Copley Place Expansion and Tower | Back Bay

Status
Not open for further replies.
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

^Hutch & ^dirtywater

Perhaps my use of the term "spot zoning" is not exactly on target, and I'm learning from your posts.

But any parcel in this town can change its use from residential to office, office to hotel, and so on, with the filing of a Notice of Project Change at the 11th hour of approvals during the Article 80 process. Two public meetings are held a mile from the site, published in 6 pt. type in the back of the Boston Herald. At those two meetings, the BRA reps don't even bother taking notes. It's not a process worth defending.

If a thread starts on this topic, and people are interested, I'll point out egregious examples of PDA's that would blow any urban planner's mind. Most of what's done is done behind closed doors and the PDAs, PNFs and related project filings reflect a fraction of what is to be developed onsite. A fraction. The boards involved in the approval pipeline, in composition and disposition, are a story unto themselves.

I don't want to get caught up in semantics of what spot zoning is, and I do sincerely appreciate your responses above.
 
Last edited:
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Good news that they are serious about this. From an aesthetic standpoint, this is the proposal that I most want to see grace our fair skyline. However, I do continue to be confused about the height. Is it 569' total, or is the glass at the top going to extend over 600' (623' was it?) and finally give us a new 3rd tallest building?
 
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Slide 9 shows street-level retail too! Awesome.
 
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

I've always liked the design but that whole area would just be a total wreck for 3 years.

I don't know how it could possibly be a condo though in this market....it would probably take 2-3 years to sell off half the units of a building half this size...
 
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Bubbybu said:
I've always liked the design but that whole area would just be a total wreck for 3 years.
Click to expand...

...So we should never build anything, ever again, in downtown Boston? Riiiiiiight...
 
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Bubbybu said:
I've always liked the design but that whole area would just be a total wreck for 3 years.

I don't know how it could possibly be a condo though in this market....it would probably take 2-3 years to sell off half the units of a building half this size...
Click to expand...

Well, that 2-3 year construction, plus a year of approvals and design, would mean it wouldn't be in this market, but in a market 4 years in the future. Which hopefully is a much better market than today.

In this way, all residential construction, is speculation and crossed fingers.
 
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

gooseberry said:
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2011/08/17/developer_offers_new_details_on_copley_tower/A typical article about changes to the design in response to NIMBY complaints and NIMBY's complaining in general about the project. It sounds like the tower is the same size at least.

A slide show of pictures from the Globe...
Click to expand...

Does look good........I thought Menino did not want to Mahattonize the city?

This is the future.............
 
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

TheRifleman said:
Does look good........I thought Menino did not want to Mahattonize the city?

This is the future.............
Click to expand...

It's really not wise to even joke about these things. Manhattanization has already been brought up and the opposition to this project will dredge up any inkling of concern or fault out of context to use to their advantage, even if it's a joke.

This is the same thing that was discussed a couple pages back with the NMWatch debacle.
 
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that this would be the third tallest building...in the drawings it looks so totally dwarfed by Hancock and Prudential. I like it a lot, but I don't know that it's going to make much of a statement on the skyline...
 
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

This guy's gotta be floating this just to test interest. There's no way this building is getting built in this economy. Sorry to be pessimistic, but...
 
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Tombstoner said:
I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that this would be the third tallest building...in the drawings it looks so totally dwarfed by Hancock and Prudential. I like it a lot, but I don't know that it's going to make much of a statement on the skyline...
Click to expand...

It will probably make a similar statement as 111 Huntington. This is even a bit taller. Solid for the area.
 
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

DZH22 said:
However, I do continue to be confused about the height. Is it 569' total, or is the glass at the top going to extend over 600' (623' was it?) and finally give us a new 3rd tallest building?
Click to expand...

Per Seamus three years ago:

SeamusMcFly said:
Based on the set of drawings that I am lucky enough to have laying around..... The Mechanical Penthouse is at 569'-0", with the Top of Parapet listed as being 625'-8".
Click to expand...

So 626'. Or least it was in 2008.
 
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Sounds like a good reson to buy a new camera and take some pix of the Then and then later the Now -- the "High Spine" is still alive
 
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

whighlander said:
Sounds like a good reson to buy a new camera and take some pix of the Then and then later the Now -- the "High Spine" is still alive
Click to expand...

SSSSHHHHH!!! I don't think we're supposed to call it that anymore. But with this, Christian Science, Berklee, the BAC on parcel 12 and the residence behind Lord & Taylor the trades are salivating over the next 10 years in the Back Bay.
 
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

Sorry I thought that this thread was only for us members of the SSOHSA

pst -- secret society of High Spine Affectionados
 
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

I know but I was hoping that it might get built sooner thatn latter.
 
Re: Copley Place plan calls for condo tower

I went and bought a cute little 12 Mpix number at Microcenter -- its not the same as my old 6 Mpix Cannon - but she will do for the next few weeks / months until I find my next true love

Seriously -- if Irene doesn't clean-out the city -- this fall should be good shooting with at least a few cranes and steel rising in a few places

so -- its now Time to upgrade to the current state-of-the-art in camera tech -- whatever your level of sophistication and price point --thanks to the last couple years of Moore's Law advances in CMOS technology -- ten Mpix is the minimum with a lot of sophistiated image processing functions, better battery life and more
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top