Downtown Crossing/Financial District | Discussion

[BosDevelop]

It's still under review with the city because no one's attempted this bank/cafe concept in Boston before. Landlord doesn't mind--after all, they're still getting paid rent from Capital One/ING from when the lease signed years ago! [And remember, much of the delay involved the merger between the two banks]

By the way, you completely contradict yourself in saying "Winter Street is so disappointing" while at the same time acknowledging it's "no Newbury." Winter St. will stay the way it is until its demographic becomes more affluent. Period. The new apartments at 8 Winter St. and condos in development above former Locke-Ober and of course at Filene's should help. But until then, the retail reflects the average clientele. Why is that difficult to comprehend?

It doesn't have to be Newbury to be successful. The stores don't have to be gucci, Prada etc. to be successful. However, when the bricks that make up the "street" are all in disrepair and many of the storefronts vacant for years at a time, a decent restaurant/bar with good street life can go a long way. Given that prominent location passed by tens of thousands of people each and every day, a solid dining and drinking establishment in that visible spot could be huge. Why is THAT so difficult to comprehend?

Oh and by the way, I am calling complete bullshit on the hold up having anything whatsoever to do with design issues and/or bank mergers. Can you share a link with any information on this year long+ city review?

 

[TheRifleman]

Menino defends Filene’s tax credits for Millennium Partners
Sep 9, 2013, 12:26pm EDT Updated: Sep 9, 2013, 3:22pm EDT
The Filene's site in Boston is set for a tax credit.

Thomas Grillo
Real Estate Editor-
Boston Business Journal

In his first public comments on a possible plan to provide tax credits for the Filene’s project in Boston, Mayor Thomas M. Menino confirmed and defended the action saying incentives are needed to stimulate the economy in Downtown Crossing.

“That’s a key development site,” Menino told the Boston Business Journal. “Just think of the dollars it will bring into the city of Boston: sales tax, meals tax, heads on beds tax, all those taxes.”

Last month, the Boston Globe reported that the Menino administration was considering a tax break for a redevelopment on the former Filene’s property, a reversal of the mayor’s steadfast refusal to provide a similar credit for former developer Vornado Realty Trust (NYSE: VNO) who halted work on the site during the recession.

In 2010, Vornado’s chief executive Steven Roth suggested publicly that allowing a property to become blighted could help extract tax concessions from the city. The revelation caused Menino to send off an angry letter to Roth threatening to have the city seize the site by eminent domain.

Millennium Partners, a New York developer with staff in Boston that have a good relationship with Menino, bought Vornado’s stake in the failed development in April for $45 million. They have set a September 17 groundbreaking on a $615 million redevelopment of the site.

The 1.3 million-square-foot plan will feature a glass residential tower with 500 units next to the 1912 landmark Burnham building with up to 231,000 square feet of retail. The project will preserve and renovate the historic building, home of the former Filene’s department store and Filene’s Basement, and add a new, 54-story skyscraper to the Hub skyline.

Menino said he did not know the amount of the tax credit. Susuan Elsbree, a spokeswoman for Peter Meade, the BRA director, said she the credit could come up for a vote at Thursday's board meeting. She did not know the amount of the credit.

Critics say Downtown Crossing does not need any incentives for development and point to the new Walgreens (NYSE: WAG) at the former Borders bookstore site and plans for a Legal Sea Foods at the other Millennium Partners project under construction on lower Washington Street.

But Menino dismissed the criticism.

“You can’t be shortsighted when you’re doing development, you have to look at the long range view,” Menino said. “This tax credit will make it happen.”

Menino hypocrisy is truly showing in his final months as mayor.

Peter Meade is truly Menino Puppet boy

 

[davem]

It doesn't have to be Newbury to be successful. The stores don't have to be gucci, Prada etc. to be successful. However, when the bricks that make up the "street" are all in disrepair and many of the storefronts vacant for years at a time, a decent restaurant/bar with good street life can go a long way. Given that prominent location passed by tens of thousands of people each and every day, a solid dining and drinking establishment in that visible spot could be huge. Why is THAT so difficult to comprehend?

