Atlantic Wharf (née Russia Wharf) | Atlantic Ave | Waterfront

Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

We don't really need to see the same thing over and over. Not that I care, I just scroll past them qucikly unless there is something new. Maybe its interesting to out of towners, I see this stuff everyday in person.
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

The darker and grayer the picture, the more attractive this building becomes. Curious !
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

so whats gonna happen on those columns that arent covered?
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

DZH22 said:
Oh yes, I'm sure most people are clicking on these threads to hear random person X trying to one-up random person Y in who can be the biggest complainer. Instead of pictures, we can just listen to people bitch about it and then use our imaginations about how crappy any/all new projects are looking. Also, I guess it slipped my mind just how easy it is for every single person reading these threads to just pop down and look at these projects anytime. Why don't I just hop into my teleporter and I can go get my daily update. Seriously man, you could have at least been a little more timely in presenting your already weakened case. The guy only posted 3 pictures!
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Let's not talk about what "most people" want. Of 84,000 posts on ArchBoston, 50% (over 40,000) are by only 15 people including you. I'd suggest that people do come here for a discussion, not for daily photo updates to a construction project.

My guess is that there are a number of active people on ArchBoston who are directly involved with projects, and the interests are not the same.

My personal interest is not because I am in the development business, I am interested in learning more about why Boston is seen as a City in which the world's top architects have continued to see as 2nd-tier backwater, notable architects have refused to work in Boston, and most Boston projects go to connected local developers.

You may see my posts as complaining, but don't suggest "most people" do. I'd bet that others (maybe a minority, maybe more) agree with me that Boston is falling behind because projects that express mediocrity in architecture and materials always seems to find a huge team cheerleaders.

I won't suggest that my opinion of Atlantic Wharf is definitive. But it's my opinion that the project is 3rd rate, its materials are 3rd rate, and its public and civic spaces fall far short of most Waterfront cities -- far below where it should have been given the variances handed over to its original owner (I believe Equity Office). I'd like to hear from people with experience in other cities and some knowledge of Boston's permitting process how it compares.
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

I won't suggest that my opinion of Atlantic Wharf is definitive. But it's my opinion that the project is 3rd rate, its materials are 3rd rate, and its public and civic spaces fall far short of most Waterfront cities -- far below where it should have been given the variances handed over to its original owner (I believe Equity Office). I'd like to hear from people with experience in other cities and some knowledge of Boston's permitting process how it compares.
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One problem with referencing the variances the project received and then comparing to other cities is that in so many cities in this country this project would have been allowed as-of-right. There would have been no variances required. And the nods toward historic preservation and public space would have been superficial if they existed at all. A bigger question for me is:
Why do we need variances to build 30 story buildings in our Central Business District?
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

AmericanFolkLegend said:
so many cities in this country this project would have been allowed as-of-right.
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I'm not aware of cities without zoning (and applications for variances from zoning) other than Houston, which I believe does not have zoning. I'm not a big fan of Houston.

In Boston, without zoning and planning, the water's edge would be completely privatized. Historically, there were people who turned over the rights to fill Boston Harbor, while recognizing the value in public access and provisions along tidelands. You need zoning to accomplish this.

If you're view is that anything that gets proposed should simply be built as-of-right, which implies no approval process whatsoever, please indicate modern examples of unzoned, unplanned districts worth appreciating. I'm open to learning more on this.
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

Sicilian said:
I'm not aware of cities without zoning (and applications for variances from zoning) other than Houston, which I believe does not have zoning. I'm not a big fan of Houston.

In Boston, without zoning and planning, the water's edge would be completely privatized. Historically, there were people who turned over the rights to fill Boston Harbor, while recognizing the value in public access and provisions along tidelands. You need zoning to accomplish this.

If you're view is that anything that gets proposed should simply be built as-of-right, which implies no approval process whatsoever, please indicate modern examples of unzoned, unplanned districts worth appreciating. I'm open to learning more on this.
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You misunderstood my post. I'm not advocating the abolishment on zoning. My point is that zoning in alot of the country allows 30-story buildings in the CBD. Certainly there's a review process, but 30 stories doesn't require major heigh/density variances in many CBDs. In Boston we have a strict zoning requirements. Particularly along the waterfront. For the most part, these are good things. That's why there's public space in nee Russia Wharf. That's why the wharf buildings were preserved. You lament these small concessions. I suggest you should embrace them. In alot of cities there would have been no concessions required.
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

So was it zoning, concessions, and the need to retain the historic facade that made this a mediocre building?
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

OK. I see what you are saying...

