Bulfinch Crossing | Congress Street Garage | West End

[Mongo]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

Reading through them now, office tower looks great, my only concern is what the frontage onto congress will look like. Hopefully the bits of the garage they are using get covered up somehow when the third tower get proposed for that block because otherwise that will be ugly as sin.

 

[DZH22]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

547' to roof hell yeah!!! As of today that would slip it in as 10th tallest in the city, between 111 Huntington and 2 IP. Great! I'm not entirely sold on the design though. Tough to tell. Looks a lot better in that 2nd evening pic than in the first.

Good to see the Pelli is still sticking around.

 

[tobyjug]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

Very witty. Standing the parking garage on its end.

 

[TheRifleman]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

Might add too much shade to the North End neighborhood also definitely blocking views of other buildings.

But besides that very nice

 

[Equilibria]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

Reading through them now, office tower looks great, my only concern is what the frontage onto congress will look like. Hopefully the bits of the garage they are using get covered up somehow when the third tower get proposed for that block because otherwise that will be ugly as sin.

If you look at some of the massing studies, they're still planning to completely cover the remaining garage with new facades. I'm also interested in how smooth the first 10 floors of the tower will look with parking covered in glass, but it could certainly be worse. Actually, neither of these buildings is meant to be the big leap for street activation. That comes from the lower buildings along Congress and Canal.

The office tower kind of has the old SST problem of having a sort-of-neglected side-on angle, but in this case it shouldn't be much of a problem. The Boston Garden/Nashua St. and the JFK Building will mostly block the view of those sides. I actually think it will look better from the back view (Cambridge) than it will from the water.

 

[Shepard]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

Amirite that the massing has already been approved? If so, these should sail through for final approvals... right?

 

[timsox6]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

Renders for your viewing pleasure, office tower is up first. LEED Gold, by the way. More in the 1000-page document, but these are the most intriguing and encapsulate what we're talking about here.

 

[Beton Brut]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

Very witty. Standing the parking garage on its end.

Nice one, Toby!

In giving a cursory look at the BRA documents, I'm not enamored with the girth of the office tower from the north. Compared to the Copley Place proposal that shares a common design ethos, Pelli's design has some proportional problems, though this isn't surprising, given the larger floorplates.

Since we've been watching this proposal (almost 7 years), I've always felt this is a site for a much taller building. It's a shame they didn't ask for another 300'.

 

[FK4]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

Looks pretty good (the Pelli building is cool, but to be honest, it's a little Dubai-ish but whatever I it's better than the usual mundane Boston tower) - main concern is street level. Well I understand the smaller buildings will help, the lobby of that office tower is currently situated at one of the most dead corners in the whole city. I know the courthouse wont ever change (maybe the lindemann will some day) but the far side of merrimac has good potential, as does the end blocks of new chardon. I worry that a big dead corner could prevent this from happening in the future, though.

 

[timsox6]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

And it's residential tower time. LEED Gold once again. Kind of reminds me of the Parcel M proposal over in the Seaport, though of course it's all much taller. I'm a little peeved that they aren't doing any bike lanes along the project on this side.

 

[mass88]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

The office tower looks great - lots of glass. I am not a fan of the facade on the residential tower - in the end that material looks dirty over time.

 

[datadyne007]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

That residential tower South Elevation tells it all. I love how they took the garage and stood it up on its side, as if someone in CAD was like hmm... RO -90. "Hey that actually works!"

 

[cburns]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

The north and south elevations of the Pelli tower are just not elegant at all. Very disappointing given how nice the east-west perspectives seem to be developing.

 

[stefal]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

Love the office tower.
Based on one of the renderings in the document, it looks very large (wide, not tall) from the Zakim Bridge, which I'm somewhat okay with. (Give and take - great architecture from one angle - wideness from another) It may be an optical illusion because of the shape or even a discrepancy in the rendering. We'll see when it gets built. The documents point out that the TD Garden Towers will almost completely block this project from that view, so if it doesn't look nice from there, it'll only be a matter of months/1-2 years.
I'm on my phone right now, so I'll try to get the image I'm talking about later.

 

[Equilibria]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

The north and south elevations of the Pelli tower are just not elegant at all. Very disappointing given how nice the east-west perspectives seem to be developing.

You won't see them. The view from O'Brien Highway will be almost entirely blocked by Longfellow Place. From Government Center, it will be blocked by JFK and the residential tower.

 

[atlantaden]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

Old news fresh off the press!

https://www.bostonglobe.com/busines...story.html?p1=Article_Recommended_ArticleText

 

[dshoost88]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

For reference.

Renders for your viewing pleasure, office tower is up first. LEED Gold, by the way. More in the 1000-page document, but these are the most intriguing and encapsulate what we're talking about here.

And it's residential tower time. LEED Gold once again. Kind of reminds me of the Parcel M proposal over in the Seaport, though of course it's all much taller. I'm a little peeved that they aren't doing any bike lanes along the project on this side.

 

[Tombstoner]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

the Pelli building is cool, but to be honest, it's a little Dubai-ish...

I think it's just Dubai-ish enough. Nothing outrageous, but with that rarest of Boston tall architectural commodities: grace.

 

[393b40]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

Well the garage sucks so this is a massive improvement in every possibly way, but we're getting a bunch of tallish fatties... err.. superstumps. Also the garage is still there, so I don't know how to feel about this project at all really anymore...

 

[Shepard]

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

Well the garage sucks so this is a massive improvement in every possibly way, but we're getting a bunch of tallish fatties... err.. superstumps. Also the garage is still there, so I don't know how to feel about this project at all really anymore...

At full build - correct me if I'm wrong - garage will only continue to exist in the middle of the superblock. Seems like almost every garage facade will be otherwise hidden from the street.