Columbus Center: RIP | Back Bay

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Re: Columbus Center

Isn't it even more obvious now? Winn's PR firm is out and Beal's PR firm is in. This means all future communications about the project will flow through the Beal Company, not Winn. Oh, and just so you know, all Beal is doing is running a "consulting" job, you know, for a "handsome fee" wink, wink.

The next steps in this extraordinary chess game are going to be fun! Boston hasn't had such a soap opera real estate development since maybe 75 State Street.

I'm thrilled because Beal/Related can do this. I would have liked to have seen Hines or BP, but this is another top-notch choice.
 
Re: Columbus Center

Does anybody know who owns the old Hard Rock Cafe building? Also, does anybody know who owns the triangular piece of land that houses 1800s tenements along Stanhope Street that is home to Bertuccis, 33, and some small businesses?

These properties stand in the way of joining the Clarendon site and the Columbus Center site.
 
Re: Columbus Center

Is it desirable to join them? I'd rather leave 1800s houses and small businesses alone if they are still standing and in good condition.
 
Re: Columbus Center

Joining The Clarendon and the Columbus Center is a good idea, but I don't think that it warrants the removal of these brownstones and small, local businesses just for the sake of it. For me to jump on that bandwagon, there would need to be some compelling reason - like if they weren't connected, both projects would fail (which is obviously not the case).

While they would certainly raise each others' values if they were both fully built out, I don't see any need that they should be connected any more than that.
 
Re: Columbus Center

I walked the area yesterday - the buildings offer no value, they are not pretty or historic, they have been altered through the years and today resemble a brick strip mall (complete with national chain restaurant, and soon they will be completely flanked and overshadowed by skyscrapers to both the north and south. The parcels are surrounded by narrow ally-like streets that are poorly lit, poorly maintained and not used.

With Related/Beal building the Clarendon and soon Columbus Center, this little wedge of dilapidated tenements suddenly take on an important role in what that area might transform into.

Again, does anybody know who owns these properties? Or the Hard Rock building?
 
Re: Columbus Center

pelhamhall said:
..........

Again, does anybody know who owns these properties? Or the Hard Rock building?
Click to expand...

39, 41, 43, 45 Stanhope all owned by Stuart Clarendon Associates, also known as HN Gorin (45 Stanhope is closest to Clarendon.)

35 Stanhope owned by Anthony Gordon

21 and 27 Stanhope owned by Museum Properties Inc

The end building has a Clarendon St. address
 
Re: Columbus Center

Those parcels are too narrow to be redeveloped at a reasonable profit, especially given ground water issues. Other than perhaps a taller tower in place of the Hard Rock Building I wouldn't expect anything to drastically change. The streets and restaurants will probably receive an upscale makeover with better lighting and that's about it.
 
Re: Columbus Center

I'm thinking more in terms of access, parking, deliveries, construction staging, etc. The CC site is so constricted, but now it has breathing room.

Beal is great at buying parcels in other names (did it at Harvard and BRL). I wonder who really owns those tenements...

Look at the aerial view of that neighborhood and you can begin to see a new CC master plan incorporating a lot of those lands, shifting development off of the costly Turnpike and onto cheaper, dry ground...

Obviously at this point I am just rambling, I have no information other than hunches. From the aerial view it looks like that triangular tenement patchwork would make a nice, inexpensive, out-of-view parking garage.
 
Re: Columbus Center

I like "narrow alley-like streets" with old buildings on them. Especially if they contrast sharply with the surrounding neighborhood. See "Blackstone Block" for another example.

Tearing down occupied businesses and residences to build parking is always a bad idea.
 
Re: Columbus Center

Well, I'm just making random "what-if" suggestions. Who knows what will happen or if any of this land comes into play.

From my experience there yesterday, it is wasted land with ugly *not charming* old hacked together buildings that I think were actually carriage houses behind a row of brownstones that must have been torn down. The window openings suggest these were garages at one point.

I like narrow streets and small buildings in narrow street, small building neighborhoods. This is a super-block, super-development neighborhood and these little scraps are going to be completely "landlocked" and "sunblocked" once Columbus Center is complete. The businesses could all relocated to Columbus on the ground floor of the new tower and everyone would be better off for it.

Again, just my own crazy ramblings - walk that triangle, I'm curious if others feel it is charming or just chilling.
 