A) I think the "concessions" required of Russia Wharf were small and ridiculous, including the nod to historic preservation and the process by which public amenities were determined which took five years and the outcome includes a hotel lobby named "Town Square". I am a proponent of preservation where it makes sense, including Fort Point, but I'd have preferred Russia Wharf had been entirely demolished than what we have now. The fact that a Starbucks is going in on the first floor is an indication that the developer is milking every dollar instead of subsidizing first floor spaces to contribute to a more valuable district. That same property owner is the beneficiary of significant taxpayer improvements on adjacent parcels and it is not outside the norm to suggest that the approval process must be a quid pro quo to produce a STELLAR outcome.

B) I think you and I both agree that height/density seems to evoke hysteria. I'd suggest that contrary to Boston Globe articles, NIMBYism has never been a significant factor in the height/density debate in Boston's Seaport or Financial District. Outside of the FAA requirements, the height/density of projects are capped arbitrarily by a City Hall approval process that is basically a shakedown in private meetings between each proponent and the Mayor and BRA. If it were me, approvals for height/density above as-of-right in the Financial District would not be an issue if architecture (and in some cases use -- including residential) met a very high standard -- at least a standard that approached the taxpayer's investment in that district in public transportation, etc.
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

Sicilian said:
You may see my posts as complaining, but don't suggest "most people" do. I'd bet that others (maybe a minority, maybe more) agree with me that Boston is falling behind because projects that express mediocrity in architecture and materials always seems to find a huge team cheerleaders.
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First of all, sorry if I was a little scathing in my last post. It was not meant as a personal attack, but your argument really struck a nerve.

I think a lot of people are cheering this building because it's the tallest we have gotten here in about 7-8 years (plus, the materials are actually pretty nice, unlike half the W, the black wall/"crown" of 45 Province, and the entirety of the Clarendon, especially that pos top).

I would say Boston is falling behind more-so in that: The top 4 buildings have been exactly the same since 1976, the top 7 since 1988. Every new project that gets built is just filler, and ultimately takes a backseat in the skyline to the towers that were built 22-40 years ago. (biggest exception, 111 Huntington?) I used to have so much optimism for projects such as the South Station Tower, Gateway Place, Tommy's Tower (which was designed pretty terribly in its only real incarnation), and many other "grand scale" projects. After 10 years on this and the older skyscraperguy site, it makes me realize how backwards this city is and that the 4/7 tallest will probably stay the same for a heck of a long time (especially Hancock/Pru ruling the city, might be forever). All these other (many smaller) cities are passing Boston in skyline, both in height and in height density. While the Asian/Middle Eastern cities are a whole different animal, it seems that cities EVERYWHERE are striving for great new towers, while Boston gets stuck with squatness, delays, or giant holes in the ground.

Basically, I think people like this project because we are starving for more in our city. This huge boom that was supposed to happen got cut off at 3 300 footers, and 1 just around 400. If my options are that Boston will either get a 400 footer, or get nothing, I'll take that squat glass tower with the random grid side and funky haircut any day and twice on Sunday.
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

^DZH22

My views are probably not in line with quite a few folks here, since the scale of a project doesn't get me (although I totally support a skies-the-limit view in the Financial District and outlying areas). But I'm much more interested in the quality of what gets built, regardless of scale, and that the land use (i.e. commercial, residential, civic, etc.) meets the potential of Boston as a great City.

As you suggest, something is definitely broken if our densest district has had such a dirth of tall buildings. IMO, height and density should be encouraged, particularly where there is a concentration of public transit.

As for the major failure of Boston planning I'd list these significant factors in order of personal importance:

1. Approval of ridiculously scaled megablocks and car-centric roadways (Greenway / Seaport).
2. Over-reliance on tax breaks, taxpayer financed subsidies and public works projects to improve private property (121A, Convention Center Expansion as examples)
3. Insider trading. The BRA uses zoning as a tool to exact "benefits" that seem to be directed off-site, with a lack of transparency. Each new BRA Director over the past two decades has promised to improve the agency's transparency and done little to follow through.
4. Lack of political support for significant residential development in Downtown, Seaport and Greenway area. The BRA should be offering approval of variances for large projects (beyond as-of-right) to subsidize residential components and requiring the residential components along with each project. Realtors will say there is not enough demand - I've seen reports that 10,000 people would move to Boston if adequate housing was available. And you don't get 24/7 without residents.
5. Lack of enforcement over parking lots, allowing owners to collect revenue for over-parking instead of building. The BRA has a love affair with cars, as if they see Boston as a destination, not a place to live.
6. Questionable oversight of the Boston Civic Design Commission. I'd like to see a published list of projects along with the architects on the BCDC who approved them.
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

