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Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)
News and Features: Features
Just plain ugly
The showdown between developer Don Chioforo and City Hall over the unsightly Harbor Garage is about the future of the Greenway, the Waterfront, and Boston's DNA.
BY: Bruce Mohl
Photographs By: Mark Morelli
Issue: Summer 2010
July 27, 2010
Bill Pedersen is a principal at Kohn Pedersen Fox Asso*ciates in New York, a powerhouse architectural firm known for designing tall towers across the globe. He personally oversaw the design of the Shanghai World Financial Center, which looks a lot like a bottle opener, and, at 1,614 feet, is one of the tallest buildings in the world. So when Peder*sen was hired by Boston developer Don Chiofaro at the end of 2007 to come up with a design for a building to replace the Harbor Garage, he wasn?t afraid to think big. He says he experimented with a variety of designs. Some went as high as 1,000 feet. One had what he calls ?international overtones,? architecture-speak for flashy and contemporary. But when he shared that idea with officials at the Boston Redevelopment Authority, they weren?t keen on it. ?They said they wanted it to look like a Boston building,? he says.
But what does a Boston building look like, he wondered? Is it the sleek, mirror-like fa?ade of the John Hancock tower in the Back Bay? The washboard look of the Federal Reserve Bank building across from South Station. Or the elegant brick of Rowes Wharf just a short walk down the Greenway from the Harbor Garage site?
Pedersen says the emblematic structures of Boston are its town houses in the Back Bay and Beacon Hill and the brick walls of many of its buildings and warehouses. He finally settled on a design that featured two towers, one slightly higher than the other, with the north and south faces covered with terra cotta, a type of masonry that has a brick-like appearance. The BRA?s chief planner, Kairos Shen, was intrigued by the design, but felt something was still missing, so Pedersen went back to the drawing board and came up with a design that used terra cotta strips to form a soaring arch between the two buildings.
The new design was shown to Shen and BRA Director John Palmieri in early July 2008. They generally liked what they saw, according to a letter Chiofaro later wrote to Pal*mieri. ?You will recall that the design was received enthusiastically by you and Kairos. You said we were ?almost there? and Kairos indicated we were within 10-15 percent of meeting his expectations.? Chiofaro says Shen wanted the overall height reduced a bit (it was then at 775 feet) and wanted a scale model of the design built (at a cost of $10,000) so it could be placed inside the BRA?s larger
The shadow of the Harbor Garage over
the Greenway at 10 a.m.
model of the city and seen in context.
A week later, Chiofaro, his partner Ted Oatis, Pedersen, and a number of their associates returned to City Hall with two models showing slightly different designs. Chiofaro says Shen and Palmieri were enthusiastic, with Shen calling the design ?iconic.? Pedersen, choosing his words carefully, offers a different take. ?I?m not saying they were jumping up and down, but we were making progress,? he says. ?They felt it was moving in a positive direction. There was even talk of bringing it to the mayor.?
But then, Pedersen says, ?the screen went blank.? There was no meeting with the mayor and the project was essentially put on hold pending the completion of a planning study for the entire Greenway, which had been announced in May. BRA planners also began signaling that tall buildings on the water side of the Greenway would not be acceptable. In February 2009, with the Greenway study still far from finished, the mayor made clear what he thought. ?The chance of Don Chiofaro building [it] is about as likely as an 80-degree day in January,? he told the Boston Herald. ?It?s too big. His chances are slim to none.?
Thinking big
Don Chiofaro likes to think big. It?s part of his DNA. He bought the Harbor Garage because he wanted to make a skyline statement. He wants to tear down an eyesore along the city?s new front yard and transform it into a glittering symbol of Boston, complete with a hotel, office space, and condominiums. He says his project will pump new life into the Greenway, provide greater access to the harbor and the aquarium, and generate millions of dollars of new tax revenue for the city. Ever the showman, he put a big red X on the Greenway side of the garage to show the size of the glass-enclosed opening between his two proposed towers that would provide a view toward the harbor.
Chiofaro and Oatis paid $153 million for the garage in 2007. The mayor and other critics say they overpaid by close to $30 million and are now trying to build big to recoup their unwise investment. Oatis finds that insulting. ?What we?re trying to do is the right thing. It?s what the city needs,? he says. As for overpaying, he says he and Chiofaro didn?t even submit the highest offer during the first round of bidding. Oatis says the highest bid in the first round was $150 million, followed by Chiofaro at $148 million, and three others who were bunched in the $145 million to $147 million range.
