Downtown Crossing/Financial District | Discussion
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Won't You Be My Neighbor?
Downtown Crossing is smack in the middle of the city. Its very location should make it the place where everybody wants to be. So why has it always felt like something was missing, and is that "something" about to finally turn it into a real, live neighborhood?
By Stephanie Schorow | December 7, 2008
At first, the cabdrivers would eye her incredulously and then, inevitably, ask the question: "Why the heck do you want to be dropped off with a bag of groceries in Downtown Crossing at midnight?" Well, Mary Ann Ponti would explain, she actually lived there, on Washington Street, just across from Macy's, adding, "Do you realize that people live there?"
Cabbies may not realize that people call Downtown Crossing home, but Ponti certainly does. In 2002, she moved into a condo converted from the offices of a former sheet-music business; she found that no other urban-feeling Boston neighborhood could give her as much space for such a competitive a price. She's not alone. Today, an estimated 6,000 residents and about 2,000 students live in the blocks around the public transportation epicenter of Summer, Winter, and Washington streets. Once the city's retailing heart, it is now a mixture of shops, offices, empty storefronts, and construction sites. And an estimated 1,500 new residents are expected if and when several construction projects are completed.
But for now, Downtown Crossing is a complicated district with a serious identity crisis. The area, from Boston Common to the Financial District and from the Old State House to the edge of Chinatown, remains a rundown shopping zone long past its glory days, even as it slowly transforms into a blossoming residential area. As old shops close, exciting new restaurants open. The blocks near the old Paramount Theatre and Opera House buzz and rumble with construction activity, even as some other major building projects stall. The streets off Washington are a jumble of retail and services, from soup kitchens to professional offices to souvenir shops. Old and new, upscale and ramshackle sit side by side; Million Dollar Mary's Smoke Shop operates across the street from luxury condos of the soon-to-open 45 Province development. All of which make the neighborhood like no other in Boston.
"I love the diversity of this neighborhood," Ponti, a vice president at the brokerage firm Sterne Agee & Leach, tells me in the quiet of her spacious one-bedroom condo. "I love being able to walk out the front door and get a feeling of what's happening in the city. There are a lot of nooks and crannies around here that have specialized stuff. You can catch a show at the Opera House. I love the fact I'm 60 seconds away from a Chanel counter."
Ponti's boosterism may startle those who have long given up on Downtown Crossing. Her enthusiasm may even spark snickers among cynics who say they've heard this talk of revitalization before; many times, in fact. Just 20 years ago, Downtown Crossing was the region's number one shopping area, according to the Boston Redevelopment Authority. By 1996, it was not even among the region's top 10. The construction of Copley Place, the Atrium Mall, CambridgeSide Galleria, and other suburban malls drained shoppers, and the once stalwart department-store model faltered. Efforts to slow the bleeding -- when there were efforts -- failed. "The last time the city did any planning in the district was in the late '70s and early '80s, when we created the Downtown Crossing brand and turned it into a pedestrian mall," Boston Redevelopment Authority senior planner Andrew Grace says. "It was really modeled on the success of Faneuil Hall, and one of the recommendations in the plan at the time was to create a mall to compete with the malls that were emerging in the suburbs. That was Lafayette Place."
Ah, Lafayette Place. Built with a fortress mentality on Avenue de Lafayette, the project was either a "nightmare" or a "disaster," depending on who you ask (it has since been completely remodeled). Then, an attempt in the late 1990s to launch a Business Improvement District, in which businesses were assessed money for joint projects, improvements, and marketing, also failed. Other efforts to woo back shoppers spooked by the increasingly empty storefronts sputtered and faltered. Meanwhile, the area grew grimmer and glummer; the purchase of Jordan Marsh by Macy's and the closing of Filene's seemed to hammer the last nail in the coffin. Finally, "we absolutely had to do something about downtown Boston," Grace says. "We needed to drive the bus, direct the change. The district was just too important to let fall by the wayside."
