Columbus Center: RIP | Back Bay

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i think as soon as the infamous steel plates go up over the turnpike, we'll have a for sure start to, IMO, one of the most innovative and exciting projects in the city
 
One way to check is to see whether the contractors are working for J.F. White Construction, which has two contracts, one for the Columbus Center excavation, the other for the deck over the Turnpike. If they are from J.F. White, then its highly likely this is the start of Columbus Center. And checking out 39 Church St. -- to see whether there are any J.F. White field office signs -- might be another indicator. 39 Church is a block or so north of the project site.
 
^ I'll definitely check things out tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath -- it was about this time last year when J.F. White first showed up and started doing site tests on the parking lot at Columbus and Berkeley.
 
The Globe said:
Columbus Center is set to build
State considers giving additional $10m to long-delayed project

By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff | October 5, 2007

Following a decade of planning and marathon battles over its pros and cons, the $800 million Columbus Center hotel and residential project will start construction next week above four blocks of the Massachusetts Turnpike in Boston, the developer said yesterday.

And despite criticism of the tens of millions of dollars of public funds already given to Columbus Center owner WinnDevelopment, two executives familiar with the project who asked not to be identified because the state has not yet disclosed the deal, said the administration of Governor Deval Patrick has agreed in principle to provide an additional $10 million in state aid.

The money would be in the form of a "contingency" loan, these executives said; WinnDevelopment would have to repay the state before it can realize any profit on the initial investment it has so far sunk into the project - around $40 million.

A spokeswoman for Dan O'Connell, secretary of Housing and Economic Development, said the state is still reviewing a request for the $10 million. "No final decision has been made on the Columbus Center project," said Kofi Jones, though one is expected soon.

Meanwhile, the Boston Redevelopment Authority yesterday sent out letters to neighborhood representatives informing them construction would go into high gear soon.

Preconstruction work has been going on for weeks, and a drilling machine, to install concrete piles that will support the buildings over the roadway, is scheduled to arrive Tuesday.

Affordable-housing developer Arthur Winn and partner Roger Cassin, WinnDevelopment's principals, this summer received a separate $10 million state grant, and pleaded that they needed another $10 million grant to kick the long-delayed project into construction.

Critics, including House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, object to a luxury hotel and residential project receiving public funding and have said Columbus Center should stand on its own.

The Legislature turned down Columbus Center's earlier request for $4.3 million in state economic stimulus funds, after project opponents argued that the developers had promised they would not seek any public funding. Boston officials, who have supported the project, say Winn and Cassin never made such a promise.

This week, Winn spoke of the long battle to get Columbus Center started.

"This took a lot of time and effort and a stupendous amount of capital. It's a watershed Turnpike project."

Asked about the continuing opposition and decade of delays, Winn said, "I like to think it's an improved project."

As currently planned, Columbus Center is a 1.45-million-square-foot, six-building complex that includes a 35-story hotel plus residential housing, retail space, parking, and public parks.

It has long been a target of neighborhood critics who argued that Columbus Center is too big and would be too disruptive to the Back Bay and South End, which it is designed to sew together over the highway that now divides them.

And, it almost died from rapidly rising construction costs - from a $300 million budget to the current $800 million - and a slowing residential market.

"It's great a project of this magnitude can be executed by a local developer," said Ronald Druker, a Boston developer who has known Winn for 30 years. "I'd say with great certainty someone from out of town wouldn't have shown the staying power and dedication to see something like this through."

WinnDevelopment is the managing partner, but with a minority financial position, in an ownership group that includes the California Public Employees Retirement System and MacFarlane Urban Realty Co. LLC, which invests in large urban projects nationwide.

Anglo-Irish Bank is providing a construction loan of more than $500 million to finance the project, which is expected to take three years to complete. The developers are negotiating with two companies for what Winn said would be a five-star hotel.

In total, Columbus Center will receive $27 million in grants and tax forgiveness, and at least $48.1 million in below-market-rate loans.

"They must feel comfortable they're going to get whatever financing they've lined up," said David Crowley, former president of the Ellis South End Neighborhood Association, where the project is located.

"The neighborhood would like to see it resolved - either move forward and build it or put it out to competitive bidding," said Crowley, whose organization worked with the developer to make changes such as adding park land.

Columbus Center will be built largely on a concrete deck over the Turnpike that developers say will cost about $140 million to build.

Columbus Center includes 450 condominium residences, with 44 to be sold at below market rates. The project is also paying the city enough for another 22 affordable housing units to be built elsewhere in Boston.

The project includes an estimated $60 million in public benefits, including the affordable housing, parks, and groundwater replenishment systems, and is expected to create 360 permanent jobs and bring at least $9 million annually in taxes.

Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at tpalmer@globe.com.
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Wow, I'm shocked. I thought this project was dead... this is great news.
 
The project includes an estimated $60 million in public benefits, including the affordable housing, parks, and groundwater replenishment systems, and is expected to create 360 permanent jobs and bring at least $9 million annually in taxes.
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And people are complaining about $10m in loans!!!!!


This is a great victory for the city!!
 