The garage appears to be a cash cow. It has 1,400 parking spaces and anyone who parks longer than 80 minutes pays $35. Oatis says the garage generates an operating profit of $8.5 million a year. To redevelop the site, Chiofaro and Oatis say, they need a building or buildings that would generate enough revenue to offset the loss of the annual parking income and the cost of burying the existing 1,400 spaces underground. They say it would cost about $100,000 per space, or about $140 million, to put the garage underground. To make the numbers work, Chiofaro says he needs to build high, at least 520 feet, according to one study he had done.
But the city is not interested in such a tall building at the Harbor Garage site. As this story goes to press, the city?s planning study for the Greenway is headed toward final approval with a 200-foot limit on any building on the site. That?s 45 feet higher than the existing zoning allows, but well below what Chiofaro says he needs to move forward.
Don Chioforo, at left, and Ted Oatis
on the roof of the Harbor Garage
During a series of interviews at their offices on the 46th floor of One International Place, a two-tower project they completed in 1992, Chiofaro and Oatis say they feel betrayed by the BRA. They say agency officials repeatedly offered encouragement, and then pulled the rug out from underneath them. ?They forgot what their job is,? Chiofaro says of the BRA officials. ?They went from being an economic development agency to being a tool of the fifth floor,? he says, referring to the City Hall location of the mayor?s office.
Chiofaro and Oatis aren?t sure what to do now. They are working on a new building design, but they vacillate between talking tough and making nice, as they have throughout the city?s review process. Early in 2008, for example, Chiofaro wrote an article for the Boston Business Journal as word began to spread of his ambitious plans for the Harbor Garage site. He urged Bostonians to keep an open mind, condemning the ?negativism inherent in our collective character? and our ?can?t-do attitude.? One BRA official emailed a copy of the article to Shen, the city?s director of planning, with a note saying ?his helmet is on,? a reference to Chiofaro?s days as a middle linebacker at Harvard.
During the latter half of 2008 and much of 2009, Chio*faro and his building plans were often under fire. The Herald quoted one anonymous City Hall source as saying Chiofaro was ?annoying? and had a ?tin ear.? Menino, running for a fifth term, told CommonWealth during the summer of 2009 that it?s not his job to make Chiofaro a ?gazillionaire.? Yet Chiofaro held his tongue. He told Common*Wealth he had enormous respect for the mayor and hoped he would come to appreciate the jobs and benefits his project would bring. He even sent City Hall officials a picture of himself dressed as a tin man and signed some emails to BRA officials as ?Tin Ear.?
But in April, with the Greenway study recommending a 200-foot limit at the garage site, Chiofaro strapped his helmet on again. At a press conference in the lobby of International Place, he called the Greenway study a ?charade? and accused Menino of manipulating the process. Menino fired back that Chiofaro was just trying to line his pockets. ?It isn?t about making money,? Menino told Common*Wealth. ?It?s about how it affects the city. We have rules and regulations for the Greenway, and one person can?t changes those rules and regulations.?
Less than a week later, with many in the development community wondering whether his attack on the mayor was essentially an acknowledgement that he had given up on his project, Chiofaro was trying to make nice again. ?I think we have had enough of this back and forth,? he suggested in a note to the mayor. He added a postscript about butting heads with Fred Salvucci, the state?s former secretary of transportation, when he was building Inter*national Place. Chiofaro said he and Salvucci eventually found common ground and are friends today. ?I think you and I can have the same result,? he wrote.
Boston?s DNA
Kairos Shen says he would love to get rid of the Harbor Garage. In fact, he calls it a high priority for the city. But, like a character out of Roshomon, his recollection of his dealings with Chiofaro about redeveloping the garage are very different from those of the developer. Shen says he did want a building that exemplified Boston, but he denies giving the impression that Pedersen?s designs were gaining traction with city officials. ?I think he heard what he wanted to hear,? Shen says of Chiofaro.
Under the state?s Public Records Law, CommonWealth reviewed all BRA emails and correspondence dealing with the Harbor Garage. Surprisingly, the review found almost nothing of substance. It?s as if BRA officials never discussed the project internally, at least in memos or emails. When Chiofaro and Oatis sent BRA officials letters and emails characterizing their past meetings as positive, the officials never disputed them.