So the BRA has spent $800,000 developing yet another long-range plan for the district. In November 2007, the selection of former Boston city councilor Rosemarie Sansone as president of the Downtown Crossing Association (now Downtown Crossing Partnership) was viewed as an important step. Sansone is in the early stages of trying to launch a downtown Business Improvement District and "looking at other successful models in the country." In the meantime, committees of retailers, residents, and property owners are meeting weekly to discuss issues from homelessness to street cleaning to crime.
It hasn't come easily. Like Ponti, Sansone found she had some educating to do when she started her job. "People would look at me and say, 'People live here?' "
Not only do they live here, but those people, the longtime residents and the new ones, may just be the best hope to revive Downtown Crossing and transform it from merely a place where shoppers shop and workers work into a place where shoppers linger over lunch with their day's purchases, workers meet for dinner, and residents call out greetings to one another as they make a morning coffee run. No longer a business district but a neighborhood.
B
oston is a city of neighborhoods. Beware the outsider who confuses the South End with South Boston, the North End with Charlestown, or fails to differentiate between Roxbury and Dorchester. And it's the neighbors in those neighborhoods who take it on themselves to make sure their streets are clean, sidewalks repaired, graffiti removed, and lights fixed, among the myriad other things that make a neighborhood desirable.
All that and more is now being done with greater urgency in Downtown Crossing as part of the four-year-old Downtown Crossing Economic Improvement Initiative by the Boston Redevelopment Authority. The BRA is working with Sansone and a group of retailers, business owners, developers, and residents to, as Sansone says, "make this a destination again."
Private developers are pouring in a staggering amount of money: About $1.463 billion in projects are planned, including the $700 million One Franklin Street development on the site of the former Filene's. The project as originally conceived would have 39 stories, with a blend of residential units, hotel rooms, offices, parking, and lower-level shops, including Filene's Basement.
Yes, the "old" Basement, with bins, hand-painted signs, and the beloved automatic markdown, is scheduled to return, this time with three levels instead of two. Filene's Basement spokeswoman Pat Boudrot says the company plans to re-create treasured aspects of the discount institution in 120,000 square feet of space. ("Yeah!" is Ponti's reaction.)
And those are just a few of the changes coming. There is the completed update to One Boston Place office building at Washington and Court streets; 45 Province, with 138 units of luxury housing; the 550-seat Paramount Theatre restoration by Emerson College, which will create about 260 dormitory beds; Suffolk University's Modern Theatre restoration, with about 200 dorm beds; and a 28-floor development at One Bromfield Street, among others.
There is also the recent conversion of the long-empty 10 West Street into a Suffolk dormitory with 270 beds and retail space. There are new restaurants: Max & Dylans on West Street, the renovation of the venerable Marliave on Bosworth Street, the Bina Osteria restaurant and gourmet food shop on Washington by the owners of Lala Rokh, and plans by the owner of Ivy Restaurant for transforming the former Stoddard's cutlery building on Temple Place. A onetime police booth near the entrance to the Orange and Red lines has been transformed into an information kiosk, aiding residents as well as wayward tourists wandering over from the Freedom Trail on School Street. Signage rules have been toughened, and there are plans to eliminate curbs and raise the grade of a part of Washington Street to emphasize that pedestrians, not vehicles, have the right of way.
But Downtown Crossing momentum is not immune from the meltdown on Wall Street. Grace said in October that a 14-story residential and retail project on Hayward Place had been stalled due to financial jitters but that other projects were financed and proceeding; barely a week later, the key One Franklin project was put on hold for 90 days until financing was secured. The project may also be forced to scale back, a blow to those who say the building -- and the return of Filene's Basement -- is a linchpin in the revitalization of Downtown Crossing. If Downtown Crossing has one huge advantage over, say, the development of the South Boston Waterfront, it's that the latter still has to build up foot traffic before it can take off. That's one thing Downtown Crossing has, and then some. An estimated 230,000 people visit the area daily, and about 162,000 work within a 10-minute walk. There are ample, if pricey, parking garages. Yet, much to the frustration of Sansone and others, "for one reason or another, it's become a place where people pass through" but don't linger, she says.
