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

[vanshnookenraggen]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

I find those shapes much more interesting than the first design. I usually don't like the whole contemporary Fortress of Solitude look but it can work in places. The new Bank of America tower is pretty sweet and the Boston skyline would really shine with these two jewels in it. That assumes that he uses good materials.

 

[AmericanFolkLegend]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

This is what I would like to see happen in a dream world:

5. You won?t be able to fill 2 gigantic mediocre buildings. Why the obsession with 2 towers, Don? 'Recouping costs' as the canned answer doesn't make any sense to me...

Wasn't the plan for one tower of office and one tower of residential/hotel? Why would adding two towers be harder to fill than one if the uses are different? My concern with dropping to one tower is that he'll design huge floor plates and the building will look like shit.

 

[Beton Brut]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

Anyone notice that the silhouettes are similar to the Ted Raymond/Cook + Fox scheme for the Congress Street Garage?

 

[KentXie]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

Looks more like two gemstone outcrop.

From the rendering, I can't tell whether it's good or not, but from what is shown, it definitely does not look like the Millennium Towers. In fact nothing like them since the corners lean in and out, not going up straight and vertically. If anything, it resembles that new building in Philly.

 

[KentXie]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

5. You won?t be able to fill 2 gigantic mediocre buildings. Why the obsession with 2 towers, Don? 'Recouping costs' as the canned answer doesn't make any sense to me...

NO! First of all, unless Don wants to build a project with half the space as he plans to create now (which most likely he won't), in order to make up for the lost space, he would have to increase the single tower's width (since he can't go up) making it more squat and ugly than any of his other proposals.


Also I want to state this. The key player here is the Mayor. He can make or break this project and no matter what, the Mayor is in a Lose-Lose situation. First of all, here are his two choices. Negotiate and allow a scale down project, or keep the garage and 200ft cap limit. It's either break the 200ft cap or keep the eyesore. It is not possible to do both because it is not feasible for Chiofaro and thus there is no incentive for him to do so. In fact, most likely it will never be possible to keep the cap limit and rid eyesore for one reason. With the Greenway, the garage's land value will continue to go up. If anything, the garage will become more expensive in the future, making any development even less feasible under a 200 ft cap limit.

 

[stellarfun]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

Almost a year ago, he said he was going to reduce the size of the towers, cutting the tallest to 625 feet, with the second being shorter by an unstated number of feet.

http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2009/10/12/daily36.html

So eleven months later, he has followed through on what he said he would do, and now -- after months of design sweat and labor, and what looks to be a parsimonious amount of spending -- produced two amorphous polygons, about which little can be determined. Bravo.

 

[Bubbybu]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

I never understood that argument though...less space doesn't necessarily mean he needs to make anything up for the reduction.... he wouldn't be spending anything on not building a second tower...it's not like he is paying for 2 towers but only building one...the true cost of course is that he uses less space for building but he can still profit nicely if it's done right...

to me it's an issue of scale...right now building big, in volume and height, is too risky...Don and his partners might be able to make the debt payments for a while but how could expect to turn a profit on this project in the near future based on current market conditions? luxury condos are extremely overpriced and oversaturated atm...would biz tenants find it worthwhile to make the move en masse? just seems very risky given the scale and possible mediocrity of the proposal...

IMO...put your eggs in one basket and build something amazing, on par with the Agbar tower or one of the new mini towers in NYC and you basically create your own market in terms of being THE building that stands out in the city....

 

[kz1000ps]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

What's with the base in the rendering? Did he hire a six-year-old to whip this up?

 

[KentXie]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

I never understood that argument though...less space doesn't necessarily mean he needs to make anything up for the reduction.... he wouldn't be spending anything on not building a second tower...it's not like he is paying for 2 towers but only building one...the true cost of course is that he uses less space for building but he can still profit nicely if it's done right...

I can straighten out your confusion. Right now, Chiofaro is already complaining that two short towers is not feasible already because it's not enough to turn a profit. Building one tower at the same height and size will only reduce the returns he receive. It's not about the cost of construction. That's a one time payment, and small compared to the profit in the long run. In fact you can claim that it's better to build two towers because it's more cost efficient. What do I mean by that? It means that Don would probably rent the same amount of cranes, machineries, construction team, etc etc to build either one tower or two (similar to buying things in bulk). If this is true, building two towers (if there are tenants lined up) would be marginally cheaper and returns will be quicker in balancing the cost.

