Columbus Center: RIP | Back Bay

[Mike]

Re: Columbus Center

update from columbuscenter.com:

NOTE: As of April 18, 2008, the Developer will be proceeding with construction at a reduced level over the next months until full scale construction resumes. The Developer is meeting with the City and Turnpike Authoirty to develop an interim plan to secure the site, and temporarily restore the streets, sidewalks and on-street parking during this period. The details of this plan will be posted as soon as they are completed.

Current activities include conclusion of pre-construction work (e.g. site preparation, drilled pile testing) and construction work (e.g. drilled pile and shaft installation, support of excavation) is commencing. For a complete description of activities over the next 30-days, please click the ?30-day Look Ahead? link above.

Link

 

[TheBostonBoy]

Re: Columbus Center

^HOPE!!!!!!!!!! Haha

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

Re: Columbus Center

 

[nm88]

Re: Columbus Center

Mister Moderator, thanks for all the great pix.

 

[Ron Newman]

Re: Columbus Center

If I lived on Cortes Street I would be quite unhappy to see that outside my front door, with no prospect of the development being completed.

 

[sidewalks]

Re: Columbus Center

In the article below, which appeared in yesterday's Boston Globe, ubiquitous Columbus Center Critic Ned Flaherty is identified as an "urban planner". Perhaps my memory has failed me, but I didn't think that Ned was an urban planner by profession. If I am correct that Ned is not an urban planner, and I apologize if I'm mistaken, what gave the reporter such an idea? Shades of corkscrew landings and sniper fire...

Neighbors lament Columbus mess
By Christina Pazzanese, Globe Correspondent | April 20, 2008

News that the ill-fated Columbus Center project has once again stalled over financing problems has residents of Back Bay, Bay Village, and the South End questioning whether they'll be stuck indefinitely with an abandoned mess that cuts an ugly swath through their neighborhoods.

Jessica Hoffman Davis, president of the Pope Condominium building on Columbus Avenue, said that like many, she hopes the project hasn't been permanently derailed.

"It took a long time for people to get used to the idea, it's been so beleaguered," she said, adding that she thinks neighbors are feeling a little shortchanged.

Last month, developers of the $800 million hotel, retail, and luxury condominium project planned to be built over the Mass. Pike between Tremont and Clarendon streets asked the Turnpike Authority to approve an 18-month moratorium on construction work in order to sort out financing or ride out tough economic times.

Early this month, the state pulled back $10 million in grant funding.

A prior request for another $10 million in state funding was initially approved last year but never given out.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino toured Cortes Street in Bay Village on April 10, assuring residents that once the project's status becomes clearer in the next few weeks, the city would take steps to make sure the project's staging areas are properly cleaned up during the delay.

"Before they approve any delays, the developer should have the common courtesy to restore the neighborhood to a useable form," said Anthony Gordon, a developer and Stanhope Street resident who served on a citizens advisory committee in the early days of the project.

Gordon says while neighbors have been very cooperative about the ongoing construction, the loss of sidewalk access and on-street parking because of project fencing has really hurt nearby restaurants.

"At a bare minimum, the Turnpike and the city owe us to get the boundaries of the site intact," he said.

Bruce Pettingill, whose Cortes Street home overlooks one work site, said he hopes the city will at least put things back to their before-construction state. His suggestions: Get rid of green construction fences that block a sidewalk and narrow the roadway, restore about a dozen street trees that were cut down to erect the fence, and fix a broken sidewalk ramp and missing stop sign at Arlington Street.

Peter Pogorski, a South End architect who served on the citizens advisory committee and is on the Ellis Neighborhood Association's board of directors, said the delay is a disappointment to many who fear the project won't happen as planned.

For the short term, the city's focus should be on restoring the streetscape for pedestrians and drivers, he said.

"The immediate would be parking; we lost a lot of parking" on the Berkeley Street bridge, said Pogorski.

According to a Boston Redevelopment Authority spokeswoman, officials would be meeting with the Cassin/Winn Development team this week to discuss the developer's financing and moving the project ahead.

"It will probably take a month to work through the issues," Jessica Shumaker said Tuesday. "The construction equipment will not be removed and the parking will not come back until we work to see if the developer can get this project back on track.

"In the meantime, the area has been cleaned up by Cassin/Winn - and if the project does not go forward, the sidewalk on Cortes Street will need to be rebuilt and put back in place. The trees will also need to be replanted," said Shumaker.

