Downtown Crossing/Financial District | Discussion

[TomOfBoston]

Slight nit, but there are ZERO theaters on Stuart Street. There are theaters near Stuart Street on Tremont, Warrenton and Boylston; and there are theatres on Washington Street, also not far from Stuart/Kneeland. (And this is really all part of the same historic Theatre District -- and there used to be more theatre seats on Lower Washington than on Tremont.)

The Gary Theater, originally the Plymouth theater, was on Stuart Street at #131.

 

[Scott]

Seaport Blvd. If Burlington, MA was on the water that's what they would name the main drag. It's lazy and awful. How about South Oliver Street?

 

[Beton Brut]

...in my mind's eye, I recall them as being rather Willy Wonka-esque in appearance.

A truly apt description!

More practically though--what idiot would've green-lighted such obvious birdshit attractors?!? I cannot conceive of how ugly they must have looked, all the time, streaked in birdshit. And how exasperating it must've been to have to clean them.

The thought didn't occur to me when I was 10, but I imagine that it was truly awful.

What a ridiculously impractical placemaking intervention.

There's a lot of this type of thing in Osaka (photo from my visit in 2006).

 

[bakgwailo]

Also works in Milan and other places.

 

[odurandina]

Wow.

Can anyone think of any such places in the City capable of supporting something like this?

Any Alley's?

 

[Beton Brut]

^ I'm not sure it's a climatologically sound solution for Boston, and it worked so well in Downtown Crossing that it lasted around ten years.

If Jersey and Lansdown ever go full-on woonerf, I think something like this could work seasonally, but I'd rather the Sox spend their money on Mookie Betts.

 

[tobyjug]

Hmmm... a planned, covered retail space. Uniformity of internal architecture. No cars.

I think its called a mall.

In other news, despite the building permit for almost 6 million in renovations, and an initial flurry of street level activity, almost zero has been happening on the "Barnes and Noble" space for months.

 

[Beton Brut]

...despite the building permit for almost 6 million in renovations, and an initial flurry of street level activity, almost zero has been happening on the "Barnes and Noble" space for months.

Walked by it a couple of times this week and wondered what's happening behind the curtain. Strange, a bit ominous.

 

[DBM]

In other news, despite the building permit for almost 6 million in renovations, and an initial flurry of street level activity, almost zero has been happening on the "Barnes and Noble" space for months.

Is it fair to say that there's a [self-imposed] knife to their throat given the high valuation?

They bought it for $821 psf.

For comparison's sake, just up the block, a standard-issue garden-variety Class A trophy office tower sold for $721 psf recently.

So, despite the fact that it was in ruinous condition, with zero revenue stream to be garnered from its nonexistent tenant base, with tens of millions required in renovations to bring it up to competitive standards, 399 Wash. STILL sold at a premium of $100 psf over 28 State St.

It takes elite retail and office tenants to recoup that kind of investment. And they are very few and far between. Anyway, I counsel patience... but it's certainly interesting.

 

[Suffolk 83]

What's the retail supposed to be going into the old barnes and noble?

 

[cadetcarl]

Any chance we'll replace the Arch St. garage with something nicer in the next cycle?

 

[DBM]

Any chance we'll replace the Arch St. garage with something nicer in the next cycle?

No problem--you got a couple hundred million spare dollars (more like a billion, minimum) laying around to also buy & blow up 33 Arch Street with it... and then figure out what to do with the smoking hulk where both 33 Arch Street and 350 Washington Street (the garage parcel) once stood?

Because, per Wikipedia, 33 Arch Street is 100% dependent, from a load-bearing standpoint, on the garage:

"Twenty floors cantilever over adjacent retail space and a garage, which is connected to parking on the first six levels.... The building uses four levels of external bracing to transfer the enormous loads of the high building into the small base. The bracing continues through the parking levels to the foundation; perimeter and internal moment frames act as the lateral system above the braced levels."

Think of how messy and painstakingly difficult it would be merely to eliminate the leases for the 30+ (estimating; could be many more, given that there's 603,000 sf there per the building website) office tenants at 33 Arch Street--including the US Securities & Exchange Commission, by the way--and have to do the same thing with 350 Washington St. Where, oh by the way, HomeGoods just opened, and they're probably only a 7 or 10 year lease.

tl; dr: we'll all be dead long long before anything happens there.

Also, this topic has been discussed at some length on AB before--not that I'm criticizing you for repeating it, it's obviously a perennially intriguing speculation because, let's face it, it's a fugly-ass garage.

 

[datadyne007]

No problem--you got a couple hundred million spare dollars (more like a billion, minimum) laying around to also buy & blow up 33 Arch Street with it... and then figure out what to do with the smoking hulk where both 33 Arch Street and 350 Washington Street (the garage parcel) once stood?

