Copley Place Expansion and Tower | Back Bay

[whighlander]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Shirley K in drag? LOL

 

[datadyne007]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Totally off-topic, but Tent City is the stupidest name for a development. How did it even get its name?

 

[whighlander]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Totally off-topic, but Tent City is the stupidest name for a development. How did it even get its name?

I think Shirley K put up a tent on the site proposed for Copley Place to keep Copley Place from being built

 

[Lurker]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Totally off-topic, but Tent City is the stupidest name for a development. How did it even get its name?

When the city bulldozed the residential blocks there for a parking garage during the whole urban renewal craze, the original residents and neighbors built a tent city on the site in protest. This eventually led to the subsidized housing being developed on the site.


The long version of the story is here:http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=126

Of course now the residents are every bit as entitled and full of themselves in local affairs as the BRA leadership was when bulldozing the original blocks.

 

[whighlander]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

pretty sure it was the tent covering SK's kiosk handing out NWIB buttons and NIMBY t-shirts before Copley Place was built -- but I could be wrong she's opposed so many projects its hard to keep track

 

[JohnAKeith]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

data, there's a very good reason for the name, as Lurker mentions. There's a lot of history to it and the goals of those who were involved were respectable and worthy.

 

[datadyne007]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

When the city bulldozed the residential blocks there for a parking garage during the whole urban renewal craze, the original residents and neighbors built a tent city on the site in protest. This eventually led to the subsidized housing being developed on the site.


The long version of the story is here:http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=126

Of course now the residents are every bit as entitled and full of themselves in local affairs as the BRA leadership was when bulldozing the original blocks.

Really interesting story. Thanks for the insight. I wasn't expecting such a profound story. Definitely is a great addition to my Boston history knowledge.

 

[bostonbred]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

IAM telling YOU all this the @2wks aGo but NOT listening to POST

 

[tmac9wr]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Reconstructing a retail department store building into a 47-story luxury residential skyscraper on behalf of special private corporate interests--like other examples of overdevelopment and Manhattanization in neighborhoods like the Back Bay and South End--can sometimes be stopped by litigation if there's enough resident opposition to such overdevelopment projects before the cranes and trucks invade the neighborhood.

As someone mentioned earlier, when hasn't a major development project like this been built by private interests? I'd also be interested in seeing where Manhattanization is taking place, especially in regards to the South End.

But if the now-public space where the Indianapolis-based Simon family wants to build its skyscraper to house more potential customers for Neiman Marcus gets turned into some kind of "People's Park" by Back Bay and South End residents (before its converted into a crane-filled construction site for 3 years), perhaps the City officials will then begin to examine some of the legal documents from the 1980s more closely?

Obviously there will be cranes, but you're making it sound like they will be rolling dump trucks through the quiet side roads of the South End.

Speaking of Neiman Marcus's alleged need for more retail space in the Back Bay, as the following February 2011 internet posting by a former disgruntled employee at this store seems to indicate, the store is apparently "constantly empty," ironically:

"The employees at Neiman Marcus act as though they never left high school. All during training we are told to greet everyone, and never judge by appearances, yet the other employees do exactly that and are rude to newer employees- and are CONSTANTLY talking badly behind each others backs. Working with such expensive product had made most employees jaded, and to put more bluntly- superficial a**holes. Selling outside of your own department is encouraged by management- but don't cross the employees of the department you are moving in on- they are like vultures protecting their carcasses, and in my experience, the carcasses were the handbags.

"At first everyone seems really nice and smiley and great, surrounded by beautiful designer products and getting to talk to people all day, not too shabby!. But you quickly come to find, if you are doing well- making lots of commissions, management is pleased but co-associates are pissed, and will bad mouth you. On the other hand, if you aren't selling a lot (even if it is at no fault of your own, for example, if the store is constantly EMPTY), then management is upset, and oh yeah, your co-associates are still talking behind your back. Also, even management would bad-mouth other employees to associates. Very unprofessional.

"As for the executives and HR department- they are the absolute WORST! They appear all inviting and friendly at first, but they are cut-throat and have no problem firing people on the spot. I truly believe the people who have been at Neiman's for a long period of time are mean and miserable people. I used to be a big fan of the store, but I will never shop there again, and will happily bring my business else where. DO NOT WORK THERE."

Stop the presses! A disgruntled former employee suggested that the store was doing poorly in the middle of an emotional rant. Neiman Marcus is a major chain, so I bet they know what they're doing here. Even if the store isn't doing well, an expansion/renovation could help make it more appealing to prospective customers. Any protest is against the tower, not the expansion of Neiman's.

