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

Re: Is he wrong?

IMAngry said:
First office tower since last recession? Is Scotty right?
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He must consider the commercial real estate slump of 03-04 (think 33 Arch) an overall recession. I don't know about going that far, but I wasn't in Boston at that time yet, so I'm not really in a position to comment.

And yes DarkFenX, One Lincoln is a tower, but again see my reasoning above. When you think about it, we haven't had an office tower completion in downtown or the Back Bay since 33 Arch (2004), and by the time the next one is done, we're looking at about a 6 year absense of new construction. I suppose Scotty Van Soaris may have a point...
 
excerpted from today's Globe:
Boston Properties buys Russia Wharf site
3-building complex sells for $105.4m

By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff | April 2, 2007

Boston Properties Inc. has purchased Russia Wharf, a historic three-building complex and development site stretching between the emerging Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway and the Fort Point Channel, for $105.4 million.

Russia Wharf is the only property that Blackstone Group is immediately unloading from its newly acquired Boston-area portfolio of 11 million square feet, and is expected to be the site of the first office tower to go into construction after a long development drought.

The sale closed on Friday, said executives at the real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle, which handled the marketing for Blackstone.

Blackstone Group acquired Russia Wharf as part of the Boston-area portfolio of Equity Office Properties earlier this year, part of a $39 billion purchase of Equity Office holdings nationwide.

Equity Office Properties won city and state approvals for a 31-story office tower and redevelopment of the three existing low-rise brick buildings as residential condominiums.

Michael G. Smith, managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle, said Boston Properties plans to build the tower and residences as permitted.

Jones Lang LaSalle was familiar with Russia Wharf because the firm has been acting as development manager on demolition and preconstruction activity. Work continued on the site, next to the new InterContinental Boston Hotel, even as Equity Office and Blackstone negotiated their deal, and as Blackstone, an investment company, in turn prepared to sell it to a developer.

"We had terrific interest from the most qualified, sophisticated developers and investors in the country," said Smith. The last company in the bidding besides Boston Properties was Lincoln Properties.

Boston Properties is not known for residential development and could be looking for a partner to help turn the 110-year-old structures into luxury condos. The Russia Building, on Atlantic Avenue facing downtown, is expected to be renovated. The two buildings along Congress Street reaching to the channel -- the Graphic Arts and Tufts buildings -- will be gutted, with only their facades incorporated into the new mixed-use complex.
...

In part because the office market was soft, Equity Office moved slowly to develop Russia Wharf after acquiring the 380,000 square feet of office buildings as part of the Beacon Cos. portfolio in 1997.

Russia Wharf was the site where merchant ships that sailed between Boston and St. Petersburg once docked. Originally called Gray's Wharf, it was involved with the trade of hemp, iron, and canvas, all used in shipbuilding in the late 18th century.

It is adjacent to the Boston Tea Party location, which was closed after a fire and is also about to undergo renovation.

One of Equity Office's early plans for the site was for condominiums and apartments, a 300-room hotel, a nightclub, a public plaza on the water side, and a 10-story atrium under the glass-and-steel tower. It was also to include parking for 500 cars on six levels underground. The plan was later modified to eliminate the hotel.

CBT/Childs Bertman Tseckares Inc., a firm hired by Equity Office, continues to be the architect on the project, although a current rendering of the tower shows that the appearance has changed from what the former owner displayed in 2004.

A new rendering does not include a lighted spire that was originally shown running up one corner of the building.

Equity Office had estimated the cost of redeveloping Russia Wharf at $300 million or more, but construction costs have risen dramatically since that figure was used in the summer of 2005.

A lawsuit filed by the InterContinental's developers against Equity Office could hamper construction unless the new owners can reach agreement with the developers of the neighboring hotel. The hotel developer sued to protect its residents from blocked views, noise, or other infringements from work at Russia Wharf, either permanently or during construction. A judge this year halted work on Russia Wharf that encroached on InterContinental property, which includes the air space over a 40-foot alley between the buildings that is owned by the InterContinental developers.

Smith said the sale of Russia Wharf was quick, taking three weeks from the time Jones Lang LaSalle got started until there was a signed agreement. "It was an asset so desirable we'd tell people to go away and they'd keep coming back," he said. ....
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A new rendering does not include a lighted spire that was originally shown running up one corner of the building.
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I kinda liked that part
 
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looking good so far. When will they start the tower?
 
I actually really like how the ply wood colors that building. If they just replaced the ply wood with painted brick or wood you would have a really snazzy facade there.
 
Im no engineer, but if the purpose of all that steel is simply to hold up the facade, its appears to be a bit of overkill to me. Maybe this is part of the new structure?

And, if they intend on gutting these buildings completely and removing all those beautiful vaulted ceilings theyre flat-out idiots. They just dont build these kind of spaces anymore.
 
Saw a Tom Palmer interview about this on NECN...basically the tower will be built because the pending lawsuit was with Equity Office, not with Boston Properties. The Intercontinental was just worried that construction was going to disrupt their people.

