Downtown Crossing/Financial District | Discussion

The restaurant opened on 10/24, 9 days ago. I suppose there are a lot of reasonable excuses.
 
Took a walk downtown today. What a mess. Can somebody explain to me what is the difference between the small business's paying city & state taxes and BID?

What does BID actually supposed to do differently than the city taxes? Downtown still looked filthy.

I did really like UDG, they really made a positive difference on that part of the corner of the city and especially for that building.
 
Hamilton Co. apartments on way to Downtown Crossing
By Herald Staff
Wednesday, November 16, 2011


The Hamilton Co. has started converting a Downtown Crossing office building into apartments.

The Allston real estate company said today that it expects to start renting its “moderately priced” units in July, following an interior renovation of the 12-story building at 8 Winter St.

The 50,000-square-foot property is located at one of the four corners of Downtown Crossing.

“We are strong proponents of the mayor’s efforts to improve the Ladder District and are convinced this additional housing will add vibrancy to the neighborhood,” said Hamilton Co. president Carl Valeri, in a statement.

The project will maintain the first-floor retail space and create 40 one-bedroom units and eight studio apartments with hardwood floors and stainless steel appliances.

The Hamilton Co., owned by Harold Brown, controls about 5,000 housing units in Greater Boston along with 3 million square feet of commercial space.

Brown bought 8 Winter St. in 1982 for $6.5 million. The apartment conversion has been planned since early 2009.


Link
 
I hope they are leaving the ground floor retail alone.
 
statler said:
I hope they are leaving the ground floor retail alone.
Click to expand...

Stat -- the story in the Herald explicitly says " The project will maintain the first-floor retail space "

This is a good sign -- with the 2 big projects getting started -- there will be more of these

I'm guessing that with under utilized space in the buildings along Washington and the side streets -- there might be potential for severl hundreds of more units to be carved out without any exterior construction

Perhaps there will be some small exterior projects -- a la Back Bay where penthouses have been added and / or and basements made into spaces accessible from the street

a good sign for DTX
 
Uh, yeah. I, uh saw that. I was just, um, making sure everyone else was paying attention.

Good job!
 
Walked through DTX last night.

1. Is West Street an orphan? Most noticeable were sidewalks from Brattle Books up past Fajitas and Ritas, just a crusty layered slop of old black tar pathway. Other "ladder" streets have concrete, masonry or cobbled walks.

2. More of an observation than an objection, were the odd hodgepodge of retailers directly facing Boston Common on Tremont Street.

Residential tower groundfloor:

A costume shop.
A hat store offering knits like rainbow polyester.
A shoemaker.

Other retail at prime locations:

McD's
UBurger
Banks
Lamberts
Pita wraps

These retailers are not upscale, as those facing Central Park, NYC. And while seemingly small retailers are thriving on Tremont Street facing the Common, Washington Street is pocketed with empty storefronts.

For better or worse, it seems counterintuitive to me how or why Tremont Street is evolving in this way. All said, the small retailers -- particularly those on the ladder streets, are quite interesting.
 
There is something very uninviting about the Tremont St edge of Boston Common.

It should be a grand boulevard but it just feels...wrong. I really don't know what should be done to fix it though. The planters are terrible though.

I think a row of grand trees or might work, although it might shut the Common off from the city?

But with a few well placed (and grandiose) entrances, it could work.
 
statler said:
There is something very uninviting about the Tremont St edge of Boston Common.

.
Click to expand...


Thats because you have all the Junkies on the edge of the Common using all the stores on Tremont Street.

I am not kiddin..........I took a walk DTX to the Common last weekend and that is what I saw. I'm assuming their might be some halfway house near Tremont Street.
 
No, I was talking strictly about the actual built environment. Even when it devoid of people or populated with clean cut tourists & local workers it still uninviting.
 
^^^^
That too. But when you get a chance take a walk on the edge of the Common and you will see what I was talking about.
 
TheRifleman said:
Thats because you have all the Junkies on the edge of the Common using all the stores on Tremont Street.

I am not kiddin..........I took a walk DTX to the Common last weekend and that is what I saw. I'm assuming their might be some halfway house near Tremont Street.
Click to expand...

There is a homeless shelter around the corner on Boylston, and the Common itself does see a fair amount of drug dealing and vagrancy. I doubt, though, that this population is large enough to support the businesses. I suspect the recent rise in student population is a more likely explanation.
 
Every building on Tremont facing the park needs a facelift. It's really an embarassment. Tremont on the Common is one of the most sad buildings I have seen, anywhere, not to mention from a ground level perspective.

Also, the downtown side of the street faces pedestrian competition from the park itself - I'd rather walk on the park side than on the city side.
 
Part of me thinks that Tremont street is just too wide, but it has always been that wide, even during DTX's heyday.

Widen the shop-side sidewalk, plant trees and plant twin trees across the street?

Tremont-on-the-Common is a disgrace. Absolute first on my list of buildings that need a complete renovation and/or demo-rebuild.
 
sicil --- nothing wrong with any of the folowing:

A costume shop.
A hat store offering knits like rainbow polyester.
A shoemaker.
McD's
UBurger
Banks
Lamberts
Pita wraps

Not everything needs to be Hermes, or Burrbury's on Newburry or Copley Place

Tremont from Gov't Center to Boylston has always been a place of utility and day to day stuff -- I remember:
tobaconists
photo shops
cheese shop
wine and beer
Nowadays with the students from Emerson and Suffolk and the commuters pouring through the Park St. entrances -- you would expect a lot of last-minute-type shops

Washington St. and the ladders -- aka Dtx -- were always the place for more serious shopping -- Dept. Stores, shoes, custom clothing / tailors, cameras, pens, jewelry, watches, etc.
 
Tremont St does feel wide. Perhaps adding more on-street parking and a bike lane (or a bus/bike lane) would make it feel a little less vast and open. I would actually like to see it converted to two-way traffic, but I don't think that's gonna happen.
 
I don't think he is saying there is anything wrong with them, (in fact he said he wasn't editorializing) he was just pointing out that it seemed like an odd assortment for what traditionally would be a more upscale area of an average city.
 
The sidewalk could really use to be wider as well. Walking on Tremont on the city side it can get quite crowded, especially around the Park Street exit. And it isn't the fun kind of businessmen and tourists crowd like in Midtown Manhattan, its the aforementioned addicts, crazies, and high school kids from DTX milling around that give the whole strip a run down feel. Does Tremont Street really need to be four lanes wide? I've never seen traffic all that bad on it, and traffic calming near a major park cant be a bad thing.


edit: I started typing this response and forgot about it, by the time I posted it looks like everyone agrees. I like the idea of a bike lane, as well as trees on both sides.
 
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