Copley Square Revamp | Back Bay

[HelloBostonHi]

Would requesting the project budget breakdown be an FOIA request?

Boston has a frustratingly opaque bidding process. Even the T provides more details. https://www.boston.gov/bid-listings/15961706 https://www.commbuys.com/bso/extern...30000-300-83990&external=true&parentUrl=close

Theoretically you should be able to get the construction estimate and/or the bids from them pretty easily, there's nothing confidential in a construction estimate. Do update us if you try

 

[shmessy]

Visiting for the weekend and just saw it STILL in a condition of complete disarray. They are nowhere near finishing this thing. My son live near Titus Park in the South End which is having similar ridiculous delays. He tells me the unions doing these renovations regularly laugh at the residents complaining about the delays and simply wait for the next contract to renew.

Mayor Wu needs to start runningg the city like a business instead of a 10 year old kid. I just read that the city is giving out $250 to hundreds of people to hold Halloween block parties. This money is to go for candy, face paints, decorations etc.

I supported Michele Wu in her election previously. I’m sadly disappointed in what she turned out to be once in charge.

Copley Square is a mess - - but there will be some cool neighborhood parties on Halloween.

 

[Suffolk 83]

Seems like a real stretch to lay the blame at the feet of unions. Seems like one contractor won the bid for several park renovations and instead of doing them one at a time to save the public a huge headache they did them all at once to save money and everyone else gets screwed. The city clearly should have never let construction happen this way

 

[Stlin]

Considering that Copley isn't scheduled for completion until December, I'm not sure blaming anyone at all is appropriate, unless you want to blame the city for not including early completion incentives in the contract.
From the beginning they were telling us that this was a 16 month project from when the started it in August 23 - they still have a little more than 2 months to finish on time. Also, Titus Sparrow is definitely using a different contractor than Copley, but it's not exactly uncommon for a contractor to be working on multiple projects across a city at the same time.

 

[taketern]

9/12

 

[cburns]

9/12
View attachment 55539

I noticed these saplings the other day and was pretty disappointed. The amount of money spent on this project and they still couldn't procure more mature trees. It's not impossible: I distinctly remember larger oaks going in at the parklet on the corner of Atlantic and Milk back in '04 or so.

 

[JeffDowntown]

I noticed these saplings the other day and was pretty disappointed. The amount of money spent on this project and they still couldn't procure more mature trees. It's not impossible: I distinctly remember larger oaks going in at the parklet on the corner of Atlantic and Milk back in '04 or so.

To be a bit fair to the project team here, finding mature nursery stock trees is actually quite hard. Very few projects will pay for them, and the failure rate on transplant is very high.

The Big Dig team actually planned for this (surprising, yes, but there was planning), they had contract nurseries start their planned trees for the Greenway very early in the construction process, so by the time they got to planting in 2004 they had pretty mature trees to work with. But they gave the nursery an almost 2 decade heads up on the plans, a rare amount of planning runway.

 

[Kinopio]

Visiting for the weekend and just saw it STILL in a condition of complete disarray. They are nowhere near finishing this thing. My son live near Titus Park in the South End which is having similar ridiculous delays. He tells me the unions doing these renovations regularly laugh at the residents complaining about the delays and simply wait for the next contract to renew.

Mayor Wu needs to start runningg the city like a business instead of a 10 year old kid. I just read that the city is giving out $250 to hundreds of people to hold Halloween block parties. This money is to go for candy, face paints, decorations etc.

I supported Michele Wu in her election previously. I’m sadly disappointed in what she turned out to be once in charge.

Copley Square is a mess - - but there will be some cool neighborhood parties on Halloween.

You are seriously arguing against block parties?! Especially on Halloween, the most dangerous night of the year for pedestrians? I can’t imagine you get invited to a lot of parties. Anything that takes Boston public land away from suburban drivers and gives them back to actual Bostonians gets my approval.

 

[shmessy]

You are seriously arguing against block parties?! Especially on Halloween, the most dangerous night of the year for pedestrians? I can’t imagine you get invited to a lot of parties. Anything that takes Boston public land away from suburban drivers and gives them back to actual Bostonians gets my approval.

I’m not “arguing against block parties”.

I’m also not arguing against Mothers Day cards and puppies.

Block parties are great and there should be more of them. People should be allowed to have them without taxpayer subsidies.

The city government need not devote taxpayer money to them while dropping the ball on FUNDAMENTALS like parks, housing or keeping the highly recruited BPDA head from bolting to Detroit within 2 years of taking the job. That should be obvious to most, but you choose to be disingenuous by personalizing this with “you don’t like parties” drivel dumbing down the subject.

This is a great website forum. Most posters can focus on arguing the subject without misrepresenting others’ words or stooping to personal insults.