But with commercial lending requirements tightened and other funding sources dried up, while costs have more than doubled since the project began, Ned Flaherty said he doesn't believe a few more weeks will make any difference to the project's ultimate fate.

"I laughed out loud" at the mayor's request for patience, said Flaherty, an urban planner and cofounder of the Alliance of Boston Neighborhoods, who has been closely watching the project for many years.

"The developer has been saying 'a few more weeks' for 13 years." Flaherty said three other smaller condominium projects underway in the area - the Clarendon, the Bryant, and 285 Columbus - are "all moving along nicely" and thankfully "not dependent" on the success or failure of the Columbus Center.

Restoring equipment to power about 75 road lights over the Mass. Pike that have been dark for months because of the construction will likely be part of upcoming negotiations with the developers, said Mac Daniel, a Turnpike Authority spokesman.

Shumaker said plans for putting a city park on Parcel 16 - the triangular land between Stanhope Street and Columbus Avenue - remain intact.

"This park will get built whether or not the Columbus Center project goes forward, because the funding is in place for it," said Shumaker.

"I think the children who are planning to use that playground will be adults by the time it gets built," said Gordon.

"I'd like them to finish the project," said Lynn Andrews, who serves as a Cortes Street representative with the construction firm. But if it doesn't happen, she said, she'd like the city to involve citizens in whatever becomes Plan B.

"It'll take millions to restore this. We might as well put it back to something nicer than it was."

Christina Pazzanese can be e-mailed at cpazzanese@globe.com.

 

[KentXie]

Re: Columbus Center

"The developer has been saying 'a few more weeks' for 13 years." Flaherty said three other smaller condominium projects underway in the area - the Clarendon, the Bryant, and 285 Columbus - are "all moving along nicely" and thankfully "not dependent" on the success or failure of the Columbus Center.

Geee.... I wonder why? Maybe because of the NIMBYs and because this project is a lot more complicated than all the other projects. There's a part of me that wishes the land is left as it is now. I'm pretty sure that CC did the most to appease the people who live there out of many other projects but was still fiercely opposed.

This is what you get when NIMBYs have too much power and finally get what they want: something that is less than 1 story high casting no shadow or wind tunnels and blocking no view. Yet they are still unhappy.

 

[Ned Flaherty]

Re: Columbus Center

. . . Ned is not an urban planner . . . what gave the reporter such an idea? (?Neighbors lament Columbus mess?, by Christina Pazzanese, Boston Globe Correspondent, April 20, 2008)

I am not an urban planner, and I never told anyone that. When the Globe correspondent contacted me for her story, I told her to use my identity ? urban planning activist ? as reported everywhere else: Banker and Tradesman (15 January 2007), South End News (2 August 2007), Boston Herald (10 November 2007), and Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly / Exhibit A (27 November 2007).

The Globe goofed. I notified the reporter and her editor the same day.

My identity was clearly stated in the latest editorial, which many forum members have not seen yet, but which the Globe reporter reviewed with me while writing her story:

The Columbus Center debacle: how did it happen?
by Ned Flaherty, South End News Contributing Writer ? Thursday, Apr. 10, 2008

After 13 years of re-proposals and missed deadlines, the massive Columbus Center project is taking its own life. A letter on the editorial page of last week?s South End News asked: How did this happen? The public was betrayed by its own government, that?s how. Here is some of what I discovered through years of fighting for public records followed by painstaking analysis to connect the dots.

On Dec. 18, 1996, James Kerasiotes, Chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority (MTA) gave local developer Arthur Winn perpetual control of air rights, with no competitors, and no disclosure. Kerasiotes, in trying to raise cash, hide Turnpike finances and escape a fraud conviction, was caught, convicted, and resigned. But Winn?s deal remained.

Much of what followed never added up and, in fact, grew increasingly suspicious.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) let Winn fund the $250,000 cost of the public review process, and thereby control the schedule, agenda, and meeting minutes. BRA and Winn also hired technicians who secretly recorded the public meetings. After I bought the recordings and compared them to the printed minutes, there was no denying that the BRA edited the printed minutes to shrink unfavorable comments and expand favorable ones.