During an interview in his ninth floor corner office at City Hall, Shen sets the record straight. He says Chiofaro uses economic feasibility as a club, saying the garage won?t get redeveloped unless the city lets him do essentially whatever he wants with the site. ?They want to turn Boston into Shanghai,? he says, a reference to Pedersen?s design of the Shanghai World Financial Center. ?It?s a spectacular building, but it?s not Boston.?
Shen says he wants people approaching the Greenway from the west to feel like they are nearing the harbor?s edge. He doesn?t want tall buildings obstructing their view or creating a canyon-like effect along the Greenway. He says he doesn?t want the Greenway to feel like Park Avenue in New York.
At a computer, Shen shows me the added shadows that would result from just a 400-foot project on the Harbor Garage site. He says shadows from the building would cover the Greenway until nearly noon, roughly two hours longer than with the current 75-foot-high garage. The Greenway would then be free of shadows for the rest of the day, but the shadows from the building would pivot north and then east as the sun moves west. Shadows from the building would initially cover the small park next door, then gradually extend to Long Wharf, the aquarium, the harbor walk, and the water itself.
Ian Bowles, the state?s secretary of energy and environmental affairs, issued notice in July 2009 that Chiofaro?s proposal would require an environmental impact report. His notice stated that Chiofaro?s development proposal at that time was not in compliance with most state and local permitting requirements, including provisions requiring that 50 percent of the site be open space and that there be open-air access between the Greenway and the waterfront.
But Bowles indicated that many of these requirements could be modified if the city, the state, and the developer were amenable. Bowles called Chiofaro?s project ?an iconic development? and suggested it deserved serious exploration. ?The redevelopment of this parcel, which seeks to replace a structure that was suitable for a building in the shadow of an elevated highway with something more appropriate to a landmark public space created by substantial public investment, is emblematic of the transformation that is both possible and necessary to fulfill the vision of the Greenway,? he wrote.
Shen doesn?t agree. He says Chiofaro?s vision for the Harbor Garage site is not what the city or the Greenway needs. ?I?m not a person who wants Boston to stay the same, but I want it to evolve within its genetic code,? he says. ?I can see the future, but I?m respecting the past. (Chiofaro) wants our DNA to be transformed into the super cities in Asia.?
He says he prefers a building like Rowes Wharf which, with its circular cutout in the middle, has become the
signature building on Boston?s waterfront, the one photographers center on when shooting Boston from the harbor-side. Rowes Wharf is brick and its height varies, but at no point is it higher than 200 feet. ?It?s the right scale,? Shen says. ?The DNA is Boston.?
But Shen makes one other point about Rowes Wharf: Its developer, Norman Leventhal, didn?t make any money building it.
Status quo suits abutters
Bud Ris runs the New England Aquarium, but since he doesn?t work directly with the fish, his office is located on the other side of the Greenway on Milk Street. From his fourth-floor office window, he can see the aquarium, but it?s partially hidden behind the Harbor Garage and a clump of trees in a park next door to the garage that was built by a foundation backed by Edward Johnson III of Fidelity Investments.
Ris won?t say it, but the doorstep of the aquarium, which attracts 1.3 million visitors a year, isn?t very attractive. The aquarium looks like it?s in hiding.
The debate over the redevelopment of the Harbor Garage has largely been portrayed as a clash between city and developer, but abutters to the garage have also played an important role. They, too, would like to get rid of the garage, but they have so much invested in the garage that they are wary of change. It?s one of the reasons reaching a resolution on the Harbor Garage property is going to be difficult, if not impossible.
Many of the residents at Harbor Towers, who lease parking spaces in the adjacent Harbor Garage, are strongly opposed to Chiofaro?s project. They live in 400-foot towers that would not be allowed today under the proposed Greenway district height guidelines. Their towers cast un*wanted shadows on the Greenway and the surrounding area. Yet they vehemently oppose another tall building next door, particularly one that would rise even higher, obstruct their views, and disrupt their lives during
construction.
?I?ve lived at Harbor Towers since 1984,? wrote Eileen Cavanagh in a letter to the BRA. ?It looks like my home here will lose its privacy, its view, and, consequently, a good deal of its value.?