Oh and by the way, I am calling complete bullshit on the hold up having anything whatsoever to do with design issues and/or bank mergers. Can you share a link with any information on this year long+ city review?

If it could be what the Mass Ave side of Newbury was 5 years ago that would be amazing.

 

[DBM]

It doesn't have to be Newbury to be successful. The stores don't have to be gucci, Prada etc. to be successful. However, when the bricks that make up the "street" are all in disrepair and many of the storefronts vacant for years at a time, a decent restaurant/bar with good street life can go a long way. Given that prominent location passed by tens of thousands of people each and every day, a solid dining and drinking establishment in that visible spot could be huge. Why is THAT so difficult to comprehend?

Oh and by the way, I am calling complete bullshit on the hold up having anything whatsoever to do with design issues and/or bank mergers. Can you share a link with any information on this year long+ city review?

Whatever restaurant they sign to replace the former Locke-Ober will go a long way toward turning it around on Winter St. But, even if that restaurant is signed tomorrow, it still wouldn't open until next fall (realistically). In the meantime, even with 70+ new residents at 8 Winter St., the average Winter St. pedestrian--and I don't mean the T commuters you see from 7:30 am-9 am and then 5 pm-6:30 pm--just doesn't have the disposable income. And the Burnham Building also doesn't open until next fall. So things will stay the same for at least another year.

I don't have any links for the stalled ING/Capital One bank-cafe development at Tremont & Winter. I assume it's with Public Improvement Commission, and I further assume they are understaffed or something and it's in a long waitlist. My point remains: the landlord has been collecting rent for years, once the lease was finalized way back when. So where's the pressure here, unless the city/BRA gets really irate?

 

[JohnCostello]

It is kind of funny that we are talking about rent and a bank at the corner of Winter and Tremont. That spot was a Boston 5 for years before FAB came into the space. The concept of food is a newish one there. Also, that building was the highest assessed property in the state in 1920 on a PSF basis.

A new restaurant in Lock Ober is not going to change things that much in the area. A general sweeping of the panhandlers which populate the short space between Winter and Hamilton Place would help a lot more for a vibrant, positive vibrant, streetscape.

 

[FortPointGuy]

It is kind of funny that we are talking about rent and a bank at the corner of Winter and Tremont. That spot was a Boston 5 for years before FAB came into the space. The concept of food is a newish one there. Also, that building was the highest assessed property in the state in 1920 on a PSF basis.

A new restaurant in Lock Ober is not going to change things that much in the area. A general sweeping of the panhandlers which populate the short space between Winter and Hamilton Place would help a lot more for a vibrant, positive vibrant, streetscape.

+1 - Panhandling and homelessness from the 7-11 next to Suffolk Law down and around Winter Street is out of control, at least by Boston standards. I can't imagine a nice store or restaurant moving in that area and having any effect.

What I suspect might have an effect is game-changing retail at Filene's. Say some combination of a Whole Foods, Nordstrums/Bloomingdales, etc. That could have a knock-on effect on Winter Street and the whole area.

 

[dshoost88]

It would be really neat if Winter Street was redeveloped with an arched glass roof canopy over the street/walkway. This would weather-proof much of the walkway, make clean-up easier, and further discourage car travel down the street.

I'm thinking something along the lines of Hay's Gallery in London or the Galleria Vittorio Emanuelle II in Milan.

 

[George_Apley]

Honestly that would be awesome if the whole pedestrian zone around DTX was canopied.

 

[tobyjug]

No, no, no, no...... You forget the canopy that used to be over Washington Street sidewalks. Gave the street the feeling of being under the El, blocked the sun, hid the facades, harbored the flying rats.

 

[Cliff Clavin]

I'd think a canopy would attract homeless and teenage loitering. Not to mention rain does wonders washing away the stench of urine.

 

[datadyne007]

Not to mention rain does wonders washing away the stench of urine.

I work in DTX and AMEN.

 

[dshoost88]

I'd think a canopy would attract homeless and teenage loitering. Not to mention rain does wonders washing away the stench of urine.