Consultants hired by the BRA found that despite the high foot traffic, "people weren't slowing down, they weren't pausing, they were walking through." The challenge, says the BRA's deputy director, Randi Lathrop, became how to get more people to stop, shop, drink, meet. A branding campaign was launched to promote Downtown Crossing as the city's "meeting place" and a 24/7 neighborhood (even if most of the businesses do lock their doors by 9 p.m.)
A massive holiday program along this theme is being planned. A "holiday village" will be created on Summer Street, with live animals, a carousel, carolers, jazz bands, and Santa. A restaurant special event and an event for the area's 300 jewelry stores are being organized. A discount shopping pass will be available at downtowncrossing.org. A second "Home Sweet Home" tour this Saturday will showcase some of the nearly 4,000 downtown residences, ranging from luxury condos to converted lofts on Temple Place, and Washington, Avery, and Province streets. The first home tour attracted nearly 400 participants, from as far away as Rhode Island and Maine.
Like many residents, Mayor Tom Menino remembers visiting Downtown Crossing with his parents for the holidays, to shop and see the decorated windows at Jordan Marsh and Filene's. He remembers the Louisville Slugger baseball bats at the long-gone Raymond's for $3.99. Even as mayor, he remained a regular at Filene's Basement.
You don't need to be a consultant to see the diversity of people crossing Washington and Winter streets. Men in suits mingle with women in saris. Boys in baggy pants tease girls in tight jeans. On one corner, a Baptist hands out a pamphlet asking, "Who is He?" On another, an activist pleads: "Do you have a moment for gay rights?" A gaggle of street photographers often hangs out to snap candid shots. Police on horseback, bike, and foot patrol the streets. The glittering windows of the E.B. Horn jewelry store slow down some passersby; others stride quickly into Macy's, Eddie Bauer, T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, or one of the district's 525 retail businesses.
"One thing that's so special about Downtown Crossing, it is the face of Boston. Unlike Copley Place, unlike the Prudential Center, unlike Faneuil Hall," the BRA's Lathrop says. Sansone tells me: "It is one place in the morning. It is another place during the day. It is another place at night. It is even a different place on weekends. And, oh, by the way, it's a different world from the 21st floor up."
But can those different populations mingle without tension? Large groups of students who appear in the late afternoon often distress retailers and, some insist, intimidate shoppers. To discourage a rock- and hip-hop-loving crowd from loitering, classical music blares from the Corner Mall on Washington and Winter streets. Perceptions that the area is dangerous weren't helped by events of October 3, when two men were stabbed and shots fired there.
Boston Police Captain Bernard P. O'Rourke, commander of Area A-1, which includes Downtown Crossing, cited crime statistics from the blocks near Tremont, Boylston, Chauncy, Washington, Arch, and Court streets that show crime rates are, in his words, "very average" for the city, and in fact are actually low considering how many people pass through daily. For example, Downtown Crossing had 40 robberies, 42 aggravated assaults, and 512 larcenies recorded from January to November this year. A roughly equivalent area of Back Bay in the same period had 33 robberies, 41 aggravated assaults, and 670 larcenies.
"The large majority of those kids are causing nobody any undue concern other than the fact that they're in groups, they're a little loud, maybe a little vulgar," O'Rourke says. Ponti, the woman who lives on Washington Street, says she has never felt unsafe living there. "My final decision to buy the property was after I took a walk through here at night," she says, "because I knew I was going to have to walk my dog at night."
The problems, says Kenneth Gloss, who runs the Brattle Book Stop on West Street, are mostly about perception. It's not the kids who create a feeling of unease, he says. "The empty storefronts are more of a problem."A huge gash cuts through the heart OF Downtown Crossing: the deep hole of the One Franklin Street project. The historic facades of the Filene's building have been preserved but other walls have been ripped away, leaving the interiors exposed like skeletons. Just across the street is a former Barnes & Noble bookstore, its 37,000 square feet empty, its windows covered with peppy slogans from the city's branding campaign: "History Meet Future," "Push Meet Cart," "CEO Meet CFO," and "Spoon Meet Chowder."