Sicilian said:
^DZH22

My views are probably not in line with quite a few folks here, since the scale of a project doesn't get me (although I totally support a skies-the-limit view in the Financial District and outlying areas). But I'm much more interested in the quality of what gets built, regardless of scale, and that the land use (i.e. commercial, residential, civic, etc.) meets the potential of Boston as a great City.

As you suggest, something is definitely broken if our densest district has had such a dirth of tall buildings. IMO, height and density should be encouraged, particularly where there is a concentration of public transit.

As for the major failure of Boston planning I'd list these significant factors in order of personal importance:

1. Approval of ridiculously scaled megablocks and car-centric roadways (Greenway / Seaport).
2. Over-reliance on tax breaks, taxpayer financed subsidies and public works projects to improve private property (121A, Convention Center Expansion as examples)
3. Insider trading. The BRA uses zoning as a tool to exact "benefits" that seem to be directed off-site, with a lack of transparency. Each new BRA Director over the past two decades has promised to improve the agency's transparency and done little to follow through.
4. Lack of political support for significant residential development in Downtown, Seaport and Greenway area. The BRA should be offering approval of variances for large projects (beyond as-of-right) to subsidize residential components and requiring the residential components along with each project. Realtors will say there is not enough demand - I've seen reports that 10,000 people would move to Boston if adequate housing was available. And you don't get 24/7 without residents.
5. Lack of enforcement over parking lots, allowing owners to collect revenue for over-parking instead of building. The BRA has a love affair with cars, as if they see Boston as a destination, not a place to live.
6. Questionable oversight of the Boston Civic Design Commission. I'd like to see a published list of projects along with the architects on the BCDC who approved them.
Click to expand...

Just a point on #3. The exactions the BRA takes are written into and regulated by Article 80B-7 of the City's Zoning Code. There are two types of exactions the BRA can exact, a Housing exaction and a Jobs Contribution exaction. The written purposes of these exactions are to mitigate the impacts of large-scale real estate development on the supply of low and moderate income housing and to mitigate the impact that commercial developments have on the manufacturing sector. These exactions are formulaic and essentially are part of the cost of doing business in Boston (as long as the project fulfills the exaction requirements).

I am unfamiliar with Massachusetts Land Use law, but in a normal zoning scheme it is debatable whether the courts would find that there is a sufficient nexus between the exactions and the impact of the projects to be constitutional. However because the exaction provisions have been written into the zoning code itself, I would hazard a guess that they would be upheld.

Furthermore the Linkage (fees that go to The Neighborhood Housing Trust and a jobs creation trust) requirements are written into the Zoning Code in Articles 26 and 26A and again are formulaic and only apply if the project meets the linkage requirements. I would also add that the BRA is allowed by the Zoning Code to increase the linkage fees by a certain percentage every few years. In fact it was able to do so as of 2007 but has not yet done so (obviously due to the recession).

Transparency would be nice and should be a goal, but I would guess that the way the exactions are compiled (especially all linkage fees going into two trusts) probably makes tracking individual exaction spending by the BRA to be difficult.

In any case I don't claim that these fees are correct or are properly allocated, but I don't blame the BRA from using tools and revenue sources that have been legislative delegated to it by the State. This isn't just the case of a housing authority abusing conditional use permits or zoning variances.
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

Hutchison said:
Just a point on #3. The exactions the BRA takes are written into and regulated by Article 80B-7 of the City's Zoning Code. There are two types of exactions the BRA can exact, a Housing exaction and a Jobs Contribution exaction. The written purposes of these exactions are to mitigate the impacts of large-scale real estate development on the supply of low and moderate income housing and to mitigate the impact that commercial developments have on the manufacturing sector. These exactions are formulaic and essentially are part of the cost of doing business in Boston (as long as the project fulfills the exaction requirements).

I am unfamiliar with Massachusetts Land Use law, but in a normal zoning scheme it is debatable whether the courts would find that there is a sufficient nexus between the exactions and the impact of the projects to be constitutional. However because the exaction provisions have been written into the zoning code itself, I would hazard a guess that they would be upheld.