Have you ever walked through the Huntington Arcade at the Prudential Center mall? No urine, no loitering teenagers, and no unusually high rate of homelessness. And comparably as congested by foot traffic as DTX.

 

[JohnCostello]

Have you ever walked through the Huntington Arcade at the Prudential Center mall? No urine, no loitering teenagers, and no unusually high rate of homelessness. And comparably as congested by foot traffic as DTX.

Yes, but you, me, Lenny Clarke, Emily Rooney, Sully from Teele Square, and everyone else owns Washington Street in DTX. Mort Zuckerman and his shareholders own the Huntington Arcade at the Pru. You can do a lot with private versus public property. That is why the homeless at the Pru don't go beyond the Green Line entrance portal across from the Cheesecake Factory. Some homeless people are crazy / stupid, not all homeless people are crazy / stupid though.

 

[Cliff Clavin]

Have you ever walked through the Huntington Arcade at the Prudential Center mall? No urine, no loitering teenagers, and no unusually high rate of homelessness. And comparably as congested by foot traffic as DTX.

Of course. But the Huntington Arcade is privately owned and managed by Boston Properties. Washington and the adjacent streets are city property.

 

[tobyjug]

...which means that indigents can be thrown out as trespassers on private property, whereas on public property like Washington Street they are soily citizens expressing themselves on to the sidewalks.

 

[dshoost88]

Since when does a place's designation as public or private property make it socially acceptable--let alone legal--for the homeless to indecently expose themselves, defecate, and urinate publicly?

The public vs. privately used "public space" argument is a futile one. I'm hard-pressed to believe that the same city that used public dollars and gave us palaces-for-the people like the Boston Public Library and the Museum of Fine Arts couldn't possibly make the same sort of aesthetic investment to its most heavily-traversed pedestrian cross streets in the heart of town.

 

[KentXie]

Since when does a place's designation as public or private property make it socially acceptable--let alone legal--for the homeless to indecently expose themselves, defecate, and urinate publicly?

The public vs. privately used "public space" argument is a futile one. I'm hard-pressed to believe that the same city that used public dollars and gave us palaces-for-the people like the Boston Public Library and the Museum of Fine Arts couldn't possibly make the same sort of aesthetic investment to its most heavily-traversed pedestrian cross streets in the heart of town.

It doesn't. Just that one gives more power to do something about it.

 

[DBM]

the same city that used public dollars and gave us palaces-for-the people like the Boston Public Library and the Museum of Fine Arts couldn't possibly make the same sort of aesthetic investment to its most heavily-traversed pedestrian cross streets in the heart of town.

MFA: built 1876
BPL: built 1895

Are you seriously trying to claim that, in 2013, this is the "same city" that it was over 125 years ago in these cases? There is not a single person alive in Boston who was here in 1895, let alone 1876.

If you're a sensible person, then you disregard the corporatized abstraction of the "City," and instead consider Boston to be the continuously shifting, day-to-day aggregate of its inhabitants' psychological, cultural, financial, and social condition, plus the ever-changing environmental/political background.

John Singer Sargent isn't walking through that door. Nor is Isabella Stewart Gardner, James Jackson Storrow, Frederick Law Olmstead, Oliver Wendell Holmes, or any other Bostonian who counted before the advent of radio... please be more realistic.

 

[tobyjug]

It doesn't. Just that one gives more power to do something about it.

True. And the private sector is motivated to keep its property from becoming a shithole because it becomes a loss, so it uses its power aggressively. When the public sector acts to keep public property from becoming a shithole, it means a lost constituency.

The power the public sector could best use would be to reverse failed Dukakis era deinstitutionalization policies, and actually spend money on these sick and mentally ill unfortunates rather than idealize then as "noble wanderers".

 

[EdMc]

Many of the mentally ill are housed in prisons across the country. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, approximately half of these poor souls could lead decent, independent lives, given proper medication and therapy. To Massachusett's credit, a new hospital in Worcester was recently opened to care for some of these individuals, which is basically unheard of in the rest of the country. I hope advances in neuroscience can track down the causes in the not-to-distant future.