The new face of the Pru?; New renderings of Prudential Towers unveiled
by Dan Salerno
Boston Properties unveiled a series of updated renderings for its two ambitious development projects for the Prudential, showing designs tweaked to address the concerns of a public advisory body.
The two buildings?an office and retail mixed use tower at 888 Boylston and a residential tower on Exeter Street?have both undergone intense design review by members of the Prudential Project Advisory Committee (PruPAC), which has worked with the developers and architects since 2007.
The centerpiece of last week?s presentation were the new visualizations of 888 Boylston Street: a 17 story glass office tower with ground floor retail fronted by a sprawling new tree-lined pedestrian plaza. The images showed a redesigned building base that clearly distinguished the bottom two retail levels from the office stories stretching above. The glass fa?ade will be transparent enough to provide a sense of activity to pedestrians in the plaza.
The response to the latest designs were generally highly positive.
?The redesign makes the resolution at the base quite nice,? said PruPAC member Eliot Laffer. ?The space really works a lot better now.?
Design subcommittee chairperson David Racino said that he was impressed by the plaza. ?It will help the place to be that much more active,? he said.
The ground floor retail levels of the new tower could end up being the home of a major new department store retail anchor, according to Boston Properties. Rumors have been floated that either Bloomingdales or Nordstrom?s could eventually fill the space, though the developers would not confirm that. There will be approximately 100,000 potential square feet of retail space, depending on how many floors are eventually dedicated to that use.
In addition to the tower and plaza, the 888 Boylston Street development will include the complete redesign and refurbishment of the entrance to the Shops at the Prudential Center. The new entrance will be done in the same glass design as the new tower.
?The new entrance is hands down a stroke of genius,? said Meg Mainzer Cohen, a PruPAC member and head of the Back Bay Association.
The new renderings for the Exeter Street residences also met with a generally favorable response. PruPAC members responded particularly well to the incorporation of design elements from the historic Lenox Hotel into the new building, though there was some skepticism expressed about an exterior staircase that bisects part of the building, allowing pedestrian access to a central courtyard.
Both designs will be presented at a public meeting on September 23, to be held at 6 p.m. in the mezzanine conference room of the Boston Public Library.
