NIMBYs really didn't kill this one ... economics did. Sure, the process was lengthy, but that's all sunk time and cost (more of the former than the latter) and frankly the amount of time that it has now sat dormant with all approvals in place has eclipsed the amount of time spent in the process. The project had many influential supporters, including the strong backing of the Mayor's office, and some of the supportive neighbors even tried to broker a deal to ensure that CC would break ground before the Clarendon project down the street. Unfortunately, now that the developer has done more exhaustive math (they wisely did not nail down several of the engineering details until the project was approved) it appears that it will take a public subsidy to get it going. The run-up in steel prices and softening of the condo market certainly didn't help, but I understand there were other unforeseen engineering challenges to the decking that are also big factors.
We can only hope it will be revived - but in general it is a reminder about how difficult it is to pursue any air-rights development ... loads more expensive than developing a level site.
As I've remarked before on this board (sorry if I'm repeating myself) much as I love to see well-executed tall buildings in the right context, I get frustrated by the assumption made by some on this board that taller equals better economics. Beyond a certain height the reverse is true - the taller you go, the more of the floorplan that gets eaten by infrastructure, so costs per foot rise exponentially. There's a market for a few tall residential buildings with a costly view, but there are only so many Manny Ramirezes in this city. And there are is a market for some breathtaking office space but there are only so many Bain Capitals. In a city of Boston's density, economics generally point toward 10 or 12 story in-fill and renovations of underutilized buildings ... and blocky construction like we're seeing in the Seaport and North Point (no, I don't like how those areas are shaping up either) pencil out very well on a cost per foot basis. Something like Columbus Center is much more iffy, and it would have been iffy even if the trolls in the Ellis Neighborhood Association had greeted them with rose petals from the start.
To that end, Winthrop Square and SST might happen, but at this point they strike me as longshots, just like Columbus Center ... someone with very deep pockets needs to be prepared to take a big risk with more of a goal of "making a statement" than making money. That, after all, is how we got the Hancock tower. From an economic standpoint, JH would have been much better off sinking their 1970 dollars into a dozen five story office buildings in a park on 128 ... they realized this, of course, but they wanted to respond to the interloper (Pru) from New Jersey.
What holds us back from the vision many of us would like to see isn't the presence of NIMBYs but rather the relative absence of super-rich megalomaniacs. Think Dubai ...