Ris has seen drawings produced by Chiofaro that open up the area and make the aquarium a focal point. The drawings incorporate some property belonging to the aquarium and eliminate the park adjacent to Chiofaro?s site. Ris likes the result, but isn?t sure how it could be accomplished. He also worries that any redevelopment of the Harbor Garage will be costly for the aquarium. ?We have a lot at stake in this issue,? he says.
The Harbor Garage occupies a key spot on
the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway
The aquarium rents ground-floor space on the back side of the garage for classrooms. Of its 1.3 million annual visitors, close to two-thirds drive and many of them park in the Harbor Garage. Ris is transforming the area in front of the aquarium into a more inviting space, opening a restaurant and laying plans to erect a large, high-definition outdoor screen on the side of the IMAX theater to help entice people inside.
The aquarium has dug itself out of a financial hole over the last few years and is in the midst of a $40 million fundraising campaign. Ris worries that the aquarium?s progress could be undermined if Chiofaro begins construction and the noise, dust, and confusion over a period of several years negatively affects attendance. Choosing between change or status quo is an easy call for Ris. ?For the moment,? he says, ?the garage works for us.?
Getting it right
The BRA is one of the few agencies of its kind in the nation, a city planning agency that also handles economic development. The joint mission means BRA planners aren?t just developing wish lists; they plan with the economics of development in mind. This dual role of the BRA was a hot issue in the campaign for mayor last year. Menino?s opponents thought the two functions should be separated, in part because the agency was viewed as too powerful.
Chiofaro?s sales pitch is geared to both the planning and economic development branches of the agency, but the economic development component is dominant. As Chiofaro said in a letter to Palmieri, ?We have two choices. We can leave the garage as the eyesore that it is, blocking access to the water and impeding wayfinding for the aquarium, or we can build a substantial mixed-use transit-oriented project that will activate the Greenway, drive more visitors to the aquarium, and serve as an economic driver for the city. The Greenway is currently underutilized. The economy is slow. We have an opportunity to transform an eyesore into an icon.?
It?s an appealing argument, particularly when the Greenway is still trying to find its legs, Downtown Crossing is marred by a hole in the ground, and many office buildings are nearly empty. But planning officials at the BRA, perhaps taking their cue from the mayor, ultimately carried the day. They decided an ugly garage was better than a big development that could negatively impact the Green*way and the waterfront.
?We are potentially missing a large opportunity,? Shen says. ?But it?s one of the most important sites in the city. We want to make sure we get it right.?
Shen says it may take a long time before the value of the Harbor Garage property rises enough to make it economically feasible to tear down the garage and redevelop the site with a 200-foot height limit. He holds out hope that the wait may be short, noting that people once said the Post Office Square garage would never be torn down. Today, the garage is underground and a widely-acclaimed park sits on top of it.
?I guarantee you, in 10 years or 20 years time, parking spaces may not have the same values they have today,? Shen says.
Matthew Littell, a principal at the Toronto firm hired by the BRA to do the Greenway study, said in one email to BRA officials that their hopes for the Harbor Garage site and area may not materialize quickly. ?If Chiofaro represents what the market wants, and if he continues to control the site, then none of what we are showing is likely to happen any time soon,? he wrote.
Chiofaro and Oatis have scrapped their earlier design proposals and are now working on a new one that will be no higher than 615 feet to accommodate concerns raised by officials running Logan Airport. They haven?t given up, but it?s hard to see how they can make the numbers work. And BRA officials are already tuning them out. In an April 23 letter to Chiofaro, BRA director Palmieri wrote that ?your discontent with the outcome of the public process does not mean that the process itself was illegitimate.? He said he did not expect to ?allocate any more staff resources to responding to the extraneous matters raised by your ongoing letter-writing campaign.?
Vivien Li, executive director of the Boston Harbor Association and a savvy observer of the Boston scene, knows both sides of this dispute well. She?s an advocate for the harbor and close to both the mayor and Chiofaro, who is a financial supporter of her organization. After all the studies and public meetings and all the claims that the process dictated the Harbor Garage outcome, her take is that Menino made the final call.
?I don?t think it is about the personalities,? she says. ?It is about the legacy. I think the mayor feels the Greenway is very much his legacy. The mayor feels he is the unofficial guardian of the Greenway now that Ted Kennedy is no longer here.?
http://www.commonwealthmagazine.org/News-and-Features/Features/2010/Summer/Just-plain-ugly.aspx
News and Features: Features
Just plain ugly
The showdown between developer Don Chioforo and City Hall over the unsightly Harbor Garage is about the future of the Greenway, the Waterfront, and Boston's DNA.