On Dec. 20, 2000, Mayor Thomas Menino appointed 11 people to his Columbus Center Citizens Advisory Committee; seven were chosen for him by MTA, BRA and Winn; four were nominated democratically by their communities. The seven voted ?In Favor? and the four voted ?Opposed.?

Despite Menino?s promise to refuse cash from anyone currently doing business with City Hall, on Dec. 11, 2002, the Boston Globe reported that he accepted a $50,000 ?campaign donation? from the Columbus Center team while reviewing their approval.

And that wasn?t the first time the team offered campaign donations to politicians with influence on the project?s approval. On Sept. 29, 2000, Governor Paul Cellucci accepted a $10,000 ?campaign donation? from Winn. Four days later, the MTA announced Winn?s deal.

From 2001 through 2003, Winn proposed a skyscraper nearly triple the 150-foot height permitted by the Turnpike Master Plan, argued that the triple size would pay for all costs, profits, and benefits, and then promised to seek ?not one penny? of public subsidy. Because the tower is 420 feet, the Turnpike Master Plan requires a two-acre park, but Winn replaced that park with a 633-car garage, 134 more luxury homes, and another $300 million in sales.

Committee members asked for proof of costs and profits. The MTA, BRA, and Winn had the data, but withheld it, and refused to prove anything.

And despite promises to own and operate the project for decades, on Mar. 15, 2006, Winn sold Columbus Center to the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS).

On May 2, 2006, the MTA Board ignored its own Advisory Board?s recommendations, which argued against signing the lease with the Columbus Center, and signed a 99-year lease benefitting the new owners of the project, CalPERS, at Massachusetts? expense and based on faulty information. The terms of that lease were based on a 120-page ?fair-market-value? property appraisal. Page 45 shows total building size at 1,455,131 square feet, but page 113 calculates rent value for only 1,000,000 square feet, thus reducing California?s rent by 31 percent. MTA refused to correct the error or raise the rent. It didn?t matter ? the developers soon defaulted on that lease, and attempted to negotiate a lease with looser terms, lower rent, and larger subsidies.

Moreover, after promising to seek no public funds, the Columbus Center team asked for 15 subsidies totaling $246 million: $55 million in loans plus $191 million in grants and tax breaks that would pay both their costs and their profits. The agencies didn?t verify the applications, and the developers told conflicting stories. Construction loans from Anglo Irish Bank, for example, were claimed in 11 public subsidy filings ? even those filed long after the bank had left the project. No construction loans were issued by any bank and no subsidy agency ever even checked. Most agencies weren?t even aware of all the other subsidies for which the developers had applied.

On May 10, 2006, Councilors James Kelly, Michael Flaherty, Stephen Murphy, Mike Ross, Maureen Feeney, Rob Consalvo, Jerry McDermott, and John Tobin voted in favor of a 19-year property tax break, which the Mayor and BRA said would cost only $14 million. Councilor Chuck Turner and I asked for the formula that determined the $14 million figure, but no one at City Hall would release it. The councilors who voted in favor never saw the calculations, refused to ask for them, and still think they lost only $14 million. But when the same application came before Governor Mitt Romney?s Economic Assistance Coordinating Council, several pages had been replaced, costing the City ? but benefitting the developers ? tens of millions of dollars over 19 years. The developers admitted to the Council that no subsidy was needed, but the Council waived $7.5 million in state income taxes anyway. When Shirley Kressel and I told the Council that the tax break calculation pages had been replaced, a Council lawyer warned that if we uttered another word he would have us removed by state troopers who were already lined up for the task.

Governor Deval Patrick said on April 8 he?d let the developers reapply for the $21 million in MassHousing loans and $20 million in M.O.R.E. grants that he redirected to other applicants. That?s unlawful, because those loans are only for affordable rental apartments (not luxury condominiums) and those grants are only for publicly owned infrastructure (Columbus Center?s tunnels, buildings, and parks are all privately owned). Will Governor Patrick approve the next nine subsidies to pay $116 million of the developer?s costs and profits with Massachusetts dollars? And will he guarantee that cash, as the developer demands? Or will he accept the Inspector General?s confirmation that the project was proposed and approved as subsidy-free?

