The community attended 60 public meetings drafting the 100 Acres Master Plan. A year after the public final draft was published it was discovered that the BRA had entered into a number of private agreements (MOAs and "Cooperation Agreements") with large property owners, providing rights never previously disclosed publicly nor aligned with the public Master Plan final draft.
Among these privately drafted agreements, the BRA developed an A Street widening plan with Gillette. When the BRA and BTD were asked to explain the rationale, they denied the existence of the MOA. A year later the drawings were made public, and the widening plans are now on the BRA 100 Acres page. No rationale has ever been presented to the community.
My own belief is that the widening plan bolsters Gillette's long-held position that A Street is and will remain a truck route.
Truck route or not, something has to be done about the log-jam that A Street creates every day around 5pm. With state street adding 5K employees, the road will literally shut down. Widening might actually help this road.
...the accessibility is obviously a bit tougher than dtx (with less surrounding amenities).
From what I hear, State Street is moving into here, and the workers are not too happy about it for 3 reasons. First, the accessibility is obviously a bit tougher than dtx (with less surrounding amenities). Second, supposedly it is going to be extremely cramped and the average workspace will be smaller. Third, there are 1200 workers to be relocated and the building fits 800, so many are expecting the company's 7th(?) major layoff in 5 years.
Also let me go on record and say I despise the bright blue panels on the redder part of the building. It looks like construction material, and I keep expecting them to remove it and expose the true (more conservative) material underneath. This will forever look unfinished with the bright blue, and the colors really clash with the rest of the building and glass.
Is State Street combing all of their Boston ops into this building?
Apart from their main building on Lincoln Street?