Bulfinch Crossing | Congress Street Garage | West End

Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

DZH22 said:
When I was talking about 45th floor I was talking about the Residential Tower, not the office. Edit: Why does it start at 27'?

These are the 2 diagrams I used. Note where the 480' is on the first one. Note where the shorter tower's 547' roof is on the second one, compared to the taller tower.
Click to expand...

I suspect that 27' is because of the slope from ground level on the New Chardon St. side. If you subtract that out, you get an actual height to the roof of 520'. When I redid my comparison using a consistent baseline on your image (the ground level on the Sudbury St. side) I got 621'.

In sum, 620' for the OT and 520' for the RT seems a good bet.
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

There's no question that the Pelli tower is an homage to the spiral ramp it will be replacing, right?

The real question is whether its meant to be ironic...
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

CSTH said:
There's no question that the Pelli tower is an homage to the spiral ramp it will be replacing, right?
Click to expand...

Another theory...

The tower's curved form and angular top call to mind the wedge-topped "finials" on Paul Rudolph's unfinished concrete symphony directly across the New Chardon Street.

285.preview.jpg


Pelli's firm is based in New Haven, and both he and Rudolph chaired that architecture program at Yale.
 
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Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

It's actually neither of those. We don't have to guess because they made a diagram showing that the sweeps relate to the local urban context:

See timsox6's quoted post on previous page (with renders from PNF):

22650549798_57e8dbdf9c_c.jpg
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

I've needed to multitask with something this afternoon, so here are some skyline shots from Google Earth. Included:

- One Congress (3 towers)
- The Boston Garden
- Nashua St. Residences
- One Dalton (I left out Copley Square Tower because I couldn't draw that shape)
- Millennium Tower
- Kendall Square Initiative
- Volpe Redevelopment (at about 500')
- A tower in Union, which is in Somerville's plan

From Mass. Ave. Bridge:

55mk29.png


From Logan Airport:

5fhx5j.png


From somewhere up the Partners Building in Assembly (Didn't quite wait for the 3D buildings to render on this one - it was taking ages):

zx4587.png
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

Equilibria said:
I typically find it awkward when people anthropomorphize towers as women (happens more on SSP than it does here), but from the front, that tower's lifting a skirt to show its ankle.
Click to expand...

More than ankle, I'd say.

10617043-large.jpg
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

This is great news and a very good project and design, IMO

Lets hope for a 2016 groundbreaking

Add this to
Millenium Place
1 Dalton Street
Congress Street Garage (Two Towers)
Copley Place (God when is that starting??????)
Residential Ctower of TD Banknorth project

6 new towers all over 150m all could be under construction in 2016

Could it be????????????????? Too good to be true!
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

nepatz11 said:
This is great news and a very good project and design, IMO

Lets hope for a 2016 groundbreaking

Add this to
Millenium Place
1 Dalton Street
Congress Street Garage (Two Towers)
Copley Place (God when is that starting??????)
Residential Ctower of TD Banknorth project

6 new towers all over 150m all could be under construction in 2016

Could it be????????????????? Too good to be true!
Click to expand...

the beautiful thing about them all is that there is some good distance between them, so they don't get lost in the shuffle. Each building has it's own unique impact on the skyline.

The potential Bromfield tower could change that, as it would obviously impact Millennium.
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

nepatz11 said:
This is great news and a very good project and design, IMO

Lets hope for a 2016 groundbreaking

Add this to
Millenium Place
1 Dalton Street
Congress Street Garage (Two Towers)
Copley Place (God when is that starting??????)
Residential Ctower of TD Banknorth project

6 new towers all over 150m all could be under construction in 2016

Could it be????????????????? Too good to be true!
Click to expand...

Can we add Winthrop sq. to this party???
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

These towers are so close together and part of the same project, why weren't they designed to complimenting each other? They should play off each other. The office building will add something different to the skyline, but the residential tower is a boring turd. I don't get it.
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

No we cant unfortunately


All those towers should break ground by end of 2016

Like Randall Stevenson from Shawshank Redemption Winthrop square is a myth, a figment, a ghost in the wind, second cousin to harvey the rabitt. Here is hoping we see something firm soon, with a date for a close groundbreaking


It is a disgrace that the winthrop square project proposed in 2006 hasn't been completed for years by now, but still our "AWESOME" permitting process has it locked in a quagmire. It should take 6 months for a project to be proposed, vetted, and the answer be yes or no. WInthrop Square would bring so much to that part of city, but were stuck with a condemned parking garage!
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

PLus there at least 3 or 4 more that come in at over 30 stories but under 150 meters that could break ground as well (Trinity Place, one in DTX, Garden Garage Project) that 5 years ago would have been considered MAJOR additions but are now after thoughts with recent trends
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

JumboBuc said:
I wouldn't say that the issue is a lack of demand for office; as fattony says: rents are high and vacancy is low. I think it's more that office developers have shown incredible risk aversion since the recession (even though the true real estate crisis during the recession came in residential, not office). Just about all of the office space that has broken ground since 2008 has been either single-tenant (Liberty Mutual, PWC, Vertex, New Balance, Goodwin Proctor, Novartis, etc.) or had very large portions pre-leased (888 Boylston, smaller Kendall buildings, etc.). It's become typical that developers won't start a building until they have in hand signed leases for the majority of the space to be built.
Click to expand...

Yep, EPNF for the office tower:

The timing of the commencement of construction is driven by securing sizable tenant(s) committed to leasing space at the office tower.
Click to expand...

EPNF for the residential:

The Proposed Project is proposed to start construction in late 2016 or early 2017.
Click to expand...
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

Other interesting thing to me from EPNF for the office tower:

In accordance with the approved PDA, prior to receiving a Certificate of Occupancy for the Proposed Project, a substantial portion of the eastern half of the Garage must be demolished.
Click to expand...

It reads to me like the construction of the office tower doesn't require demolition of parking, but by the time construction is done, they have to clear out the Eastern half of the site to let the tenants in. Hopefully that will keep the phases of the PDA rolling.
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

PHASE I HAS BEEN APPROVED!!!

Phase I is the west parcels:
WPB1 (CBT Residential Tower, beginning hopefully in 12 months)
WPB2 (Pelli Office Tower, actively seeking tenant, start TBD).

Garage enabling demo to happen ASAP. Some enabling work is already underway in the garage.

The Board commended HYM on a constructive process with the BRA, BCDC, and other groups involved.
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

Great news. We are slowly undoing many of the huge mistakes made decades ago.
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

I'm not 100% sold on keeping the garage.

I do like the renderings but I also believe they should bury the garage at this point.
They would need a boat load of tax breaks on this.
The above garages all have to go around the Greenway.
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

The garage on the greenway is going only the end of it closest to Bowker st. is staying.

Does this phase daylight congress st?
 
Re: Congress Street Garage Development | West End

Well this softens the blow from the Garden Garage vote (or lack thereof). I'm much more excited about this project
 
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