BY: Bruce Mohl
Photographs By: Mark Morelli
Issue: Summer 2010
July 27, 2010
Bill Pedersen is a principal at Kohn Pedersen Fox Asso*ciates in New York, a powerhouse architectural firm known for designing tall towers across the globe. He personally oversaw the design of the Shanghai World Financial Center, which looks a lot like a bottle opener, and, at 1,614 feet, is one of the tallest buildings in the world. So when Peder*sen was hired by Boston developer Don Chiofaro at the end of 2007 to come up with a design for a building to replace the Harbor Garage, he wasn?t afraid to think big. He says he experimented with a variety of designs. Some went as high as 1,000 feet. One had what he calls ?international overtones,? architecture-speak for flashy and contemporary. But when he shared that idea with officials at the Boston Redevelopment Authority, they weren?t keen on it. ?They said they wanted it to look like a Boston building,? he says.
But what does a Boston building look like, he wondered? Is it the sleek, mirror-like fa?ade of the John Hancock tower in the Back Bay? The washboard look of the Federal Reserve Bank building across from South Station. Or the elegant brick of Rowes Wharf just a short walk down the Greenway from the Harbor Garage site?
Pedersen says the emblematic structures of Boston are its town houses in the Back Bay and Beacon Hill and the brick walls of many of its buildings and warehouses. He finally settled on a design that featured two towers, one slightly higher than the other, with the north and south faces covered with terra cotta, a type of masonry that has a brick-like appearance. The BRA?s chief planner, Kairos Shen, was intrigued by the design, but felt something was still missing, so Pedersen went back to the drawing board and came up with a design that used terra cotta strips to form a soaring arch between the two buildings.
The new design was shown to Shen and BRA Director John Palmieri in early July 2008. They generally liked what they saw, according to a letter Chiofaro later wrote to Pal*mieri. ?You will recall that the design was received enthusiastically by you and Kairos. You said we were ?almost there? and Kairos indicated we were within 10-15 percent of meeting his expectations.? Chiofaro says Shen wanted the overall height reduced a bit (it was then at 775 feet) and wanted a scale model of the design built (at a cost of $10,000) so it could be placed inside the BRA?s larger
The shadow of the Harbor Garage over
the Greenway at 10 a.m.
model of the city and seen in context.
A week later, Chiofaro, his partner Ted Oatis, Pedersen, and a number of their associates returned to City Hall with two models showing slightly different designs. Chiofaro says Shen and Palmieri were enthusiastic, with Shen calling the design ?iconic.? Pedersen, choosing his words carefully, offers a different take. ?I?m not saying they were jumping up and down, but we were making progress,? he says. ?They felt it was moving in a positive direction. There was even talk of bringing it to the mayor.?
But then, Pedersen says, ?the screen went blank.? There was no meeting with the mayor and the project was essentially put on hold pending the completion of a planning study for the entire Greenway, which had been announced in May. BRA planners also began signaling that tall buildings on the water side of the Greenway would not be acceptable. In February 2009, with the Greenway study still far from finished, the mayor made clear what he thought. ?The chance of Don Chiofaro building [it] is about as likely as an 80-degree day in January,? he told the Boston Herald. ?It?s too big. His chances are slim to none.?
Thinking big
Don Chiofaro likes to think big. It?s part of his DNA. He bought the Harbor Garage because he wanted to make a skyline statement. He wants to tear down an eyesore along the city?s new front yard and transform it into a glittering symbol of Boston, complete with a hotel, office space, and condominiums. He says his project will pump new life into the Greenway, provide greater access to the harbor and the aquarium, and generate millions of dollars of new tax revenue for the city. Ever the showman, he put a big red X on the Greenway side of the garage to show the size of the glass-enclosed opening between his two proposed towers that would provide a view toward the harbor.
Chiofaro and Oatis paid $153 million for the garage in 2007. The mayor and other critics say they overpaid by close to $30 million and are now trying to build big to recoup their unwise investment. Oatis finds that insulting. ?What we?re trying to do is the right thing. It?s what the city needs,? he says. As for overpaying, he says he and Chiofaro didn?t even submit the highest offer during the first round of bidding. Oatis says the highest bid in the first round was $150 million, followed by Chiofaro at $148 million, and three others who were bunched in the $145 million to $147 million range.
