First, a semantic quibble. “Do you still hate the Seaport?” traps respondents. Not as bad as “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” But, for some of us, there’s no valid answer. It was hideous when covered in asphalt, but I saw no reason to hate it. It was a blank slate: avoid like the plague during daily life, dream of the possibilities in spare time, but no hate.
Enough quibbling.
RIGHT NOW? I’m liking it aesthetically more by the day, I see reason for optimism on some levels, but I have severe disappointment in how this fits into the city.
On the aesthetics, it was front-loaded with ugly designs, better designs are going in now, and even better looking designs are on the drawing boards or just breaking ground. That’s creating a real steep upward curve in appeal as it all fills in, even steeper than would have been inevitable in an area rising from blank asphalt. I’m sure I will like it aesthetically when it’s done. Many of the streetscapes will be either good or OK for pedestrians; the harbor walk might be great or even awesome.
However, a few things about the area leave me gob-smacked and bode ill for the long term. The transportation planning, as discussed at great length, was an epic fail that has no easy or cheap ex post facto answer. We’re not in a good environment for initiating difficult / expensive answers. What a staggering lost opportunity. This still threatens the ongoing development: many parcels are still at a stage that the plug could get pulled, and transit concerns plus a recession could cause that.
Also, as some of the transit experts here have noted, the failed transportation planning in this area plus the boosted demand from this area are spilling over into serious negative impacts on the existing transit system, which was already teetering on the edge as it was. Given the critical centrality of the T crisis to this entire metro area, this makes the epic transit-planning fail far greater in severity and import than just the annoyance felt by workers / residents in the seaport.
Another thing is the lack of systemic consideration to flood risk. One or two buildings have moved mechanicals up out of basements, but lots haven’t. The whole area was a sea of asphalt, the potential existed for a more systemic mitigation at the neighborhood level, as discussed in the planning competition sponsored by BCA. Most obviously: just raise the grade of the whole damn thing. That opportunity is gone, so this brand new area will gamble on luck and / or some future willpower to build a multi-billion dollar surge barrier. Other parts of Boston are also exposed, but have the excuse of having been built long before this risk was so apparent. I grant that this is more of a wild card issue.
In sum, I never hated it, I like a lot of it aesthetically as it gets built, and expect that trend to increase. It is a pleasant new area for many people in various ways, me included. Adds some housing, that’s good! It’ll be really cool to sea kayak through it, which might be a common enough opportunity! The failure on transit is so extreme, though, and has such a negative impact on existing transit, that this really pulls down the overall grade. If I was grading purely on aesthetics of buildings and streetscapes: maybe a B minus now, headed for perhaps B plus or A minus when done (possible A plus on the harbor walk). The transit mess pulls the aggregate grade down into C territory and might never get mitigated in my lifetime. Flooding impact on overall grade will depend on how often it floods and how well it bounces back each time (impossible to predict either).