This debacle was arranged by our own governments. Not all of government failed us, however. Applause goes to City Councilors Turner and Charles Yancey and former councilor Felix Arroyo for opposing the City property tax break; to state Representatives Byron Rushing, Marty Walz, and House Speaker Sal DiMasi for opposing subsidies to this project; and to the U.S. Treasury for twice disapproving a $59 million income tax break. Inspector General Greg Sullivan protected us by confirming that Columbus Center was proposed and approved as subsidy-free. The MTA?s outside Advisory Board made recommendations that were responsible. And Secretary of Transportation Bernard Cohen and MTA Executive Director Alan LeBovidge say they?re trying to reform the MTA.

At this point, construction on the project ? if it resumes at all ? won?t finish until 2016. The subsidy applications said if taxpayers didn?t chip in, the project would die. That?s untrue. Right after losing $41 million in subsidies this week, the developers said they?re plowing ahead anyway, which proves that the subsidies were never critical at all. They won?t stop asking for Massachusetts dollars so long as they keep getting them. Governor, just say ?no!?

MTA should grant no more extensions, evict its un-funded tenants, restore and secure the property, treat air rights as a public asset, follow the Turnpike Master Plan, and obtain multiple, competitive bids with public audits. Anything less would be criminal.

Ned Flaherty, former neighborhood association vice president and Alliance of Boston Neighborhoods co-founder, has studied Turnpike air rights since moving to the South End 18 years ago. He strongly supports air rights development, but opposes the public process failures that resulted in the Columbus Center disaster.

 

[statler]

Re: Columbus Center

Ned, in your role as an urban planning activist (and not, as you note, merely a South End Neighborhood activist) would you mind commenting on these ideals for proper and good urban planning?
Mind you this isn't specifiably tied to Columbus Center but urban planning as a whole.

1. intimate space

2. diversity through small-increment development by different owners

3. boldly-conceived infrastructure (Yeah, canals and landfill !)

4. buildings that touch

5. background buildings --if the paradigm is right.

6. roof forms and materials as unifiers

7. casually varied relationships between buildings (NOT defined by uniformizing rigidities of zoning)

8. small, irregular lots

9. a central focus or main square with a monument or two

10. architecture that's not hidebound with prissy strictures against frank revivalism ("We can't do that, it was done a hundred years ago.")

11. if the streetscape is sound, interesting and pleasant to look at, you don't need many trees. They take up room and divert from the task at hand

12 hundreds of small buildings give you more places than a few dozen big ones

13. if you build a great place you'll make money; you don't have to start with current market wisdom

14. make every square inch count

15 build in the hierachy; coherence will follow (put the most important things in the center)

16. bold topographic ideas like landfill and canals (you make the former with what you excavate to make the latter)

17. don't be afraid to design for the rich. The best things only the rich can afford (Back Bay, Beacon Hill --then and now. The rest of us visit to get our jollies.)

18. pint-sized streets:

19. an intimately-scaled water's edge

20. don't be afraid to design pretty, and don't design for your colleagues

21. don't be afraid to risk a little hokeyness (if you think about it, Back Bay had more than a little Disney in its genes)

22. Taste is perhaps debatable, but mediocrity can be legislated.

Source

 

[TedG]

Re: Columbus Center

Consider all 3 projects adjacent to Columbus Center. Each was proposed long after Columbus Center was approved, and today each is nearly completed, while Columbus Center has yet to start. So why is Columbus Center perpetually in limbo?


DarkFenX: "Maybe because of the NIMBYs and because this project is a lot more complicated than all the other projects."

Columbus Center?s complications don?t begin to excuse its delays. Copley Place and the Southwest Corridor are also air-rights developments, and they, too, were built in a few years, not the 18 now proposed for CC.

NIMBYism is not the cause of Columbus Center?s failure. The MTA and BRA gave their approvals in July 2003. As I posted earlier, it would already be up and running if they had built it exactly as proposed and approved.

The complication arises because this project never once qualified for a commercial bank loan. Their subsidy applications claimed a loan that never existed, and now they?re paying the price for lying about it. And they?re paying an even bigger political price because they decided in the beginning to pay their costs and profits with subsidies, then they proposed to use no subsidies, then they sought over a dozen of them.

It?s easy to see that the biggest complication of all is getting caught red-handed doing exactly what they said they wouldn?t do. They lied about the subsidies, and then the bank loan. Even their own business partners at the BRA and MTA don?t trust them very much now. It?s no wonder.

 

[Ron Newman]

Re: Columbus Center

Consider all 3 projects adjacent to Columbus Center. Each was proposed long after Columbus Center was approved, and today each is nearly completed, while Columbus Center has yet to start.