The garage appears to be a cash cow. It has 1,400 parking spaces and anyone who parks longer than 80 minutes pays $35. Oatis says the garage generates an operating profit of $8.5 million a year. To redevelop the site, Chiofaro and Oatis say, they need a building or buildings that would generate enough revenue to offset the loss of the annual parking income and the cost of burying the existing 1,400 spaces underground. They say it would cost about $100,000 per space, or about $140 million, to put the garage underground. To make the numbers work, Chiofaro says he needs to build high, at least 520 feet, according to one study he had done.
But the city is not interested in such a tall building at the Harbor Garage site. As this story goes to press, the city?s planning study for the Greenway is headed toward final approval with a 200-foot limit on any building on the site. That?s 45 feet higher than the existing zoning allows, but well below what Chiofaro says he needs to move forward.
Don Chioforo, at left, and Ted Oatis
on the roof of the Harbor Garage
During a series of interviews at their offices on the 46th floor of One International Place, a two-tower project they completed in 1992, Chiofaro and Oatis say they feel betrayed by the BRA. They say agency officials repeatedly offered encouragement, and then pulled the rug out from underneath them. ?They forgot what their job is,? Chiofaro says of the BRA officials. ?They went from being an economic development agency to being a tool of the fifth floor,? he says, referring to the City Hall location of the mayor?s office.
Chiofaro and Oatis aren?t sure what to do now. They are working on a new building design, but they vacillate between talking tough and making nice, as they have throughout the city?s review process. Early in 2008, for example, Chiofaro wrote an article for the Boston Business Journal as word began to spread of his ambitious plans for the Harbor Garage site. He urged Bostonians to keep an open mind, condemning the ?negativism inherent in our collective character? and our ?can?t-do attitude.? One BRA official emailed a copy of the article to Shen, the city?s director of planning, with a note saying ?his helmet is on,? a reference to Chiofaro?s days as a middle linebacker at Harvard.
During the latter half of 2008 and much of 2009, Chio*faro and his building plans were often under fire. The Herald quoted one anonymous City Hall source as saying Chiofaro was ?annoying? and had a ?tin ear.? Menino, running for a fifth term, told CommonWealth during the summer of 2009 that it?s not his job to make Chiofaro a ?gazillionaire.? Yet Chiofaro held his tongue. He told Common*Wealth he had enormous respect for the mayor and hoped he would come to appreciate the jobs and benefits his project would bring. He even sent City Hall officials a picture of himself dressed as a tin man and signed some emails to BRA officials as ?Tin Ear.?
But in April, with the Greenway study recommending a 200-foot limit at the garage site, Chiofaro strapped his helmet on again. At a press conference in the lobby of International Place, he called the Greenway study a ?charade? and accused Menino of manipulating the process. Menino fired back that Chiofaro was just trying to line his pockets. ?It isn?t about making money,? Menino told Common*Wealth. ?It?s about how it affects the city. We have rules and regulations for the Greenway, and one person can?t changes those rules and regulations.?
Less than a week later, with many in the development community wondering whether his attack on the mayor was essentially an acknowledgement that he had given up on his project, Chiofaro was trying to make nice again. ?I think we have had enough of this back and forth,? he suggested in a note to the mayor. He added a postscript about butting heads with Fred Salvucci, the state?s former secretary of transportation, when he was building Inter*national Place. Chiofaro said he and Salvucci eventually found common ground and are friends today. ?I think you and I can have the same result,? he wrote.
Boston?s DNA
Kairos Shen says he would love to get rid of the Harbor Garage. In fact, he calls it a high priority for the city. But, like a character out of Roshomon, his recollection of his dealings with Chiofaro about redeveloping the garage are very different from those of the developer. Shen says he did want a building that exemplified Boston, but he denies giving the impression that Pedersen?s designs were gaining traction with city officials. ?I think he heard what he wanted to hear,? Shen says of Chiofaro.
Under the state?s Public Records Law, CommonWealth reviewed all BRA emails and correspondence dealing with the Harbor Garage. Surprisingly, the review found almost nothing of substance. It?s as if BRA officials never discussed the project internally, at least in memos or emails. When Chiofaro and Oatis sent BRA officials letters and emails characterizing their past meetings as positive, the officials never disputed them.
