Berklee Expansion Plans | Back Bay

Just got done talking to my source -- from here on in they are being tight-lipped about what will be going on so as to keep give any opposition groups as little ammo as possible. But then he also said that nothing has been planned yet -- they don't even have an architect. So from now on everything will be announced at the task force meetings, in hopes that it will show they have no hidden agenda and are more than willing to work with all interested groups. Their model of what NOT to be is Suffolk, who, as he put it, had an agreement with the community over what they'll do, only to use a "backdoor" clause that allows them to change things after the agreement has been made. Plus, Suffolk wants to increase enrollment, while Berklee is merely trying to deal with how much they already have, so they're hoping this will be a smooth-sailing design process.

The primary concern around which everything else hinges is getting 600 beds in as timely a manner as possible, and, unless some property comes up for sale like that on Boylston around Fenway Park (constantly coming on and off the table) or the Church Park apartments (highly unlikely), that space would logically be built in a structure most likely around 22 stories in height on the Mass/Boylston property. He specifically said that a "tower" would not be part of the plan simply because of the costs involved in going higher, and I must also point out that he's consistently mentioned the height of 22 stories for a solid year now, so I'd say dispel any notions of a soooaring 30 story skyscraper coming from this project. Rather, it sounds like we'll be getting a fattie - doh.

But again, nothing is finalized. With Ron's concern in mind, I asked my guy if the fate of the Performance Center has swung in any direction, and he again said that absolutely nothing has been finalized, no conceptual design has been thrown out the window yet. I also asked about shadow issues and whether NABB could/would have a field day with them, to which he happily said that, using a 24 story tower as the case study, the shadow on the equinox even at noon wouldn't reach Newbury St, so that shouldn't be an issue.

One last note he made, which I found rather eye-opening: the average per-square-foot cost that Berklee will spend on purchasing or building property for beds is only 7.5% cheaper than what it costs for a condo at 360 Newbury!
 
NABB

I thought the word on the street was that NABB's control stopped on the other side of Boylston, not on the Berklee side.

True, not true, irrelevant?
 
True. But just beucase their jurisdiction ends once Boylston St. pavement begins doesn't mean they wouldn't huff and puff anyway. Berklee knows that, and so they did shadow studies on a hypothetical 24 story tower long before they even have any concrete plans to show, so that way they could have an answer long before the NABB NIMBYS ever opened their predictable cakeholes.

This was taken from an article on a proposed 30-something story residential tower at the corners of Dartmouth and Stuart (currently the Copley Place entry plaza)... TWO BLOCKS SOUTH of their district:

Peter M. Sherin, chairman of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay, said the group has not heard anything about the proposal. He said any structure of that size would draw scrutiny from the neighborhood.

"We would be concerned about plans for any building of that height," he said. "It would cast shadows that fall on historic properties, creaste darkness and wind in the area, be out of scale with the surroundings and overload already congested roads."
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One gets the impression they wait on baited breath to utter these lines, time after time.
 
kz1000ps said:
One last note he made, which I found rather eye-opening: the average per-square-foot cost that Berklee will spend on purchasing or building property for beds is only 7.5% cheaper than what it costs for a condo at 360 Newbury!
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I don't have time to do the math this morning, but av. PSF costs across all of Boston for student rentals are as high as 360 Newbury. Students would be better off having a mortage on a Back Bay condo than living 12 to a small space in Allston.

I don't know about that Berklee number though ...



Also, JUSTIN: Isn't the autumnal equinox is when the sun is at it's ... shadowy-ist point, and therefore a good benchmark. I saw the preliminary shadow results, and it looks good. I think they're doing a few more shadow studies on different building mass concepts now, which should be interesting.
 
bbfen said:
Isn't the autumnal equinox is when the sun is at it's ... shadowy-ist point, and therefore a good benchmark.
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No, that's at the winter solstice, three months later (roughly December 21).
 
justin said:
I thought shadows are shortest at noon?

justin
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I suppose they are, but due to the location that is the time when it would impact Newbury St. and environs the most. At 3 the shadows would reach the firehouse and past that time the Hynes is the only building affected.
 
Boston Business Journal said:
Up in the air: Berklee, Lesley ponder building options


Boston Business Journal - December 22, 2006
by Brian Kladko - Journal staff

As Berklee College of Music revives its interest in building over the Massachusetts Turnpike, Lesley University has quietly dropped a similar plan to expand over the MBTA's commuter rail tracks in Cambridge.

Both schools, despite their different missions, are confronting similar situations: They are urban campuses, each with about 4,000 students, and they are in desperate need of more space. The air rights over transportation corridors present an obvious relief valve.

But Lesley's decision to walk away from three years of negotiations with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority presents a cautionary tale for Berklee and its dreams of building over the Pike. Such deals carry a level of financial risk and regulatory complication that have traditionally been left to ambitious developers, not nonprofits.

"Let's face it -- it's cheaper to build on dirt than it is on air," said Bill Doncaster, a Lesley spokesman.

