Downtown Crossing/Financial District | Discussion

Downtown

whighlander said:
DHZ -- not happening anytime soon

The core of it is very successful location for office space with the parking garage and some of the best Internet access / hosting anywhere located on top of the old Jordans building

However, it would be nice to see some ground level improvements where not constrained by the embedded parking garage
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Indeed, this was just what I was going to say... this week's Banker & Tradesman, in fact, points out that Sonos & Carbonite are the two biggest new office leases signed in all of Boston this year. So LCC is a cash cow that it would be extremely unwise to tamper with, I would think... but we'll see what kind of new street-level retail comes in as the neighborhood continues to flourish.
 
Downtown

Give it 5 years, and I think the LCC will be ripe for redevelopment. Cash cow or not, there will be an absolute fortune to be made here one of these days (years).

I used to work there. The space is nice enough, but a gargantuan footprint and only 6 stories in the heart of downtown? Someday this sucker will be bulldozed, and the city will be better for it.

On another note, my friend who works near MT told me it looked like they added a lot of cladding today. Not sure what "a lot" is exactly, but maybe a reason to check it out in the freezing cold? I'll try to get pics Sunday if nobody is brave enough to deal with the weather before then.
 
Downtown

DZH22 said:
Give it 5 years, and I think the LCC will be ripe for redevelopment. Cash cow or not, there will be an absolute fortune to be made here one of these days (years).

I used to work there. The space is nice enough, but a gargantuan footprint and only 6 stories in the heart of downtown? Someday this sucker will be bulldozed, and the city will be better for it.

On another note, my friend who works near MT told me it looked like they added a lot of cladding today. Not sure what "a lot" is exactly, but maybe a reason to check it out in the freezing cold? I'll try to get pics Sunday if nobody is brave enough to deal with the weather before then.
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I hope you're right...and hopefully whoever bulldozes it will take Macy's with it. What are the odds of that ever getting redeveloped? Maybe Macy's can buy up the remaining retail space in Millennium Tower and we can fast track another tower haha.
 
Downtown

I hope you're right...and hopefully whoever bulldozes it will take Macy's with it. What are the odds of that ever getting redeveloped? Maybe Macy's can buy up the remaining retail space in Millennium Tower and we can fast track another tower haha.
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That building that Macy's is in is terrible. I hate walking down Summer St. and looking up to see the hideousness. Then also the backside of that building. What a waste! Can't imagine it will remain that way in the coming years.
 
Downtown

I hope you're right...it's a horrible building.
 
Downtown

Unfortunately, that building houses a gigantic amount of the city's internet infrastructure (all in a Macy's which is weird, I know), so it's probably not a short to medium term candidate for redevelopment. Eventually though, yeah, it's pretty bad.
 
Downtown

judielhb2 said:
Yes, please, make it go away!
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I find it unlikely that the Macy's building could be developed separate from a simultaneous redevelopment of Lafayette City Center, given how intricately interconnected their structures appears to be. Can you tell where one building starts and the other begins? Me, neither. Realistically, I believe a developer would have to swoop in and buy-out two cash cows from two separate owners. And, as others have alluded to, I suspect the Macy's building is extremely profitable--check out this overview of the 200 tenants they have:

http://www.markleygroup.com/about-us/company-overview/

Oh, well, I guess Downtown Crossing will somehow have to continue to muddle on, groaning under the yoke of Boston's most obscenely well-endowed and vibrant architectural portfolios, with dozens of iconic architectural gems spanning the 17th (King's Chapel), 18th (Old State House/Old South/Old Corner Bookstore), 19th (Old City Hall, Tremont Temple, St. Paul's Cathedral, etc.), and 20th centuries (too many examples to count).

Good grief. Other neighborhoods--hello, Government Center/West End-- would kill to have Downtown Crossing's "burden" of merely one conspicuously drab/utilitarian building such as the Macy's building.
 
Downtown

underground said:
Unfortunately, that building houses a gigantic amount of the city's internet infrastructure (all in a Macy's which is weird, I know), so it's probably not a short to medium term candidate for redevelopment. Eventually though, yeah, it's pretty bad.
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Uground -- Precisely:
zayo
http://www.zayo.com/network/interactive-map
lightower
http://www.lightower.com/network-solutions/data-center-connectivity/#boston-/-new-england
http://www.markleygroup.com/
1 Summer St 4th Floor Boston MA
home_8.jpg

home_5.jpg


some of the specs about the Markley Group facility from a data center directory site
One Summer Street is the intersection of all major fiber routes in New England. Featuring eight points of entry, Markley is a centralized location to which any and all backbone networks can be delivered with unmatched performance and low latency. We house the only bandwidth exchange which allows clients the ability to choose and connect to multiple and diverse networks, while reducing costs and complexity.
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Markley Group owns and operates One Summer Street, one of the largest and longest operating multi-tenant, mission-critical telecommunications and data center facilities in New England. The building’s 920,000 square feet of highly secured white and mechanical space house more than 200 industry leading companies, including the Boston Red Sox, Harvard Medical School, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Boston Internet Peering Exchange and The New York Times. One Summer Street’s data center has never experienced an electric utility failure. The carrier-neutral facility enables access to more than 75 independent network providers and eight utility feeds from multiple substations for uninterrupted, reliable power and service.
Specialties
Data Center Facility, Colocation, Telecommunications, Carrier Hotel, Managed Services
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just to name a few of the hosting companies who are tenants in the Macy's building

PS: the stuff on the roof is all about telecommunications including MW of back-up generation

This one is not going away in the foreseeable future
 
Downtown

Can all this One Summer/Lafayette City Center junk get moved into its own thread please?
 
Looks like some more retail moving into the area. This was posted on the front door of the Fox bldg. across the street from MT.


Fox bldg. DTX
 
Oh good a factory store. Where you can buy clothes that will fall apart in 6 months instead of a year and a half...
 
Noticed some scaffolding going up around Macy's today.

We could be getting our wish...or it could just be routine maintenance.
 
May I ask the mods a question, please?

Does anyone know why part of this thread has become The Millenium Tower that's being built on part of the land that was once occupied by the old Filene's store?

Isn't this kind of confusing for some of the members here who might be looking for the actual thread on the tower? Shouldn't the replies on the tower be n merged with the one that is mainly about the tower?

Just thought that I'd ask. Just saying. :confused:
 
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I'll admit that it can be confusing. However I'm not going to sift through here and move every single post. This thread is more about the general DTX redevelopment rather than one building. I think people know to go to the Millennium thread for a more specific discussion.
 
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