During an interview in his ninth floor corner office at City Hall, Shen sets the record straight. He says Chiofaro uses economic feasibility as a club, saying the garage won?t get redeveloped unless the city lets him do essentially whatever he wants with the site. ?They want to turn Boston into Shanghai,? he says, a reference to Pedersen?s design of the Shanghai World Financial Center. ?It?s a spectacular building, but it?s not Boston.?
Shen says he wants people approaching the Greenway from the west to feel like they are nearing the harbor?s edge. He doesn?t want tall buildings obstructing their view or creating a canyon-like effect along the Greenway. He says he doesn?t want the Greenway to feel like Park Avenue in New York.
At a computer, Shen shows me the added shadows that would result from just a 400-foot project on the Harbor Garage site. He says shadows from the building would cover the Greenway until nearly noon, roughly two hours longer than with the current 75-foot-high garage. The Greenway would then be free of shadows for the rest of the day, but the shadows from the building would pivot north and then east as the sun moves west. Shadows from the building would initially cover the small park next door, then gradually extend to Long Wharf, the aquarium, the harbor walk, and the water itself.
Ian Bowles, the state?s secretary of energy and environmental affairs, issued notice in July 2009 that Chiofaro?s proposal would require an environmental impact report. His notice stated that Chiofaro?s development proposal at that time was not in compliance with most state and local permitting requirements, including provisions requiring that 50 percent of the site be open space and that there be open-air access between the Greenway and the waterfront.
But Bowles indicated that many of these requirements could be modified if the city, the state, and the developer were amenable. Bowles called Chiofaro?s project ?an iconic development? and suggested it deserved serious exploration. ?The redevelopment of this parcel, which seeks to replace a structure that was suitable for a building in the shadow of an elevated highway with something more appropriate to a landmark public space created by substantial public investment, is emblematic of the transformation that is both possible and necessary to fulfill the vision of the Greenway,? he wrote.
Shen doesn?t agree. He says Chiofaro?s vision for the Harbor Garage site is not what the city or the Greenway needs. ?I?m not a person who wants Boston to stay the same, but I want it to evolve within its genetic code,? he says. ?I can see the future, but I?m respecting the past. (Chiofaro) wants our DNA to be transformed into the super cities in Asia.?
He says he prefers a building like Rowes Wharf which, with its circular cutout in the middle, has become the
signature building on Boston?s waterfront, the one photographers center on when shooting Boston from the harbor-side. Rowes Wharf is brick and its height varies, but at no point is it higher than 200 feet. ?It?s the right scale,? Shen says. ?The DNA is Boston.?
But Shen makes one other point about Rowes Wharf: Its developer, Norman Leventhal, didn?t make any money building it.
Status quo suits abutters
Bud Ris runs the New England Aquarium, but since he doesn?t work directly with the fish, his office is located on the other side of the Greenway on Milk Street. From his fourth-floor office window, he can see the aquarium, but it?s partially hidden behind the Harbor Garage and a clump of trees in a park next door to the garage that was built by a foundation backed by Edward Johnson III of Fidelity Investments.
Ris won?t say it, but the doorstep of the aquarium, which attracts 1.3 million visitors a year, isn?t very attractive. The aquarium looks like it?s in hiding.
The debate over the redevelopment of the Harbor Garage has largely been portrayed as a clash between city and developer, but abutters to the garage have also played an important role. They, too, would like to get rid of the garage, but they have so much invested in the garage that they are wary of change. It?s one of the reasons reaching a resolution on the Harbor Garage property is going to be difficult, if not impossible.
Many of the residents at Harbor Towers, who lease parking spaces in the adjacent Harbor Garage, are strongly opposed to Chiofaro?s project. They live in 400-foot towers that would not be allowed today under the proposed Greenway district height guidelines. Their towers cast un*wanted shadows on the Greenway and the surrounding area. Yet they vehemently oppose another tall building next door, particularly one that would rise even higher, obstruct their views, and disrupt their lives during
construction.
?I?ve lived at Harbor Towers since 1984,? wrote Eileen Cavanagh in a letter to the BRA. ?It looks like my home here will lose its privacy, its view, and, consequently, a good deal of its value.?
