City Hall Discussion - Redevelopment - Preservation - Relocation

Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

According to Wikipedia, Wheelwright did the BPL while working for McKim, Mead & White and this city hall proposal came during his tenure as the architect for the city.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Well at least it's still in the works...........


Government Center may become green district
November 18, 2008

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino wants to turn Government Center into the state's first "green" development district to spur public agencies and private companies to lead an environmentally friendly renewal program in the city's downtown.

The effort seeks to create a new redevelopment plan to incorporate clean-energy technologies and sustainable design in a 100-acre area that includes some of the city's most valuable real estate.

Aides to Menino said he will solicit recommendations for the plan from the region's top universities and developers.

"The mayor wants to use Government Center as a model for green, urban growth," said Kairos Shen, chief planner for the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the city's planning agency. "This will help unlock the development potential in the middle of downtown."

It will also help reinvent the energy grid in Government Center to end reliance on traditional, less efficient methods of power transmission, said Jim Hunt, the mayor's chief of environmental and energy policy.

Under Menino's proposal, private developers and public agencies will be encouraged to use wind turbines and solar panels, instead of buying electricity.

The technologies could eventually be expanded so that buildings in Government Center would create as much power as they consume, with a surplus to feed back into the city's energy grid.

The plan would also incorporate redevelopment - and possible relocation - of City Hall. Menino has said he wants to build a new City Hall on the South Boston Waterfront.

- Casey Ross
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

This is 90% lip service to create some good PR for mumbles. I agree with doing something with GC, but nothing is going to happen in the next 10 yrs.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Suffolk 83 said:
This is 90% lip service to create some good PR for mumbles. I agree with doing something with GC, but nothing is going to happen in the next 10 yrs.
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Exactly.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Haha, you called it. That was absolutely say-everything, do-nothing bullshit.

Can we make the anti-Menino slogan for the next mayoral campaign "more than mumbles"?
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Menino has it backwards. Government Center and the new city hall should have been built on the South Boston Waterfront, leaving Scollay Square alone. Maybe everything that has been built in the West End since it was razed could have been built on the SBW too.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Back then, the South Boston Waterfront still had real industry and shipping on it.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Recession, It Seems, Can Fight City Hall; Relocation Is on Hold

'Mayor Menino says he is rethinking whether to spend about $2 million for engineering studies on the potential new City Hall site. "I can't consciously move ahead on a major project like this at this time. I have to think about my schools, think about my parks, my public works," he says.'

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122947095983212173.html
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

I have to think about my schools, think about my parks, my public works," he says.
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'MY', what is he king.
Menino is covering his ass, he lost this one.

Bankers & Trademans:
Mr. Mayor, How?s That New City Hall Coming Along?
By Scott Van Voorhis
Mayor Thomas M. Menino, tear up those plans for a new City Hall. That is if you can still find the cocktail napkin you scribbled them down on two years ago
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can anyone post the whole artilce?

I walked along city hall plaza by the JFK after the GCG presentation tonight and I couldn't help notice what a horrible place it is to walk through. I also believe that if the plaza was changed then city hall would be appreciated a lot more. Every thing about the plaza is bad. I also think the city bears most if not all the responsibility for the failure of both the building and the plaza. We need vision and leadership at city hall.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

I'm losing faith in Menino as the days turn to nights....'Back in my day' I remember the No Name Restraunt which for some reason used to be the most well known restraunt in the area.. I remember Pier 44 and I remember a bar or two. What happened to those?
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

The old saying "A fish stinks from the head..." may apply. Yes, we need vision from the top. And, no, that's not what we've had. Mumbles needs to move on
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

The No Name still has a web site so I assume it's still open. I haven't heard anything good about it since the early 80's at latest. Harpon brewery is there also.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

I found a great pic of city hall on Flick'r:

cityhallblue.jpg

Photo by Mr. Laskowski

Goes to show what they could do with this building with some decent lighting.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

I think Menino wants to move city hall to get away from all that gang activity in downtown crossing.

Notice all the vehicles parked on the plaza, class act Menino.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

The building itself is not necessarily the problem. It's the plaza, it just sucks. (sorry to state the obvious). What if they had a slender tower rise out of the center of the city hall. I don't know if that could work because of security concerns or not, but i think it would look pretty cool.

What if they filled in the plaza with a mini- neighborhood. Really compact, pedestrians only. It would be like DTX part deux.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

lipstick on a pig. Only way to save it is to re-clad the whole thing in glass so it won't look so cold.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

PaulC said:
I think Menino wants to move city hall to get away from all that gang activity in downtown crossing.