 

[KentXie]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Sometimes the expansion of the stores have to do more about due to the lack of inventory space and merchandising space, not the amount of customers. At the AE at CambridgeSide that I worked at, there are 3 levels which determines how much merchandises they have. While we technically didn't expand we got bumped up to the highest level even though our store, besides Newbury, performed the worst in the district. Hell the AE in Newbury was pretty dead even though there is a lot of foot traffic outside and yet it moved to Copley Place, where there is even less foot traffic AND expanded to a top tier store. My thinking is that the people who shop at Copley tend to spend much more so while there may be less foot traffic, increasing space and merchandising can attract more customers. Also, less foot traffic + more spending = better conversion rate, items per transaction, and average price per transaction which is what most stores look at, not just the traffic.

 

[jass]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

These high end stores have such ridiculous margins that they dont need volume. They just need some rich person with an unlimited credit card to buy some $500 jeans that costs $13 to make.

 

[bbfen]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

I think Shirley K put up a tent on the site proposed for Copley Place to keep Copley Place from being built

Mizz Kressel didn't live in Boston when Copley was built. She's an imported "local".

 

[whighlander]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Mizz Kressel didn't live in Boston when Copley was built. She's an imported "local".

SK is just a convenient surrogate for the process

Much as when the Rupublicans wanted to target Congress they put up a bloated gassy picture of Tip all Politics is Local O'Neil -- even after there was a new Speaker

SK is just the modern incarnation of lots of others including Mel King (Tent City) who like Whitey Bulger in the Lottery -- were trying to get what they could (fame, power, money?) out of the then burgeoing interest in developing in Boston without actually having to contribute anything but words

 

[bbfen]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

SK is just a convenient surrogate for the process

Obviously. I like to point out that Mizz Kressel is an imported "local" because it makes her crazy when people sabotage her little homilies with a story about life BS (Before Shirlz). She has the air of a life-long Back Bay Brahmin for no good reason.

 

[tobyjug]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Most "Brahmins" had left Back Bay by the end of the 40's. It is safe to assume today that anyone who has a Back Bay address is not a Brahmin.

 

[whighlander]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Most "Brahmins" had left Back Bay by the end of the 40's. It is safe to assume today that anyone who has a Back Bay address is not a Brahmin.

Actually, some of the Brahmins left the immeadiate premises for the suburbs -- but being good Brahmins -- they made sure to retain the real estate in the family

Some of these families have returned and reclaimed their Boston / Cambridge manses or pied-a-terrre's

Most of the Back Bay and fancier places on the Hill are however now owned by recent (i.e. less than 2 gnerations) arrivals such as Jawwn Faaaahbs Kehhhhhhhry -- although from his middle name he could have had a family manse in town

 

[tobyjug]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

You pretty much miss the point about faux heritage. But that's ok.

I have plenty of acquaintances who are the beneficiaries of family trusts that own property in town. But that doesn't mean they actually reside there. Or that they want to.

Have you ever actually spent any time in one of those townhouses? No closets. 100 amp service and knob and tube wiring. Hard to heat. No parking. Close to the street. Noisy. Gawkers. People pissing on your doorstep. Shitty steam heat.

It isn't all charm my boy.

Ok, so the speculators who have carved up the townhouses into condos have upgraded them and sold them to folks who want to pretend to be aristocrats. Good for them. I'm laughing all the way to JJ Foley's on Dover Street.

 

[KentXie]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Air-rights lease at Copley Place roils critics
The plan for a 47-story tower that would be Boston’s largest residential building
has again thrust the complex into controversy.

Read more here: http://www.boston.com/business/arti...ts_up_debate_on_47_story_tower/?p1=News_links

Oh look another "controversial" proposal. Just like every other building in the city that was built.

 

[stellarfun]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

From the Globe:

The Globe makes this a Marty versus Menino fight.

 

[JohnCostello]

Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Don't forget Byron "My hair sort of does look like those pictures of Frederick Douglas" Rushing. During the last big recesssion (1992) he crushed a development plan in the Charlestown Navy Yard with calls of racist suffering if a planned tourist attraction was built to house the remains of the ship the Wydah, a pirate ship, that was once a slaver.

Now Byron wants to crush another jobs adding and sensible development in the heart of the high spine, where all the density and traffic is supposed to go anyway.

What a tool.