Besides the $3 million that the MBTA was asking for air rights, expected construction costs ballooned to more than $25 million. Fortunately for Lesley, more conventional spaces became available. The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics moved out of the second floor of the Lesley-owned Porter Exchange building, allowing the university to consolidate its education school in one place. The university also bought a church and empty lot across the street, which will become the new home of the Art Institute of Boston, which is now located in Kenmore Square and merged with Lesley in 1999. The university has yet to fulfill its third major space need -- another dormitory.

Berklee, whose campus in the Back Bay and Fenway neighborhoods is even more congested than Lesley's, floated the notion earlier this month of a 25- to 30-story dormitory and theater at the intersection Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston Street, replacing the Berklee Performance Center and a two-story academic building -- something that probably couldn't be built until 2012. But Berklee officials said another option would be a structure over the Turnpike.

Berklee first put forward the idea in 1999, as the New York-based Millennium Partners ran into community opposition in its effort to build a 49-story hotel and entertainment complex over the Turnpike. Berklee officials hope another developer might be willing to pick up where Millennium left off, encouraged by the prospect of two other air rights developments over the turnpike.

Student housing won't generate the same kind of returns as $1,500-per-square-foot condos, but also won't generate as much traffic and serves the city's goal of removing students from the housing market, said David Hornfischer, Berklee's senior vice president of administration and finance.

Developers have met with Berklee to gauge its interest in such a project but haven't provided specifics, Hornfischer said. One sticking point is how much the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority would charge for air rights, which may make such a project too expensive.

"This could very well be an opportunity for our new governor ... to help promote a social good in the city of Boston ... by not seeking to overvalue what the Turnpike thinks the air rights are worth," Hornfischer said.

Brian Kladko can be reached at bkladko@bizjournals.com.
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Which is unfortunate, because I think the Porter Square neighbors would prefer a Lesley dormitory to a private development that would bring more traffic and congestion into the area. (Sorry to hijack this topic)
 
New article in the Courant about the dorm tower (35 storeys, not air rights). I can't find an online version.
 
There is no online version. The best you can do is either scan it or take a picture of it.

And I'm surprised at the 35 story figure.. that easily tops any other number that's been thrown around thus far.
 
Okay

I typed the whole thing up then.

"The Berklee College of Music Announced at a meeting last week that it would soon submit plans for a 35-story tower at Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston Street, while community members vowed to exert greater control over public review process.

The planned filing of its Institutional Master Plan Notification Form (IMPNF) comes after nine months of task force meetings during which Berklee has weighed how to pursue a major expansion within the narrow confines of its urban campus.

In addition to the proposed tower, the IMPNF, which is supposed to outline a 10-year growth plan, envisions property acquisitions around Berklee's main campus and a residential project in the West Fenway.

In deciding to go vertical to accommodate the bulk of the expansion, Berklee is in good company. Plans for several highrises in the Back Bay have recently been or are due to be unveiled, two at the Prudential Center and a 50-story tower at Copley Place.

Berklee officials maintain that an air rights project over the Mass Pike, a direction several task force members have pushed, is still an option. College officials have concluded, however, that in light of the urgency of its space needs, coupled with the complexity and time frame for air rights develpment, a tower on its own land is more feasable.

The twoer, which the college is calling Berklee Crossroads, ha not been designed, but it would contain roughly 450,000 square feet within 35 stories, with the bulk of the pace devoted to dorms. A performance hall and academic facilities would go on the lower floors.

The Berklee tower would abut two air rights parcels, where Millennium Partners had once proposed building a 59-story tower.

State Rep. Marty Walz, who is on the task force and has had a long involvement in air rights development issues, noted that the Berklee tower could either preclude the development of those parcels, or lead to a cluster of towers in the area.

The Berklee team was also faulted for invoking in the draft IMPNF the "high spine" concept, a '60s-era planning doctrine that saw the triangular swath between Boylston Street and Huntington Avenue to Mass Ave. as an optimal area for High-rises.

In recent years, the idea has been criticized by neighborhood groups, which have taken a more active role in influencing local zoning districts.

David Dixon of the planning firm Goody Clancy, which is serving as consultant on the Berklee expansion, acknowledged at the meeting that the use of the term was a mistake.

"One of the wonderful things about Boston is its old Neighborhoods, and the opportunity for growth and change," Dixon said. "These two things, unfortunately, often run right into each other."

In light of Berklee's pending filing, members of the community task force voted to appoint two co-chairs that would take a more active role in the planning and conduct of meetings.

"I think we need to have more involvement in setting the agenda, to make sure that the issues we are concerned about are addressed at meetings," said Fenway resident Karla Rideout, who volunteered to be the chair for that neighborhood. Susan Ashbrook, a member of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay, was voted Back Bay chair.

Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) project manager Gerald Autler said that he was open to working with task force co-chairs. He stressed, however, "This taks force is reviewing the project for the BRA. We wouldn't want to see it branching out in directions we don't envision."
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State Rep. Marty Walz, who is on the task force and has had a long involvement in air rights development issues, noted that the Berklee tower could either preclude the development of those parcels, or lead to a cluster of towers in the area.
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Oh god, one can hope. But this being Boston, probably not.
 