Re: Columbus Center

OK, but Blackstone Block is also surrounded by a "super-block, super-development" neighborhood -- Government Center, the Rose Kennedy Greenway, and Quincy Markets (an early 1800s example of a super-block development). Most of the buildings in it are unremarkable, but I'd hate to lose it.

One reason I like Boston is that it presents so many contrasts between adjoining old and new development.
 
Re: Columbus Center

If it's really as bad as pelhamhall suggests (I have not been down there in a long time, so I cannot remember), then I suggest rehabbing the buildings. You would obviously need to find a developer/owner interested in spending the money, but remaking these into more charming brownstones with narrow streets would be a far superior option than to simply tear them down and build another high rise or mega development.

Does anyone have a decent pic of the area? Just to give myself and others who aren't familiar with the exact area a refresher.
 
Re: Columbus Center

Blackstone Block is a jewel of the city. It is several small cow paths/roads, and charming, restored storefronts, and it has open parkland in front and behind it.

This small strip of buildings wedged between the Clarendon and Columbus Center skyscrapers will be completely walled off by large scale development, and it will have no "front" - they won't even be visible from anything but the two alleys that straddle them - the wide open "front" will now be a 37-story tower.

I always wondered if there's a story behind these properties and always wondered why somebody hasn't attempted to merge them into either the Clarendon or Columbus Center developments - or even a Hard Rock Building redevelopment. They are just floating there, unanchored to anything and about to be even further isolated.

My guess is now that there will be one owner of all surrounding parcels, these will come into play somehow. I wonder who really controls all those LLC's they are all listed under and if that person would play ball.
 
Re: Columbus Center

Bertucci's closed months ago.

And, please, no more talk of the Hard Rock. It's in a perfect location now.
 
Re: Columbus Center

Pelhamhall thinks the short brick buildings on Stanhope Street are ugly. I think glass and concrete skyscrapers are ugly. Ron Druker wants to tear down the historic Art-Deco Shreve's building and replace it with one of these. The MFA has already torn down half of its historic building to replace it with a big glass cube. Where Park Square once was we now have an ugly hotel.

Whether all this is good or bad for the city will always be an endless debate because it all depends on personal taste. Just remember though, that once a historic structure is torn down, it's lost forever. Boston is beginning to look an awful lot like Manhattan, as the history and charm that sets it apart from other big cities is slowly disappearing.
 
Re: Columbus Center

Boston looks nothing at all like Manhattan. That's nuts!!!! We should take up a collection and send any poster who writes that on the Fung-Wah down to Manhattan so they never utter those preposterous words agin!!!

The Back Bay, South End, Beacon Hill, North End... Boston is incredible, full of history and charm, and with so many large swaths of the urban core taken up by historic low-rise rowhouses, it is a very unique American city and I am thankful for that - nobody wants to touch these neighborhoods. We are also not a living air museum, we are a viable, economic powerhouse - so any opportunity to grow the core of the city should be seized. This 5-6 building back-alley block that I am speaking of will not be missed. Being "old" doesn't necessarily mean "historic" Especially once these old parcels are completed isolated from the outside world and flanked by narrow alleys.

This block is just a curiosity to me. It's so out of place and random. Clearly there is some kind of a story as to how these old structures survived while being completely flanked by buildings much taller and larger than they are.

Ted - I agree with you that SC&L building should not be torn down. These back-alley garages... come on!

I'm not for tearing them down, I'm just curious why they haven't been yet. They are so out of place there.

To go back on topic - soon there will be one owner for the mega development in its backyard and the mega development in its front yard. How much longer can/will this 5-6 building shanty-ville survive?
 
Re: Columbus Center

Those little fellers are kind of cute. Used to be Satch's in there, then Bomboa, then whatever. Old carriage houses. Reminds me of the Blackstone Block, but without tourists. In London they would be "mews flats".
 
Re: Columbus Center

Today's perfect city requires a mixture of modern, glass and steel high rises and more human scale brownstones - a combo that Boston has. Unless the brownstone is beyond repair, I do not want to see it torn down because, as TedG said earlier, once they're gone, you can't replace them. That being said, I am all for seeing more modern skyscrapers pop up along the Boston skyline. Before we start tearing down brownstones, however, lets cap the Pike and build up all of the surface parking lots around the city first (developing some of the Greenway parcels wouldn't hurt either, but that's a topic for another thread).
 
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