Ris has seen drawings produced by Chiofaro that open up the area and make the aquarium a focal point. The drawings incorporate some property belonging to the aquarium and eliminate the park adjacent to Chiofaro?s site. Ris likes the result, but isn?t sure how it could be accomplished. He also worries that any redevelopment of the Harbor Garage will be costly for the aquarium. ?We have a lot at stake in this issue,? he says.
The Harbor Garage occupies a key spot on
the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway
The aquarium rents ground-floor space on the back side of the garage for classrooms. Of its 1.3 million annual visitors, close to two-thirds drive and many of them park in the Harbor Garage. Ris is transforming the area in front of the aquarium into a more inviting space, opening a restaurant and laying plans to erect a large, high-definition outdoor screen on the side of the IMAX theater to help entice people inside.
The aquarium has dug itself out of a financial hole over the last few years and is in the midst of a $40 million fundraising campaign. Ris worries that the aquarium?s progress could be undermined if Chiofaro begins construction and the noise, dust, and confusion over a period of several years negatively affects attendance. Choosing between change or status quo is an easy call for Ris. ?For the moment,? he says, ?the garage works for us.?
Getting it right
The BRA is one of the few agencies of its kind in the nation, a city planning agency that also handles economic development. The joint mission means BRA planners aren?t just developing wish lists; they plan with the economics of development in mind. This dual role of the BRA was a hot issue in the campaign for mayor last year. Menino?s opponents thought the two functions should be separated, in part because the agency was viewed as too powerful.
Chiofaro?s sales pitch is geared to both the planning and economic development branches of the agency, but the economic development component is dominant. As Chiofaro said in a letter to Palmieri, ?We have two choices. We can leave the garage as the eyesore that it is, blocking access to the water and impeding wayfinding for the aquarium, or we can build a substantial mixed-use transit-oriented project that will activate the Greenway, drive more visitors to the aquarium, and serve as an economic driver for the city. The Greenway is currently underutilized. The economy is slow. We have an opportunity to transform an eyesore into an icon.?
It?s an appealing argument, particularly when the Greenway is still trying to find its legs, Downtown Crossing is marred by a hole in the ground, and many office buildings are nearly empty. But planning officials at the BRA, perhaps taking their cue from the mayor, ultimately carried the day. They decided an ugly garage was better than a big development that could negatively impact the Green*way and the waterfront.
?We are potentially missing a large opportunity,? Shen says. ?But it?s one of the most important sites in the city. We want to make sure we get it right.?
Shen says it may take a long time before the value of the Harbor Garage property rises enough to make it economically feasible to tear down the garage and redevelop the site with a 200-foot height limit. He holds out hope that the wait may be short, noting that people once said the Post Office Square garage would never be torn down. Today, the garage is underground and a widely-acclaimed park sits on top of it.
?I guarantee you, in 10 years or 20 years time, parking spaces may not have the same values they have today,? Shen says.
Matthew Littell, a principal at the Toronto firm hired by the BRA to do the Greenway study, said in one email to BRA officials that their hopes for the Harbor Garage site and area may not materialize quickly. ?If Chiofaro represents what the market wants, and if he continues to control the site, then none of what we are showing is likely to happen any time soon,? he wrote.
Chiofaro and Oatis have scrapped their earlier design proposals and are now working on a new one that will be no higher than 615 feet to accommodate concerns raised by officials running Logan Airport. They haven?t given up, but it?s hard to see how they can make the numbers work. And BRA officials are already tuning them out. In an April 23 letter to Chiofaro, BRA director Palmieri wrote that ?your discontent with the outcome of the public process does not mean that the process itself was illegitimate.? He said he did not expect to ?allocate any more staff resources to responding to the extraneous matters raised by your ongoing letter-writing campaign.?
Vivien Li, executive director of the Boston Harbor Association and a savvy observer of the Boston scene, knows both sides of this dispute well. She?s an advocate for the harbor and close to both the mayor and Chiofaro, who is a financial supporter of her organization. After all the studies and public meetings and all the claims that the process dictated the Harbor Garage outcome, her take is that Menino made the final call.
?I don?t think it is about the personalities,? she says. ?It is about the legacy. I think the mayor feels the Greenway is very much his legacy. The mayor feels he is the unofficial guardian of the Greenway now that Ted Kennedy is no longer here.?
http://www.commonwealthmagazine.org/News-and-Features/Features/2010/Summer/Just-plain-ugly.aspx
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