It's a bit ambiguous--it could be interpreted that developing that lot will physically inhibit any air rights development on the abutting parcels. I'm not sure how to read that.
 
I don't see Berklee having the money or the general werewithal to go to war with the locals over something of this scope. I'm not optimistic.
 
What it means, is the latest turnpike parcel vision recommends only one of the 3 parcels centered around that intersection to exceed 15 stories, with an estimated height in the 30 story range. If Berklee builds this on a parcel that is no air-rights, then it would either result in the parcel plans revisited and altered to recommend no air rights skyscrapers, or if the plan isn't followed, there could in theory be a "cluster" of two at the intersection with developers trying to use the precedent to allow the remaining two turnpike parcels to be developed as highrises.
 
Do these plans demolish the Performance Center? Do they save its fa?ade and put a new theatre behind it?
 
Berklee hasn't hired architects yet, so really it's anyone's guess. However, my guy has been saying the same thing for a year or two now -- the theatre itself most likely won't survive.
 
czsz said:
I don't see Berklee having the money or the general werewithal to go to war with the locals over something of this scope. I'm not optimistic.
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Money isn't the issue. But, the obstinacy of the BRA to deal in an above-the-board manner with the locals (some of which are admittedly wacky) will derail this project for years. From the start of the Task Force, the BRA has obfuscated as much as possible, and with few reasons to do so. Berklee and Goody|Clancy have been straightforward when asked questions. The BRA likes secrets. They're ingrates, barely a step above hired-henchmen from down Providence.

Berklee doesn't have the experience building property the way NEU, BU and Harvard do, and Berklee doesn't reign in the BRA the way they could/should. It shows in the meetings the BRA has hosted to date. Gerry Autler shouldn't be in charge of the IMPNF for garden sheds, much less projects of this scope, in my opinion.

* * *

On the Performance Center: this fresh?from?college gal working for the Boston Preservation Society for Protection of Random Buildings Designated as Pretty, Old or Important (or something) attends task force meetings as an audience member. No matter the subject, at some point she brings up this ridiculous study she wants Berklee to conduct on what buildings in the Back Bay and Fenway are important, and what Berklee will do in the future to save these buildings (regardless of whether Berklee has any stake in said building or not; it's been ridiculous). David Hornfischer (of Berklee) pushed back, but at this point I think he's approved G|C to do a study in limited scope, mostly to placate Ms. Walz. More on her later.

On the Performance Center and bank building specifically, David Dixon (Goody|Clancy) said that they (G|C) are interested in asking the architect, when chosen, to render the fa?ades into potential designs.

Inside either building isn't anything worth saving?the theater was trashed by the 60s, and then gutted when Berklee bought it. The bank building is a vaguely pretty shell, if you're into that sort of thing, but has nothing of note inside. It seems clear that Berklee's concession to the community will be fa?ade restoration, with interior spaces demolished for new construction around/above.

* * *

Side note on this one: at one of the meetings last spring, Dixon noted they want an international competition to design the building ("that could potentially be built ...").

* * *

Finally, I'm sick to death of hearing Walz drone on and on about her mythical potential developers of the Turnpike parcels coming to talk with the Task Force. For months she's talked about these pie-in-the-sky "people" that have "approached" her about developing the parcels.

She has this fantasy that Developer X is going to come along with his or her plan to build upwards (but not too upwards! those fucking shadows! and the ugly noise of construction! and where will the trash cans go! and how many people will be smoking outside! and OH. MY. GAWD. what color glass will the windows be!). Somehow, in her dream, Developer X will give Berklee exactly what they need, and it will be a match made in heaven, meaning Berklee isn't allowed to ever develop anything on the property they already own. No, in Walz's chimera, Berklee is a renter. Again. Right ...

Berklee owns terra firma property and wants (needs) to develop it?in part to meet the Mayor's demand that colleges and universities house a larger percentage of the student population. The Turnpike has air rights to sell with the potential for development and hasn't moved on it for years.

Berklee got there first. Simple as that.

Walz needs to step aside and let the task force move forward in their work (ensuring that what is developed on Berklee's property is palatable to the community and meets Berklee's needs.).

Certainly everyone had a bad experience with the air rights development diagonal from this site, but she has height-hysteria now; see her comments on the property going behind the Public Library (Exeter, part of the Pru development). And despite the apparently shiver-inducing term "High Spine," the area is in fact designated for development of greater heights.

Berklee needs to muzzle Walz, have a revival meeting to bring the locals on board, keep the BRA at arms-length, and start making actual progress. No more hand-wringing over trash cans and cigarette butts, build something already!

* * *

Oh, and they need a new name. Berklee Crossroads=fucking-gay-lame. Why don't they all just wear "Please Punch Me, I'm A Band Geek" signs across their backside?

Ah, anyway. Just my views from a nearby perch.
 
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