Back Bay Garage Tower | Dartmouth and Stuart | Back Bay

Not really sure what the 3 minute OL headways have to do with this project, but I must say the rendered ghost of the Copley Square Tower in the presentation hurts.
 
bakgwailo said:
Not really sure what the 3 minute OL headways have to do with this project, but I must say the rendered ghost of the Copley Square Tower in the presentation hurts.
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The presentation was only from May 2023. I wonder if there is still hope for some other developer to step in or purchase the approved development?
 
Charlie_mta said:
The bottom layer also looks like an air filter. I'm hoping this is one of those projects where the finished product looks better than the render:
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I don’t think it’s the street level but the area just above that is suspect. In the more distant renderings, it looks pretty terrible (i.e. air filter-y), though pretty decent in the more close-up views, but also pretty ambiguous on exterior materials.

Here’s hoping the close-ups will be the more realistic depiction…
 
bakgwailo said:
Not really sure what the 3 minute OL headways have to do with this project, but I must say the rendered ghost of the Copley Square Tower in the presentation hurts.
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One of the new/improved station renders shows trains to Forest Hills in 3 and 6 minutes, and to Oak Grove in 4 and 7 minutes. Not sure what magic is involved, but clearly that's one of the public benefits!

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HenryAlan said:
One of the new/improved station renders shows trains to Forest Hills in 3 and 6 minutes, and to Oak Grove in 4 and 7 minutes. Not sure what magic is involved, but clearly that's one of the public benefits!

View attachment 48035
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Just like all the So Cal weather shown in developers' renderings all the time here -- smoke and mirrors.
 
People I was trying to make a joke, though my landing apparently hit some trees, then fell off a cliff into the ocean where it kept floating to the top only to sink again and again.

Maybe that render was type of subliminal message where they were hoping all Massholes would approve of this project for believing the T could ever run 3min headways on the OL. Lol
 
andrew.816 said:
Agreed. I would like this project so much more if it was half the height and didn’t have the hanging.
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I agree with Andrew. The offset cube gimmick ought to be used rarely. BU has already set the standard and beat every other developer to the punch. There's no need, at the edge of the South End and Copley Square, for bombastic design. Hopefully someone in charge will see the light of day and give Boston what it deserves here.
 
HenryAlan said:
One of the new/improved station renders shows trains to Forest Hills in 3 and 6 minutes, and to Oak Grove in 4 and 7 minutes. Not sure what magic is involved, but clearly that's one of the public benefits!

View attachment 48035
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I do like the catwalks above tho, it seems like it could activate the space overall and make it seem less dead than it does now, even if there aren’t people walking on it, just having the sight of walkways above one’s head introduces the idea of more human activity
 
www.bostonglobe.com

Progress at Back Bay Station? Builder of long-dormant development signs lease deal with the state. - The Boston Globe

The long-term lease deal with Boston Properties would enable the developer to build a long-planned 27-story office tower at 171 Dartmouth St.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

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"The Massachusetts Department of Transportation has just signed a long-term lease deal with Boston Properties that would enable the developer to put a long-planned 27-story office tower next to Back Bay Station.
The transaction, filed with the Suffolk Registry of Deeds last week, is the latest air-rights deal for MassDOT as it seeks to spur construction over the Massachusetts Turnpike. Boston Properties has long held city permits to build an office tower on a platform over the Pike that currently holds a parking garage, as part of a broader redevelopment of Back Bay Station. Now, the company controls the property under a 99-year lease, with payments expected over the deal’s first few years. Boston Properties has agreed to pay base rent of $20 million and to spend $37 million on station improvements.

Under the agreement, Boston Properties will take over the western portion of the Back Bay Station garage, with a ground footprint of 1.4 acres at the corner of Dartmouth and Stuart streets. The developer plans to tear down that part of the garage and build a 660,000-square-foot office building there, with ground-floor shops and restaurants and several levels of parking.
RELATED: From 2016: Back Bay Station could become a vision in glass
The project would be part of a broader, 1.3-million-square-foot redevelopment that Boston Properties has planned around Back Bay Station. Eventually the developer wants to put two additional towers there, one where the east portion of the garage now stands, fronting Clarendon Street, and the other next to that, on what is now a bus turnaround area off Clarendon. Once all the work is done, the station block would have 1,400 parking spaces, according to the MBTA’s Scott Bosworth, compared to about 1,500 today..........."
 
I understand the excitement about fixing up the station. By all accounts it's been one of the worst stations on the MBTA for a long time so that was certainly overdue. However, for the rest of it...