Because, per Wikipedia, 33 Arch Street is 100% dependent, from a load-bearing standpoint, on the garage:

"Twenty floors cantilever over adjacent retail space and a garage, which is connected to parking on the first six levels.... The building uses four levels of external bracing to transfer the enormous loads of the high building into the small base. The bracing continues through the parking levels to the foundation; perimeter and internal moment frames act as the lateral system above the braced levels."

Think of how messy and painstakingly difficult it would be merely to eliminate the leases for the 30+ (estimating; could be many more, given that there's 603,000 sf there per the building website) office tenants at 33 Arch Street--including the US Securities & Exchange Commission, by the way--and have to do the same thing with 350 Washington St. Where, oh by the way, HomeGoods just opened, and they're probably only a 7 or 10 year lease.

tl; dr: we'll all be dead long long before anything happens there.

Also, this topic has been discussed at some length on AB before--not that I'm criticizing you for repeating it, it's obviously a perennially intriguing speculation because, let's face it, it's a fugly-ass garage.

This is not as big of a deal as you are making it out to be. The load bearing members can remain with the rest of the garage torn down and integrated into whatever building gets built on the site. You would just integrate the load bearing members into the new building plan (box them out). They would be independent from whatever the new building's structure would be.

 

[DBM]

This is not as big of a deal as you are making it out to be. The load bearing members can remain with the rest of the garage torn down and integrated into whatever building gets built on the site. You would just integrate the load bearing members into the new building plan (box them out). They would be independent from whatever the new building's structure would be.

Sorry for my confusion, obviously I'm a layman w/ zero structural engineering background--important clarification you made there!

Still, I stand by my earlier assertion: we ain't gonna see a 350 Washington St. redevelopment anytime soon. The owners enjoys the rent stream from two massive retailers, plus having a parking garage in downtown Boston, which must be like owning a money-printing machine these days, given the economy and garage moratorium. Where's the incentive?

ALSO: Since 350 Washington St. can't go up given current conditions--i.e., because 33 Arch St. cantilevers over it--how could 350 Washington St. be redeveloped for profit without going vertical, assuming it wouldn't be a tandem redevelopment where 33 Arch St. is actually demolished as well?

OR: I guess technically 350 Washington St. could go vertical in current conditions... but it would be a total dick move, as the new structure would be right in the face of 33 Arch St. How would that not trigger litigation?

 

[JeffDowntown]

OR: I guess technically 350 Washington St. could go vertical in current conditions... but it would be a total dick move, as the new structure would be right in the face of 33 Arch St. How would that not trigger litigation?

Buildings go vertical in each other's face all the time in other cities.

You don't own your views, unless you bought an air rights easement.

 

[Mongo]

Sorry for my confusion, obviously I'm a layman w/ zero structural engineering background--important clarification you made there!

Still, I stand by my earlier assertion: we ain't gonna see a 350 Washington St. redevelopment anytime soon. The owners enjoys the rent stream from two massive retailers, plus having a parking garage in downtown Boston, which must be like owning a money-printing machine these days, given the economy and garage moratorium. Where's the incentive?

ALSO: Since 350 Washington St. can't go up given current conditions--i.e., because 33 Arch St. cantilevers over it--how could 350 Washington St. be redeveloped for profit without going vertical, assuming it wouldn't be a tandem redevelopment where 33 Arch St. is actually demolished as well?

OR: I guess technically 350 Washington St. could go vertical in current conditions... but it would be a total dick move, as the new structure would be right in the face of 33 Arch St. How would that not trigger litigation?

The owners of 33 Arch would have to be on board with whatever happens because they are deeded spots in that garage and the access to the garage is through 33 Arch. It would have to be a coordinated redevelopment that reduces the size of the garage or sinks it underground. I could imagine a 15-20 story L shaped tower on the corner of franklin and Washington with the bottom level hopefully completely redone. With any luck it would swallow the drycleaner on Hawley and the Verizon on Washington. The new tower would be shorter than 33 Arch and have a decent amount of horizontal separation.

What I propose above is probably unrealistic in terms of the cost, The best we could hope for is probably just a new façade to spruce the building up and attract new/better tenants.

 

[odurandina]

But seriously, Midwood needs to put up or shut up with an update for 1 Bromfield Street.

 

[DBM]

Buildings go vertical in each other's face all the time in other cities.

You don't own your views, unless you bought an air rights easement.

All true, no one's disputing those obvious facts. I meant to say, "how would 33 Arch St. ownership not be seriously enraged and antagonized if 350 Washington St. proposed, out of the blue, to go vertical within its current footprint, to the extent it would sue?"

 

[Mongo]

All true, no one's disputing those obvious facts. I meant to say, "how would 33 Arch St. ownership not be seriously enraged and antagonized if 350 Washington St. proposed, out of the blue, to go vertical within its current footprint, to the extent it would sue?"

My point is no construction can happen there without the consent of 33 Arch ownership in the first place because the two buildings are so entwined.

 

[mdd]

I don't know the exact number but this would be part of Article 38 zoning district where a certain setback and FAR are dictated. They couldn't take the footprint and build straight up.