Furthermore the Linkage (fees that go to The Neighborhood Housing Trust and a jobs creation trust) requirements are written into the Zoning Code in Articles 26 and 26A and again are formulaic and only apply if the project meets the linkage requirements. I would also add that the BRA is allowed by the Zoning Code to increase the linkage fees by a certain percentage every few years. In fact it was able to do so as of 2007 but has not yet done so (obviously due to the recession).

Transparency would be nice and should be a goal, but I would guess that the way the exactions are compiled (especially all linkage fees going into two trusts) probably makes tracking individual exaction spending by the BRA to be difficult.

In any case I don't claim that these fees are correct or are properly allocated, but I don't blame the BRA from using tools and revenue sources that have been legislative delegated to it by the State. This isn't just the case of a housing authority abusing conditional use permits or zoning variances.
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^Hutchison

I really appreciate your willingness to tackle this informed response.

Over the years I've observed what seem to be other exactions besides the ones you mentioned, not including the exactions that were part of the Southie linkage debacle from the 1990's that mired the Seaport planning process. I also won't include civic spaces exacted under Chapter 91 (which I support in theory but in practice have been utter failures).

Examples of City exactions:

1. The BRA exacts its own administrative budget from developers.

2. The BRA has exacted funds from Fort Point property owners to fund development and maintenance of Childrens Museum Park -- and I'm not talking about abutters or 100-Acre plan signators.

3. The list of Atlantic Wharf exactions is long (and IMO ridiculous). It includes Congress Street Bridge enhancements.

4. The BRA is exacting funds for creation of a planned series of parks in Fort Point yet has not been transparent in how those funds are being managed or when and where the parks will be phased. This was part of the 100-Acre process.

I'm sure there are others.

Evidence of success of the exactions is not apparent to me. Waterfront properties do not offer a range of affordabilities and I'm not aware of off-site housing built by Fan Pier, Atlantic Wharf, etc. For a project like Atlantic Wharf, far as I can tell there is nothing visible on site that wouldn't have ordinarily occurred without a planning department, aside from (perhaps) the facade.
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

...just a clarification - I had earlier said that Atlantic Wharf's concessions were "small and ridiculous" while later stating the list of exactions was "long and ridiculous." The list of exactions is long, but the total $$$ spent on these concessions is small by comparison with the value of the variances above as of right.
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

Sicilian said:
I've seen reports that 10,000 people would move to Boston if adequate housing was available.
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That's a very interesting talking point - do you have a source for this?
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

Shepard said:
That's a very interesting talking point - do you have a source for this?
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Here's a BRA report on the success of the Seaport District if upwards of 10,000 units were built. The outcome is astounding in terms of jobs and reduction in dependency on cars. BTW, the optimum number of 8,000 housing units in this report is far greater than 10,000 residents.

http://www.seaportalliance.org/BRA/981202bra0.html

I've been in meetings where people who know more than me suggest that the demand for residential housing in Boston is as high as 35,000. The units being created on the Seaport and are luxury housing and won't meet the criteria necessary to meet the affordability range of most buyers.

When the BRA proudly suggests that 1/3rd of all Waterfront projects are residential, what they don't tell you is that the size of units can average 2000 s.f., reducing the total unit count. Demand exists for smaller units at lower price ranges. You can either populate the district, or maximize value -- I'm not sure how you do both.
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

Sicilian, do you know off-hand what the list of exactations includes for Atlantic (nee Russia) Wharf? I'm aware of the public space in the lobby, the Harborwalk, preserving the wharf buildings and I assume there was a housing linkage fee.
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

When the BRA proudly suggests that 1/3rd of all Waterfront projects are residential, what they don't tell you is that the size of units can average 2000 s.f., reducing the total unit count. Demand exists for smaller units at lower price ranges. You can either populate the district, or maximize value -- I'm not sure how you do both.
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Isn't that what Hynes is trying to do with his efficiency units and "dorm-style" living? Though I have serious doubts on whether or not he'll follow through . . .
 
Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)

^shepard

Here's another reference.

From a Rappaport study at:

http://www.hks.harvard.edu/rappaport/downloads/housing_paradigm.pdf

"Greater Boston needs to add approximately 10,000 new housing units a year simply to keep pace with growth in the number of households and a modest increase
in the population. In addition, we need to construct 5,100 additional units a year to raise the vacancy rates. Assuming the current production rate does not decline, this leaves a production gap of approximately 7,200 new units a year in Greater Boston?a total of 36,000 units above current production levels over the next five years."
 
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