1. The tower totally blows. It would look crappy anywhere, but is an F- for the location taking a giant dump on a beautiful area. It's going to block out the Hancock from a bunch of views, particularly within the city streets such as the way it's framed on St Botolph. https://www.google.com/maps/@42.342...Y7w1nClWszi4W5fg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
2. Don't we have literally 0.0 needs for any more office space to be built over these next few years? How is this ugly office building a positive development for our city?

Mike said:
I know this one isn't too popular here but I'm excited about it. It will give us something to watch after SST until the next big cycle hits.
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MXD residential is taller than this, going to dominate Cambridge, and the design is 1000x better. I don't want to see this office building built, and you know I obsess over tall buildings in Boston as much as anybody here, or probably anybody who has ever lived. Yet I want this to not be built every bit as much as I want the Congress Street lab to not be built. Fix up the station and send the entire rest of the development back to the drawing board.
 
DZH22 said:
I understand the excitement about fixing up the station. By all accounts it's been one of the worst stations on the MBTA for a long time so that was certainly overdue. However, for the rest of it...

1. The tower totally blows. It would look crappy anywhere, but is an F- for the location taking a giant dump on a beautiful area. It's going to block out the Hancock from a bunch of views, particularly within the city streets such as the way it's framed on St Botolph. https://www.google.com/maps/@42.342...Y7w1nClWszi4W5fg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
2. Don't we have literally 0.0 needs for any more office space to be built over these next few years? How is this ugly office building a positive development for our city?


MXD residential is taller than this, going to dominate Cambridge, and the design is 1000x better. I don't want to see this office building built, and you know I obsess over tall buildings in Boston as much as anybody here, or probably anybody who has ever lived. Yet I want this to not be built every bit as much as I want the Congress Street lab to not be built. Fix up the station and send the entire rest of the development back to the drawing board.
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This is why we should be using tax monies not developer extorsion to fix up aging T stations. Developer extorsion yields crap buildings. Basically any monies shifted to the station repair get VE'd out of the building design.
 
DZH22 said:
I understand the excitement about fixing up the station. By all accounts it's been one of the worst stations on the MBTA for a long time so that was certainly overdue. However, for the rest of it...

1. The tower totally blows. It would look crappy anywhere, but is an F- for the location taking a giant dump on a beautiful area. It's going to block out the Hancock from a bunch of views, particularly within the city streets such as the way it's framed on St Botolph. https://www.google.com/maps/@42.342...Y7w1nClWszi4W5fg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
2. Don't we have literally 0.0 needs for any more office space to be built over these next few years? How is this ugly office building a positive development for our city?


MXD residential is taller than this, going to dominate Cambridge, and the design is 1000x better. I don't want to see this office building built, and you know I obsess over tall buildings in Boston as much as anybody here, or probably anybody who has ever lived. Yet I want this to not be built every bit as much as I want the Congress Street lab to not be built. Fix up the station and send the entire rest of the development back to the drawing board.
Click to expand...

Sorry DZH, but this one is going up as is. It's a done deal. I'm glad I'm more a fan of construction than height lol.
 
DZH22 said:
I understand the excitement about fixing up the station. By all accounts it's been one of the worst stations on the MBTA for a long time so that was certainly overdue. However, for the rest of it...

1. The tower totally blows. It would look crappy anywhere, but is an F- for the location taking a giant dump on a beautiful area. It's going to block out the Hancock from a bunch of views, particularly within the city streets such as the way it's framed on St Botolph. https://www.google.com/maps/@42.342...Y7w1nClWszi4W5fg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
2. Don't we have literally 0.0 needs for any more office space to be built over these next few years? How is this ugly office building a positive development for our city?


MXD residential is taller than this, going to dominate Cambridge, and the design is 1000x better. I don't want to see this office building built, and you know I obsess over tall buildings in Boston as much as anybody here, or probably anybody who has ever lived. Yet I want this to not be built every bit as much as I want the Congress Street lab to not be built. Fix up the station and send the entire rest of the development back to the drawing board.
Click to expand...

I love all the improvements to Back Bay station and the street activation, yet I agree that this design is pretty terrible. Is that blank wall just above the first floor supposed to be parking? It looks like about 4 floors of nothing. I realize the existing garage is terrible, and this will be an improvement, but that's a pretty low bar for improvement. The rendering posted above doesn't seem to include the new Raffles Hotel.

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Are we currently living in the Precariously Stacked Boxes Period of architecture?
 
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