 

[KentXie]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

Almost a year ago, he said he was going to reduce the size of the towers, cutting the tallest to 625 feet, with the second being shorter by an unstated number of feet.

http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2009/10/12/daily36.html

So eleven months later, he has followed through on what he said he would do, and now -- after months of design sweat and labor, and what looks to be a parsimonious amount of spending -- produced two amorphous polygons, about which little can be determined. Bravo.

You have to agree that these two towers, even though they are amorphous polygons, are more creative than half the city's high-rises.

 

[Beton Brut]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

What's with the base in the rendering? Did he hire a six-year-old to whip this up?

The forms at the base seem to be informed by the ill-mannered addition to the Aquarium, and the Imax Theatre. I wonder if Bill Pedersen's still involved in this project; this scheme looks derivative and frankly, beneath him.

 

[stellarfun]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

I can straighten out your confusion. Right now, Chiofaro is already complaining that two short towers is not feasible already because it's not enough to turn a profit. Building one tower at the same height and size will only reduce the returns he receive. It's not about the cost of construction. That's a one time payment, and small compared to the profit in the long run. In fact you can claim that it's better to build two towers because it's more cost efficient. What do I mean by that? It means that Don would probably rent the same amount of cranes, machineries, construction team, etc etc to build either one tower or two (similar to buying things in bulk). If this is true, building two towers (if there are tenants lined up) would be marginally cheaper and returns will be quicker in balancing the cost.

The original arch was going to be built in phases over a five to seven year period IIRC. In fact, there would be little or no savings because there would be a gap in the construction sequence.

Joe Nocera recently wrote a article in the NY Times about the new One World Trade Center, which is costing $1,300 a sq ft. to build; a sq ft cost which is more than double what it costs to build a skyscraper in Manhattan these days.

Chiofaro is still saying that he will spend $1 billion to build 1.2 million sq ft, which is $835 a sq. ft., or probably 33 percent more than what it currently costs to build a high-rise in Boston.

Nocera said that to recover the One World Trade Center costs, the rental costs would be $130 a sq ft. A cost that nobody would pay. The Port Authority says the construction costs are being offset by a $1 billion insurance payment, and the rental costs will be less than $130 a sq ft. As a government agency is building One World Trade Center, they can, to paraphrase Star Trek, 'boldly go where no developer has gone before'.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/18/business/18nocera.html?ref=freedom_tower_nyc

Nobody, not even Prudential, is going to lend Chiofaro the construction financing $ to build whatever he builds simply on spec, particularly if it looks like there will be no tenants willing to pay $80 or $90 a sq ft. to locate there.

So I am increasingly convinced Chiofaro has become the biggest b.s. artist in Boston since P.T. Barnum brought his circus to town.

 

[greenwayguy1982]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

KentXie,
What's that about a 200-foot tower being too short to turn a profit? If that's the case it's only the case because they paid too much for the Harbor Garage...heck, the developer of Battery Wharf managed to (almost) turn a profit at 55 feet, because they paid an appropriate amount for the site. The Harbor Garage has been zoned for 155' for years, and it was when Chiofaro/Pru bought it...so either they should have paid a price that a 155' development would have sustained, or they should have bought it on a contingent basis like a developer like Beal would have done and did at the Clarendon site....they put it under agreement, then permitted it, then paid a certain number per square foot of development that actually got permitted. Why Don didn't do that is anyone's guess but now (if you believe what you say), he's stuck chasing a project that will never get built - it's his fault, not the city's...the zoning on that site had been what it was for many years before Menino was Mayor or Don Chiofaro (more accurately, his partner Prudential) bought the garage.

 

[JohnAKeith]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

As a commenter on Boston.com cleverly noted, the buildings are pointed in an apparent dig at Mayor Menino - he can't design a top to fit it.

 

[PaulC]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

No crystal ball needed:

Menino gets developer to lower the build 4+ stories

Meno gets increased developer money for low income housing

Menino gets developer to buy two bikes for tranportaion mitigation

Menino gets funds for greenway that the city has never paid into

Win Win for Menino. Menino is everybody's hero again. Complete loss for Chiofaro, oh except for building what he really intended all along

 

[found5dollar]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

for those of us that are lazy and do not click links (like me usualy) here:

Old Design-------------------------------------------------------------------New Design

 

[KentXie]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

Nobody, not even Prudential, is going to lend Chiofaro the construction financing $ to build whatever he builds simply on spec, particularly if it looks like there will be no tenants willing to pay $80 or $90 a sq ft. to locate there.

So I am increasingly convinced Chiofaro has become the biggest b.s. artist in Boston since P.T. Barnum brought his circus to town.

