chiofaro/Pru have the public best interest and everybody else has an agenda.
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I would take slight exception to this statement. Chiofaro/Pru clearly have their best interest very well in mind. They just happen to be closer to general public best interest than any of the NIMBY complaints.
 
I would be opposed to this project too but thankfully my tinfoil hat blocks the MINDRAYS coming from CHEMTRAILS spewed from the BLACK HELICOPTERS being flown by ILLUMINATI members.
 
Oh, and don't read too much into the 'senior member' thing. It just means you have over 100 posts. Cheers!
 
Clearly some passions flying on this thread, but here's a (very) humble attempt to put it as simply as I can think of:

This is a PRIME parcel. Front and center. A gateway from our harbor to our city. This parcel deserves something absolutely freaking wonderful. Grand to say the least. And what strikes at the heart of whomever loves Boston is not just that there's the ugliest, shittiest garage there (for today's snapshot in time, we can actually accept that), but that this whole stupid process is going to consume most of the rest of our lifetimes, so that years from now when my grandkids are playing on the greenway, that effing thing is still going to be here. That's the travesty. That's why this thread fuels passion whenever someone re-ignites it.

That is all.
 
In all honesty, the Harbor Towers pool area offends me more than the garage. I'd love to see them both redeveloped but given the choice, I'd pick the pool.
 
^ The pool and the IMAX both suck too, but the sheer scale of the garage is incredible.
 
bigpicture7 said:
^ The pool and the IMAX both suck too, but the sheer scale of the garage is incredible.
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Even though it is a bit shit, the IMAX is at least open to the public though (for a price obviously). The pool is just a complete waste in every aspect. This whole area really isn't that great at all. The garage would be a very good place to start.
 
chrisbrat said:
just from dropping by here semi-regularly -- that you frequently bring up how there are "no more places to build" tall and then one of a handful of people reply by pointing out that you are incorrect. this is usually accompanied by any number of pretty colored maps of the city and longwinded exposition.

i take it that their counterarguments to your claim don't convince you.
Click to expand...

The guys here are qualified experts and offer great insight concerning architecture and building. i (respectfully) part with them on this point. Boston is hyper-conservative about building over 150m/500'. By the end of this cycle, we'll have done it 5 or 6 times since 1987. That's lame.

1 Bromfield is a perfectly reasonable proposal, yet quite bold. Since it's so close to MT, the Common, Beacon Hill and umm, 111 Fed. There's a bit of competition with the very agency you're petitioning. Many of us feared something like this could happen.

Yet, except for changes to the podium structure, or eliminating cars altogether (the investors will still come), and building this tower at 705', serves the public interest.

As i've said dozens times in the Globe, AB and elsewhere, cut out part of 1-3 Center Plaza, get the Feds to play ball at JFK office, bring down the State Service Ctr or City Hall, then we most surely get another tower. There's no Tommy sitting atop Mt Olympus. But, maybe, when the monoliths start to come down, we'll hear a decree that we're gonna go SEVEN HUNDRED' (Boston Supertall). Sure.

^^short of that, Don't be mystified. in the entirety of Boston realistically, there are no more parcels *(as in ZERO) for building even low skyscrapers above 180 meters. *i'm excluding 3 or 4 build sites that currently, ostensibly exist, but would have an extreme polarizing effect politically – or are precluded by shade issues, historically or culturally significant abutters, or from pure engineering +/- value of existing structure + the demo/prep/ build standpoint just have no realistic possibility of being redeveloped in the present or near future....

A good example for this group would be the two low apartment towers off Martha next door and 1 door down from the Garden Garage site. Absolutely perfect for 800', not shade, FAA problem; nothing. But the political firestorm from the North End to Beacon Hill makes it impossible. We whiffed twice on 600' here. Some other examples are the Christian Science Garage. Colonnade Hotel and Midtown Hotel. Midtown Hotel was purchased for the specific purpose of stopping development on that site, and preventing shade over Christ Scientist... Dalton Garage is a pipedream from an economic standpoint, imo.

i tested this opinion on a BRA insider and he/she responded in the affirmative.

oh, Lord and Taylor? Ok, maybe it ain't ZERO. Leave town for 3 years, come back and you could just as well see another crap turd with, street porn and 14 stories.

For 111 Fed, Walsh and Golden are carrying out Tommy's call for downtown tallest. But, there is no suggestion by planners of a specific desire to ever build a 700' tower again in our lifetimes. That effectively leaves us with parcels like 1 Bromfield and Harbor Garage.

by 2021, we will have done two 700' towers since the glass began to fail on the JHT in 1971. ...add Millennium Tower, and hopefully, SST in the core of the 6th largest economic market in the country for a total of four 200m towers topped in 50 years.

Top buildable height for Boston was recently, 725-755'. but after 1 Bromfield goes up, we might see the odd proposal for 500' over a parcel like 1065 Boylston St, before it's knocked down to 365'.

–50 years.
 
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AmericanFolkLegend said:
I wish I was still in HS. I'd make this my yearbook quote.
P.S. Do they still have yearbooks?
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Add this to the rest of the quote.
So keep drinking the kool-aid with your Liberal idiots and Old Fart midieval conservatives 1%ers that are all a bunch of Hypocrites.
Be a REAL PERSON don't be a STUGOTZ
 
Every time i see this thread bumped i have to laugh. What they should actually do is delete it. Dont waste our breath. This thing is never going to happen. Oh it should happen tomorrow. Replacing that hunk of garbage with a tower is a win win for all but perhaps a select few in harbor towers. But it wont. What has it been 8 or 9 years of non sense. Just a disgrace.

If i was mayor id make Chiafaro build the Disgracefully scrapped Boston History Museum in exchange for a faa cap project. That would be too forward thinking and colloborative for this backwards thinking bra. Boston we are truly our own worst enemy a world class city in spite of ourselves
 
Why delete this thread. harbor garage will be built in a good or bad economy: this location won't matter in the end it just needs the approvals and the economics need to be sensible. This location will be very desirable in the end.
 
TheRifleman said:
Talk about a developer taking on Menino, BRA, Barr Foundation, NIMBYS, Commonwealth, Stellarfun.
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As a member of the New World Order, we have repeatedly asked Mr. Chiofaro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBS0OWGUidc

Guess what?

38593077_-_03_06_2016_-_topshot-france-weather-flood.jpg


As for those rejecting global warming and sea level rise, the New World Order is commissioning an iconic statue to be installed along the waterfront, example below, memorializing their sagacity.
 
nepatz11 said:
Every time i see this thread bumped i have to laugh. What they should actually do is delete it. Dont waste our breath. This thing is never going to happen. Oh it should happen tomorrow. Replacing that hunk of garbage with a tower is a win win for all but perhaps a select few in harbor towers. But it wont. What has it been 8 or 9 years of non sense. Just a disgrace.

If i was mayor id make Chiofaro build the Disgracefully scrapped Boston History Museum in exchange for a faa cap project. That would be too forward thinking and collaborative for this backwards thinking bra. Boston we are truly our own worst enemy a world class city in spite of ourselves
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Nepatz -- I don't think that Jeff and GE's brain trust came to site their world HQ in Boston because of, or because of not having a 200m+ new tower downtown

They came because of the totality of the place and its desirability as a place to live and work for the kinds of employees that GE thinks it needs to continue to be a world leading company.

I suggest that as this is the Weekend of the 4th that you do some walking around Boston and perhaps some Googling around as well. A few hours on the ground feeling how history is embedded in the streets, buildings and even the air -- this might help you to learn how Boston evolved into what it is today and why much of the rhetoric comparing Boston to most other places is not relevant.
 
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