Notice all the vehicles parked on the plaza, class act Menino.
Click to expand...

pretty sure those vans on the left are blocking the handicap ramp as well.... when i walked that route daily i would take notice, and soon lost count of how many times that was the case.

Are those metal people barriers still standing guard around the T station? i think those turned up for the first red sox parade or the world cup or something and just never left
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Boston Globe - Decemeber 30, 2008
Menino shelves plan to replace City Hall
Cites economy as basis for decision

By Donovan Slack, Globe Staff | December 30, 2008

Sinking 401(k) balances, increasing foreclosures, giant bank and auto company bailouts. Now taxpayers can add Boston City Hall to the list, as they will have to continue to endure the concrete behemoth for the foreseeable future, thanks to the economic recession.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino has shelved plans to replace the building, recently voted the ugliest in the world, with a new City Hall on the South Boston waterfront. The mayor cut the $2 million budgeted for the project and he is not putting the current building up for sale.

"I could not get value out of the City Hall property right now with the real estate market down," he said in an interview yesterday. "I have a responsibility to the taxpayers."

Menino said he is not scrapping plans to move City Hall but that they are "in a holding pattern."

His vision for a glittering new waterfront City Hall has been controversial since he floated the idea in 2006. At a recent Boston City Council hearing, dozens of residents expressed opposition. One likened it to relocating Fenway Park to Stoughton.

At Government Center yesterday, opinions were mixed.

"Who cares if the building's ugly?" said Molly Pulkrabek, a Charlestown resident applying for a resident parking sticker at City Hall. "I think it's in the right location."

Others decried having to endure for years to come the building once described as "the box that Faneuil Hall came in."

"It looks like a giant waffle," said Laura McGoldrick, who was visiting from Newburyport for the holidays. "It's ugly."

"If I had to stare at this building every day, I don't think I would be very happy," said her friend Maxine Labbe, who is planning to move to Boston next month.

Councilor Michael Flaherty, a staunch opponent of the plan to move City Hall, believes that even though the mayor said the economy is the reason, it appears Menino "is finally hearing what I've been hearing from residents all along."

"This was a bad idea from day one," said Flaherty, who chaired the council hearing on the issue and is considering a run for mayor next year. "It only serves as a distraction from the critical issues facing our city - namely youth violent crime, underperforming schools, and filthy streets. Residents are less concerned with moving City Hall than they are about getting City Hall moving."

The mayor said his decision had nothing to do with criticism. He said the project is one of $150 million worth of capital spending that he and his administration are reevaluating in light of the economic crisis.

The list of projects includes street improvements, such as $15 million worth of pedestrian ramp upgrades and repairs, and planning and design work for major renovations of schools, community centers, and libraries, such as the Jamaica Plain branch.

Menino said he has not made any final decisions on the other projects. He said he is looking at them on a case-by-case basis but probably won't make other decisions until the budget picture for the coming year is clearer.

Looming cuts in state funding are estimated in the tens of millions, but the governor has not notified city officials how much Boston's aid will be cut. In the meantime, the mayor said he is reevaluating projects based on his top priorities: schools, police, and fire.

"The movement of City Hall is not a priority," he said. "I still think it's the right thing to do, but right now, because of the economy, we have to slow some of those projects down. We have to look at the financial expense."

Menino announced plans for a new City Hall in December 2006, when he outlined his vision to sell the current building for up to $300 million and construct a new one on Drydock 4. It would have a thriving cultural center and an eye-popping design similar to the new Institute of Contemporary Art.

Almost immediately, the plan was criticized by residents who complained that the new site was not easily accessible by public transportation and architects who said the current hall, constructed in the 1960s, is a cherished example of Brutalist architecture that should be preserved.

Last month, City Hall earned the ugliest building in the world title on the travel website, virtualtourist.com.

Outside the Government Center T stop at dusk yesterday, Liz Palermino looked across City Hall Plaza at the eight-story building, gray as the sky behind it, and hissed "It's hideous."

"I remember when I first moved to Boston, I was visiting Faneuil Hall and saw it," said Palermino, who moved from New York City. "I thought, 'Oh, my God, what were they thinking?' "

Palermino now walks by the building every day on her way to her job in the Financial District.

"In light of everything that's going on, we could probably put up with it a little longer," she said with a sigh. "But just until the very beginning of the next bull market."

Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.
Click to expand...
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

I hope the discussion can now shift to finding ways to make the existing building more energy-efficient.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Shouldn't they still be able to sell the huge brick plaza? I like City Hall where it is...Selling the plaza itself would bring in plenty of cash I would think, even with the real estate market the way it is. They would be able to use the money received from the project to help fund some other community projects.

Why wouldn't/couldn't that work?
 
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