Now I'd really say Boston is booming. Steve Bailey jumped the guns a few months ago with his Boom Town article but now Boston is building 6 skyscrapers: Two Financial Center, 45 Province, Filene's Tower, The Claredon, Russia Wharf, and now Columbus Center, I'd say this is quite impressive for a city of only 600K with the slowest bereaucracy and longest public review process in the nation. Though it's only 5% of Las Vegas' 110 skyscrapers under construction, all started 2005 or later.
 
Boston is a city of 600k inasmuch as Sydney proper has 24,000 (Cambridge and Brookline alone add nearly 170,000). I'd say the amount of construction is at least proportionate to the city's true size, if not overdue.
 
@BarbaricManchurian

Don't forget Boston's soon-to-be 3rd tallest SST.

I agree, this is very impressive of a city of this size.
 
Regardless of my position on the funding controversies, I'm glad this is finally getting started.
 
City of its Size

Boston should not be considered to be just the 44 sq miles inside the city limits and 600k inhabitants ? Neither can London be considered to be just "the City" nor is New York City just Manhattan.

While Boston is by no means as sprawling as LA the Hub certainly covers most of Eastern Massachusetts, a good deal of Rhode Island and a belt across southern New Hampshire and even a corner of Maine and Connecticut

When you finish totaling the population of that conurbation -- you will find the population is in the 5 to 6 million range.

But even beyond the population -- Boston has a disproportionate share of a number of enterprises that make it truly a World Class city -- including:

1) Universities, faculty and students
2) Hospitals and specialized medical r&d and treatment facilities -- e.g. not every city has a medical cyclotron {under the old Charles Street Jail}
3) Financials -- depending on how you count it -- Boston is just behind London, NYC in money managed and kept in custody
4) Bio-pharma -- Novartis, Genzyme, Millenium and more than 150 facilities of big and small companies within a 10 minute walk of MIT
5) Energy R&D -- Schlumberger and 50 + facilities in the shadow of MIT
6) Staid old High Tech ? start at RT128 and outward to I-495, I-93 and beyond including major complexes for IBM, Cisco, and Intel as well as home grown HQ's, etc., for Raytheon, EMC, Analog Devices
7) History and Culture ? self evident
8) Venture Capitalism ? going back to the days of John Hancock and the Merchant Princes
9) Medical Devices including Boston Scientific and the newly spun-out Covidien
10) Specialized publishing including the US offices of major European technical publishers

On top of the Top 10 -- Boston has recently acquired the rep of being an HQ City especially for a host of European Companies {most recently the Bentley Motor Co is moving its NA HQ to Boston from Michigan}

And we haven't seen much yet from nanotech -- a significant part of the R&D is housed here-about

So, In view of all the above Boston needs to have at least a couple of 300m class towers!
:roll:

Westy
 
I guess I have to eat my hat. I thought CC was dead. It is a very significant and positive project for the city that will make a great improvement to the urban fabric and add to the skyline too.
 
I think that once they got the construction loan from the Irish bank, this project was a go in some form. I don't know what the lead time is for steel of the type they need to deck the Turnpike, but I am sure it is special ordered and the order was placed probably soon after the bank financing came through. Without that type of pre-construction, lead time order, they would be in for a long (and costly) wait for steel delivery.

A contemporary example for what can happen if the steel doesn't arrive when you want it: On the MetroNorth railroad between Stamford and Norwalk, they are replacing the beams for three dinky-sized bridges where the tracks cross over a road. The original steel supplier went out of business, so the steel was never delivered, and the construction is basically shut down (the new concrete piers and footings are in place) and has been that way for months. Maybe the steel will finally arrive toward the end of this year. The project is probably now a year or year and a half behind schedule.

I am guessing that the cost of the Columbus Center deck steel might be $50-60 million. As a sunk cost, if the developers didn't get the final chunks of funding, they might have gone ahead and built the deck anyway, and then sold it to somebody else to develop.
 
Columbus Center Decking

Besides the horizontal steel -- remember that this part of Boston is all fill

They are going to have to sink deep piling to support everyone of the piers that hold up the steel that crosses the Turnpike and in turn forms the load carrying elements for the buildings. That process of drilling a few hundred deep and fairly large diameter holes will take some time.

I'm betting that if they start drilling for the pilings in the next few weeks, that it will be next summer before any need for the steel girders that carry the deck across the Turnpike.

As a result of that construction lead time -- I?m betting that if CC?s developers did place any money on the table for the steel ? at this point its probably short money to hold the place in the steel fabrication line.
 
Hopefully this bodes well for the other deck projects in the Fens and Back Bay. We could really get something going here...

Can we get a rendering of the skyline with the 6 (7?) UC towers? I'm a klutz with Photoshop.
 
Eating hats

Ha ha. I have to eat my hat, too. I was quoted just last week in the newspaper saying I didn't think it would ever be built.

Unrelated, the three big industries I see for Boston are: tourism, colleges, and sick people. Fourth might be mutual funds / financial services.

If we just focused on those four, we'd be all set, no?

Yes, I realize that hospitals and colleges don't pay (property) taxes. w/e. They bring in other revenue.

If we really did focus on those four industries, how would our city change?

A topic for another day (and thread ...), perhaps.
 
If we really did focus on those four industries, how would our city change?
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In terms of hospitals and universities, it would become heavily dependent on federal research grants, and had better hope to keep breeding Tip O'Neills to rake in the dough.
 
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