The bright messages can't quite dispel the sense of a no-man's land. Nearby are the empty storefronts of Mattress Discounters and the closed grates of Fat Tony's and Kim's Menswear. In a doorway of a former CVS, a homeless man huddles with heaps of bedraggled possessions. "Space for Lease" signs seem as common as pigeons.
What the area needs in those empty spaces, residents and planners say, are more moderately priced sit-down restaurants, a home-goods store, and perhaps a grocer or dry cleaner. Not more cellphone stores, fast-food places, or pawnshops. But as in so many urban projects, there's a danger of driving out smaller unique shops or services. Planners insist the goal is not to strip Downtown Crossing of its gritty urban character. Streets need to be clean, but the area's 39 pushcarts will remain in some form, Sansone says. Stores should have "high quality" but not necessarily "high-end" goods. It is the ultimate balancing act.
"This area will never get gentrified per se," Menino tells me. "It will be a mixed use of retail and upscale. That's very important to us, because all of us can't go into the upscale area. Working people need moderate-income clothes or accessories." Although, he adds almost wistfully, "you're not going to have $3.99 bats at Raymond's anymore."
The One Franklin project is "the tipping point," says James Adler, who has run various pushcart businesses in Downtown Crossing for 24 years. "When that is completed, with all its beauty and its design shell, that will promote more business to come and set up shop. Right now, there are a lot of empty spaces. And that has to do with the economy and the fact that landlords are not lowering the rents."
Some of those empty storefronts will be filled temporarily when local artists are invited to sell wares there, rent-free, for the holidays.
What will make a permanent difference is having residents who care about their neighborhood. "If you have people out at night, living in the area, they care about how the lighting is," Gloss says. "They care about how the sidewalks look. They care about how the trash is put out. And the more people you have living here, be it students, be it actually [residents], that is a huge thing. They also vote."
Indeed, nowadays, Ponti finds, cabbies seem to know that people actually live in Downtown Crossing. And when she learned that Menino was in the area to film a Downtown Crossing holiday announcement, Ponti scurried into the street with a broom for a quick sweep. "This is," she explains as she rushes by, "my neighborhood."
Stephanie Schorow is a Boston-area writer and author of East of Boston: Notes From the Harbor Islands. E-mail her at sschorow@comcast.net.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2008/12/07/wont_you_be_my_neighbor/
Downtown Crossing is smack in the middle of the city. Its very location should make it the place where everybody wants to be. So why has it always felt like something was missing, and is that "something" about to finally turn it into a real, live neighborhood?
By Stephanie Schorow | December 7, 2008
At first, the cabdrivers would eye her incredulously and then, inevitably, ask the question: "Why the heck do you want to be dropped off with a bag of groceries in Downtown Crossing at midnight?" Well, Mary Ann Ponti would explain, she actually lived there, on Washington Street, just across from Macy's, adding, "Do you realize that people live there?"
Cabbies may not realize that people call Downtown Crossing home, but Ponti certainly does. In 2002, she moved into a condo converted from the offices of a former sheet-music business; she found that no other urban-feeling Boston neighborhood could give her as much space for such a competitive a price. She's not alone. Today, an estimated 6,000 residents and about 2,000 students live in the blocks around the public transportation epicenter of Summer, Winter, and Washington streets. Once the city's retailing heart, it is now a mixture of shops, offices, empty storefronts, and construction sites. And an estimated 1,500 new residents are expected if and when several construction projects are completed.
