Developer Don Chiofaro sits at the table in his conference room. On the table, lined up like troops on parade, are perhaps 10 or a dozen elegantly crafted wood models of a tower complex. This is a project he'd like to build on the site of the Harbor Garage, which he owns. It's a key location in Boston, between the New England Aquarium on one side and the center of the new Greenway on the other.
The models all look different. In some, the towers are square. In others, they're round. Sometimes there's only one big tower. Sometimes there's a cluster of two or three.
All these models represent designs created for Chiofaro by William Pedersen, the chief designer in a prominent firm of architects, Kohn Pedersen Fox in New York.
This week, Chiofaro plucked one of the models and released images of it to the Globe. I'm not going to say this was nothing but a trial balloon. It's the design Chiofaro is currently in love with. But it's just one of many possibilities. As long ago as last April, he tried out some variants on this critic. "There will be a million iterations," says Chiofaro.
This current design is a three-tower version. Reaction to its display in the Globe, was, to put it gently, mixed. Most people seemed to think the complex looked more like a matched set of furniture than an impressive building. I felt the same. Three tall, slim, mirrored cabinets for somebody's high-end vestibule, maybe.
But we don't have to worry. Inevitably, the building will change. Chiofaro's move is much more about process than about design. He'd like to kick-start the process of winning eventual approval from city planners, some thing he guesses will take three years. He wants to start that conversation now.
Development is a game, like poker. There's bluff, there's daring, there's a time to fold. Chiofaro clearly loves the game. He's now got a face card showing. What remains in the hole, or the deck, we won't know for a while.
I called the architect in New York about that face card. Whether you like his design or not, he's got an interesting rationale for it.
"The Boston planners kept asking us to think about what would be a Boston high rise," says Bill Pedersen, emphasizing the world "Boston." "When you look at Boston, you see two important building types. There are the brownstones" - New Yorker Pedersen calls them that, although in Boston most townhouses are brick - "and near the waterfront, there are the old warehouses. In both types, you have long masonry bearing walls at both sides, with large openings in the front and rear."
Pedersen's towers, in the current version, imitate that traditional form, although at a hugely greater height. The sidewalls of the towers, which are the north and south sides, are indeed bearing walls. Each is made of a sort of screen of structural columns, closely spaced and finished in brick-toned terra cotta, with narrow windows between.
The east and west walls, by contrast, imitate the fronts and back of warehouses and townhouses. They're narrow and made entirely of transparent glass.
The terra cotta walls frame the glass in the way wood may frame a mirror. That's what makes the buildings look like a giant's furniture. Pedersen's idea is too literal, and it doesn't translate well from the world of ideas to the world of actual buildings.
In today's economy, Chiofaro is not going to be able to finance and build this complex any time soon. It's a huge project. In the current version there are two occupied towers. One holds 200-300 hotel rooms, topped by maybe 120 condos. The other tower contains 850,000 square feet of office space, almost half the floor area of the Hancock Tower.
There's also that third tower. It's a strange frame-like element that pokes up toward the sky between the other towers. It has no practical purpose. "It's pure architecture, pure sculpture," says Chiofaro. "I want to make the buildings feel like a gateway from the harbor to the Greenway." He also, one intuits, wants to build the tallest building in downtown Boston.
The lower floors of the whole complex will be a shopping arcade, another 70,000 square feet. Boston architects Elkus Manfredi helped develop the arcade. The Harbor Garage is to be demolished, but replaced with underground parking for 1,200 to 1,400 cars.
A lot of this makes sense: the mix of different uses, the presence of long-term residents, the chance to bring people to the now dead Greenway by means of the shops and hotel. Chiofaro first became known for the huge International Place development a few blocks away. Nobody's ever accused him of a lack of ambition.
But as noted, the process is only beginning. The city has hired the architecture and planning firm Utile to conduct a study of about 15 sites - the number isn't final yet - along the margins of the Greenway, sites that are thought to be ripe for redevelopment. The Harbor Garage is probably the most important.
Utile is working with Canadian urban designer Ken Greenberg, one of the best in the business. They hope to propose new rules for future redevelopment on the 15 sites, looking at issues like height, shadows, street life, parking, and transportation.
But they're just getting started. Utile's Tim Love says they held their first meeting with city planners only this week. The first public meeting is scheduled for Feb. 17. The group will have recommendations to the city in perhaps six months. After that, it's assumed, will come a lengthy process of zoning revision.
And only this week, members of the state Legislature, responding to Chiofaro's current proposal, proposed a new law that would reduce the amount of shadow allowed to be cast by tall buildings. We can expect lots of other forces to weigh in as the tale continues.
It should be fun to stay tuned.
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