You haven't even given Chiofaro a chance. Read what I wrote before. All of it will be on speculation until Menino and Chiofaro starts to work something out. Again, why would ANY tenants line themselves up on a development, which dimension is still being hammered out. Tenants will not make a promise with the developer UNLESS they know that the building is large enough to accomodate them, or if the developer even have a chance to be developed, which at this moment seems very unlikely with the mayor refusing to discuss.

 

[KentXie]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

KentXie,
What's that about a 200-foot tower being too short to turn a profit? If that's the case it's only the case because they paid too much for the Harbor Garage...heck, the developer of Battery Wharf managed to (almost) turn a profit at 55 feet, because they paid an appropriate amount for the site. The Harbor Garage has been zoned for 155' for years, and it was when Chiofaro/Pru bought it...so either they should have paid a price that a 155' development would have sustained, or they should have bought it on a contingent basis like a developer like Beal would have done and did at the Clarendon site....they put it under agreement, then permitted it, then paid a certain number per square foot of development that actually got permitted. Why Don didn't do that is anyone's guess but now (if you believe what you say), he's stuck chasing a project that will never get built - it's his fault, not the city's...the zoning on that site had been what it was for many years before Menino was Mayor or Don Chiofaro (more accurately, his partner Prudential) bought the garage.

Greenwayguy, your argument doesn't matter because 1) Chiofaro has already bought the garage at that price. Because of this, Chiofaro WILL NOT build anything at 200ft because it not feasible for him. Let me ask you this. Let's say you overpaid for something. Would you build something that would get you a negative net profit? You wouldn't because that would only put you further in debt. Thus, you will be given two choice, to build or not to build and in this case, you wouldn't build. 2) Most likely, if Chiofaro ever sells the garage back, the value of the garage itself will most likely be higher than the value when it was bought by Chiofaro. Why? Because of the Greenway which is increasing the land value of its surrounding area. The value will only continue to increase as more of the plan projects on the Greenway becomes realized, which means that anybody that buys the garage in the future can only make a development feasible if it exceeds to 200ft limit (or charge an incredible rate which no tenant will agree to). You can put the blame on whoever you want, Don or Menino, because it doesn't matter who. Don will not build anything until its feasible meaning if Menino doesn't budge, the eyesore that is the garage will stay. Comparing it to other developement wouldn't matter because Don has already overpaid and common sense is that you won't build anything unless its feasible. Plain and simple.

 

[greenwayguy1982]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

^^KentXie, it's time for a lesson in real estate economics, 2010-style. The way that Don could build at 200 feet is if his partner Prudential agrees to do what the majority of other institutional investors in the good ol' US of A have done in the past 24 months and take an impairment on their asset - if they are so hell-bent on developing this site, they could mark its value to market and lower their basis by 50% in one fell swoop. Also, if they get fed up and just sell the garage, its market value as a development site would absolutely be impacted by the 2+ years of BS that have now transpired around this development - you think any other developer in his/her right mind would pay *more* for the site as a development site after seeing what Prudential went through? Not a chance. Would they pay less for the site and propose something consistent with zoning and Chapter 91, you bet - that's the best hope for this site, another Rowes Wharf, with a land cost to match. Time alone will tell.

 

[TheRifleman]

Re: The Boston Arch (Aquarium parking garage)

^^KentXie, it's time for a lesson in real estate economics, 2010-style. The way that Don could build at 200 feet is if his partner Prudential agrees to do what the majority of other institutional investors in the good ol' US of A have done in the past 24 months and take an impairment on their asset - if they are so hell-bent on developing this site, they could mark its value to market and lower their basis by 50% in one fell swoop. Also, if they get fed up and just sell the garage, its market value as a development site would absolutely be impacted by the 2+ years of BS that have now transpired around this development - you think any other developer in his/her right mind would pay *more* for the site as a development site after seeing what Prudential went through? Not a chance. Would they pay less for the site and propose something consistent with zoning and Chapter 91, you bet - that's the best hope for this site, another Rowes Wharf, with a land cost to match. Time alone will tell.

The garage site is probably cash flow positive which puts Chiofaro and PRU in a win/win situation. Chiofaro is right when he says this is the best location in the city for a development. The foot traffic alone in this area generates substantial amount of people during the day. Chiofaro would not have a problem with finding Tenants in this location.

Chiofaro paid 155 Million for the garage. He could probably sell the 1400parking spots in 99leases per spot for a minimum of 115K. Do the math that is a 160 Million alone not including the retail level. Parking spots are scarce and priceless in the city of Boston. One parking spot just sold in the backbay for $315,000.

I think the key to the location is the Water, The Greenway, The Aquarium, The T, and 5 Min walk to Downtown. 155Million was CHEAP.

This garage was worth every penny. I wish I had the money.