But for now, Downtown Crossing is a complicated district with a serious identity crisis. The area, from Boston Common to the Financial District and from the Old State House to the edge of Chinatown, remains a rundown shopping zone long past its glory days, even as it slowly transforms into a blossoming residential area. As old shops close, exciting new restaurants open. The blocks near the old Paramount Theatre and Opera House buzz and rumble with construction activity, even as some other major building projects stall. The streets off Washington are a jumble of retail and services, from soup kitchens to professional offices to souvenir shops. Old and new, upscale and ramshackle sit side by side; Million Dollar Mary's Smoke Shop operates across the street from luxury condos of the soon-to-open 45 Province development. All of which make the neighborhood like no other in Boston.
"I love the diversity of this neighborhood," Ponti, a vice president at the brokerage firm Sterne Agee & Leach, tells me in the quiet of her spacious one-bedroom condo. "I love being able to walk out the front door and get a feeling of what's happening in the city. There are a lot of nooks and crannies around here that have specialized stuff. You can catch a show at the Opera House. I love the fact I'm 60 seconds away from a Chanel counter."
Ponti's boosterism may startle those who have long given up on Downtown Crossing. Her enthusiasm may even spark snickers among cynics who say they've heard this talk of revitalization before; many times, in fact. Just 20 years ago, Downtown Crossing was the region's number one shopping area, according to the Boston Redevelopment Authority. By 1996, it was not even among the region's top 10. The construction of Copley Place, the Atrium Mall, CambridgeSide Galleria, and other suburban malls drained shoppers, and the once stalwart department-store model faltered. Efforts to slow the bleeding -- when there were efforts -- failed. "The last time the city did any planning in the district was in the late '70s and early '80s, when we created the Downtown Crossing brand and turned it into a pedestrian mall," Boston Redevelopment Authority senior planner Andrew Grace says. "It was really modeled on the success of Faneuil Hall, and one of the recommendations in the plan at the time was to create a mall to compete with the malls that were emerging in the suburbs. That was Lafayette Place."
Ah, Lafayette Place. Built with a fortress mentality on Avenue de Lafayette, the project was either a "nightmare" or a "disaster," depending on who you ask (it has since been completely remodeled). Then, an attempt in the late 1990s to launch a Business Improvement District, in which businesses were assessed money for joint projects, improvements, and marketing, also failed. Other efforts to woo back shoppers spooked by the increasingly empty storefronts sputtered and faltered. Meanwhile, the area grew grimmer and glummer; the purchase of Jordan Marsh by Macy's and the closing of Filene's seemed to hammer the last nail in the coffin. Finally, "we absolutely had to do something about downtown Boston," Grace says. "We needed to drive the bus, direct the change. The district was just too important to let fall by the wayside."
So the BRA has spent $800,000 developing yet another long-range plan for the district. In November 2007, the selection of former Boston city councilor Rosemarie Sansone as president of the Downtown Crossing Association (now Downtown Crossing Partnership) was viewed as an important step. Sansone is in the early stages of trying to launch a downtown Business Improvement District and "looking at other successful models in the country." In the meantime, committees of retailers, residents, and property owners are meeting weekly to discuss issues from homelessness to street cleaning to crime.
It hasn't come easily. Like Ponti, Sansone found she had some educating to do when she started her job. "People would look at me and say, 'People live here?' "
Not only do they live here, but those people, the longtime residents and the new ones, may just be the best hope to revive Downtown Crossing and transform it from merely a place where shoppers shop and workers work into a place where shoppers linger over lunch with their day's purchases, workers meet for dinner, and residents call out greetings to one another as they make a morning coffee run. No longer a business district but a neighborhood.
B
oston is a city of neighborhoods. Beware the outsider who confuses the South End with South Boston, the North End with Charlestown, or fails to differentiate between Roxbury and Dorchester. And it's the neighbors in those neighborhoods who take it on themselves to make sure their streets are clean, sidewalks repaired, graffiti removed, and lights fixed, among the myriad other things that make a neighborhood desirable.
All that and more is now being done with greater urgency in Downtown Crossing as part of the four-year-old Downtown Crossing Economic Improvement Initiative by the Boston Redevelopment Authority. The BRA is working with Sansone and a group of retailers, business owners, developers, and residents to, as Sansone says, "make this a destination again."