The original building will either be residences or a hotel. If they are residential then the vaulted ceilings will stay. If it's a hotel, then probably not. It would be really nice if it was hotel.
 
my wife used to work in this building. The interior was crap. i don't recall any vaulted ceilings though they could have been hidden. all of the floors were uneven. I doubt this could have been 1st class space without gutting it.
 
About the vaulted ceilings, they're visible in the last picture I posted, and there's lots of them. Perhaps they were covered over with drop ceilings?

vanshnookenraggen said:
I actually really like how the ply wood colors that building. If they just replaced the ply wood with painted brick or wood you would have a really snazzy facade there.
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I thought the same thing.
 
briv said:
Im no engineer, but if the purpose of all that steel is simply to hold up the facade, its appears to be a bit of overkill to me. Maybe this is part of the new structure?
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When they are saving brick or stone facades, that amount of steel caging is typical. Also, the next phase is to demolish the interior space, and excavate for the parking garage, so the walls will essentially be freestanding.
 
I'm surprised that they are preserving the waterfront elevation. It was essentially constructed like a fire wall that ended up having windows installed after the fact. Was there ever another building on the waterside?

On pictures previous to the steel going up I remember being able to see changes within the brick as sections were added. Not sure why they are saving this facade and think they may have missed an opportunity to have this new build open up to the water and compliment the International.

Right now it is one strange looking block of buildings when viewing from the water.
 
Like the buildings in the Back Bay face Beacon Street instead of toward the Charles because the view and the smell was once not so good?
 
kz1000ps said:
About the vaulted ceilings, they're visible in the last picture I posted, and there's lots of them. Perhaps they were covered over with drop ceilings?

vanshnookenraggen said:
I actually really like how the ply wood colors that building. If they just replaced the ply wood with painted brick or wood you would have a really snazzy facade there.
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I thought the same thing.
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It was years ago. I do now remember a boat hanging over the bar from the ceiling at 3 cheers, the bar that was there. I guess they were vaulted. If there were vaulted ceilings on the upper floors they were covered.
 
Alien on the park

By Steve Bailey, Globe Columnist | April 11, 2007


If a picture is worth a thousand words, the photo that accompanies this column says far more than anything I could in a few hundred words.

We have spent billions on the Big Dig, years arguing about what will go on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, and this is what the city has approved to be built on the edge of this alleged precious common ground? Russia Wharf needs to go back to the drawing board for a major overhaul. Even its decidedly mediocre next-door neighbor, the new InterContinental Boston, has sued to block Russia Wharf, saying in part that the hideous 31-story tower will block the views from its own much smaller boring glass curtain of a tower.

The Greenway was supposed to be the kind of opportunity that comes along once in a century. But instead of building upon Boston -- see the great Norman Leventhal's gracious Rowes Wharf just up Atlantic Avenue for what is possible -- developers and the city are conspiring to give us the look and feel of an off-ramp outside Dallas. Or is it Houston?

Of the InterContinental, the Globe's Pulitzer-prize winning architectural critic Robert Campbell wrote last year: "It's hard to imagine how so much money and talent could have gone into a project so lacking in architectural interest." Bad architecture begets bad architecture. See what the Millennium project has brought to Lower Washington Street.

The problem is our current director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, Tom Menino, who never saw a big building he would not build. What matters most to him is not what it looks like, but what kind of dough it will bring in for the city.

Peter Meade, chairman of the Greenway conservancy, was one of many shocked when he saw a picture of Russia Wharf in the Globe . "I didn't see that building as an asset," Meade says. The BRA is already back pedaling. Says spokeswoman Susan Elsbree: "That was not the design that was presented to our board."

Russia Wharf was designed by CBT/Childs Bertman Tseckares Inc., the state's second-largest architectural firm. The $300 million-plus office tower and the three existing low-rise brick buildings to be redeveloped as condominiums were recently bought by Boston Properties. Pick your own image, but the CBT design looks to me like something out of "War of the Worlds," an alien ship landing on a building, totally foreign to its surrounding.

If you, too, are appalled by the CBT design, consider this: CBT is now in charge of designing Steve Belkin's 1,000-foot tower downtown, the one that renowned architect Renzo Piano would not put his name on. Imagine the possibilities if you dare.

CBT and Boston Properties would not comment.

It's not too late to fix Russia Wharf. Think Hotel Commonwealth. Four years ago the Kenmore Square hotel was built and opened when there was a neighborhood uproar over the tacky fiberglass exterior. The BRA made the owners spend $5 million to upgrade the materials. It is not great, but it is better.

Can we not aim higher on the Greenway?

Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at bailey@globe.com.



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He's picking the wrong battle. And what is wrong with MP? It seems Steve has a problem with glass.

I think we should email Steve Bailey with complaints about Joe Fallon and and see if we get anywhere.
 
I agree, Mike. It sounds like Mr. Bailey feels only brick and/or stone would be appropriate for all highrise here in Boston, and that anything in the current glass-and-steel style would be something "straight outta Houston." He may as well be indicting all architects who are working within the contemporary vocabulary.
 
Can a Globe reader clarify for us exactly which rendering accompanies this article?
 
shiz02130 said:
Can a Globe reader clarify for us exactly which rendering accompanies this article?
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Basically a crop of this:

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