These are all on actual land, rather than air rights, no?

 

[Ned Flaherty]

Re: Columbus Center

Ned, in your role as an urban planning activist (and not, as you note, merely a South End Neighborhood activist) would you mind commenting on these ideals for proper and good urban planning? Mind you this isn't specifiably tied to Columbus Center but urban planning as a whole.

Hello, Statler.

I?ll reply only briefly, because comments not arising from Columbus Center don?t belong here, and others might squawk at a long, off-topic reply.

Your 22 ideals are worthy concepts to be considered, so long as designers realize that no project can have every good principle crammed into it. Each of the 22 principles has succeeded somewhere, though few can succeed in every single situation. And, each of the 22 also has failed somewhere, which doesn?t mean the principle is flawed, only that one instance of attempting to apply it didn?t succeed.

Columbus Center?s outstanding issues ? no competitive bid, no public audit, the public-subsidy scam, inability to qualify for commercial loans, master plan violations, public parks converted to private gardens, etc. ? are all the developer?s own doing. They stem neither from following nor from ignoring your 22 ideals. They stem mainly from public process failures, and much less so from urban design mistakes.

But I think you already knew that.

 

[TedG]

Re: Columbus Center

These are all on actual land, rather than air rights, no?

Copley Place is built over tunnels containing both railways and roadways; the Southwest Corridor covers railways.

 

[Beton Brut]

Re: Columbus Center

TedG -- I think Ron is referring to the Clarendon, the Bryant, and 285 Columbus: "all moving along nicely" according to Ned in the article posted here.

 

[Ron Newman]

Re: Columbus Center

Copley Place certainly was not "proposed long after Columbus Center was approved." It opened in 1984.

 

[TedG]

Re: Columbus Center

Copley Place certainly was not "proposed long after Columbus Center was approved." It opened in 1984.

I wasn't referring to Copley Place in that post. I was referring to The Clarendon, The Bryant and the 285 Columbus lofts.

 

[TedG]

Re: Columbus Center

TedG -- I think Ron is referring to the Clarendon, the Bryant, and 285 Columbus: "all moving along nicely" according to Ned in the article posted here.

Sorry, my bad.

 

[Ron Newman]

Re: Columbus Center

I was referring to whatever "3 projects adjacent to Columbus Center" you meant back in your earlier post, TedG. I don't understand your subsequent citation of Copley Place. Nor of the Southwest Corridor, which is a park, not a building.

If the 3 projects are in fact the Clarendon, Bryant, and 285, they are on solid land rather than air rights, therefore less complex and time-consuming to build.

 

[KentXie]

Re: Columbus Center

I wasn't referring to Copley Place in that post. I was referring to The Clarendon, The Bryant and the 285 Columbus lofts.

They are not being built over a highway.

 

[statler]

Re: Columbus Center

Columbus Center?s outstanding issues ? no competitive bid, no public audit, the public-subsidy scam, inability to qualify for commercial loans, master plan violations, public parks converted to private gardens, etc. ? are all the developer?s own doing. They stem neither from following nor from ignoring your 22 ideals. They stem mainly from public process failures, and much less so from urban design mistakes.

But I think you already knew that.

I think we agree on the main cause of the failure of Columbus Center - the public process.

Where I think we may not see eye to eye is whether the fault lays with the developers inability to correctly abide by that public process or the process in and of itself.
Competitive bid requirements, public audits, & master plans all serve a noble purpose. But somewhere along the way that process became so laborious, so costly and so lengthy that it leads to things like the inability to qualify for commercial loans. And so only 'safe' (read: dull, suburban) and easy (read: cheaply, quickly built) projects move forward. Meanwhile, complex, daring projects like CC get stuck in the mud-like process.

This is where the 22 ideals come into play. They are pretty bold ideas. They are not cookie cutter 'steps'. They require open minds and a lot of flexibility. But if they see the light of day they can lead to great urban spaces.

Can you name a truly bold, genuine urban space built in this city in the past 20 years?
Neither can I. Winn thought they could do it. They even invested millions of dollars on the project (by their estimate). But they failed. The process was too much for the complex project they wanted to build. There wasn't enough flexibility built in to the process to handle something like Columbus Center.
Now developers will use CC as a case study and know, "If it is too complex, it can't be built in Boston".

And we all lose.