Private developers are pouring in a staggering amount of money: About $1.463 billion in projects are planned, including the $700 million One Franklin Street development on the site of the former Filene's. The project as originally conceived would have 39 stories, with a blend of residential units, hotel rooms, offices, parking, and lower-level shops, including Filene's Basement.
Yes, the "old" Basement, with bins, hand-painted signs, and the beloved automatic markdown, is scheduled to return, this time with three levels instead of two. Filene's Basement spokeswoman Pat Boudrot says the company plans to re-create treasured aspects of the discount institution in 120,000 square feet of space. ("Yeah!" is Ponti's reaction.)
And those are just a few of the changes coming. There is the completed update to One Boston Place office building at Washington and Court streets; 45 Province, with 138 units of luxury housing; the 550-seat Paramount Theatre restoration by Emerson College, which will create about 260 dormitory beds; Suffolk University's Modern Theatre restoration, with about 200 dorm beds; and a 28-floor development at One Bromfield Street, among others.
There is also the recent conversion of the long-empty 10 West Street into a Suffolk dormitory with 270 beds and retail space. There are new restaurants: Max & Dylans on West Street, the renovation of the venerable Marliave on Bosworth Street, the Bina Osteria restaurant and gourmet food shop on Washington by the owners of Lala Rokh, and plans by the owner of Ivy Restaurant for transforming the former Stoddard's cutlery building on Temple Place. A onetime police booth near the entrance to the Orange and Red lines has been transformed into an information kiosk, aiding residents as well as wayward tourists wandering over from the Freedom Trail on School Street. Signage rules have been toughened, and there are plans to eliminate curbs and raise the grade of a part of Washington Street to emphasize that pedestrians, not vehicles, have the right of way.
But Downtown Crossing momentum is not immune from the meltdown on Wall Street. Grace said in October that a 14-story residential and retail project on Hayward Place had been stalled due to financial jitters but that other projects were financed and proceeding; barely a week later, the key One Franklin project was put on hold for 90 days until financing was secured. The project may also be forced to scale back, a blow to those who say the building -- and the return of Filene's Basement -- is a linchpin in the revitalization of Downtown Crossing. If Downtown Crossing has one huge advantage over, say, the development of the South Boston Waterfront, it's that the latter still has to build up foot traffic before it can take off. That's one thing Downtown Crossing has, and then some. An estimated 230,000 people visit the area daily, and about 162,000 work within a 10-minute walk. There are ample, if pricey, parking garages. Yet, much to the frustration of Sansone and others, "for one reason or another, it's become a place where people pass through" but don't linger, she says.
Consultants hired by the BRA found that despite the high foot traffic, "people weren't slowing down, they weren't pausing, they were walking through." The challenge, says the BRA's deputy director, Randi Lathrop, became how to get more people to stop, shop, drink, meet. A branding campaign was launched to promote Downtown Crossing as the city's "meeting place" and a 24/7 neighborhood (even if most of the businesses do lock their doors by 9 p.m.)
A massive holiday program along this theme is being planned. A "holiday village" will be created on Summer Street, with live animals, a carousel, carolers, jazz bands, and Santa. A restaurant special event and an event for the area's 300 jewelry stores are being organized. A discount shopping pass will be available at downtowncrossing.org. A second "Home Sweet Home" tour this Saturday will showcase some of the nearly 4,000 downtown residences, ranging from luxury condos to converted lofts on Temple Place, and Washington, Avery, and Province streets. The first home tour attracted nearly 400 participants, from as far away as Rhode Island and Maine.
Like many residents, Mayor Tom Menino remembers visiting Downtown Crossing with his parents for the holidays, to shop and see the decorated windows at Jordan Marsh and Filene's. He remembers the Louisville Slugger baseball bats at the long-gone Raymond's for $3.99. Even as mayor, he remained a regular at Filene's Basement.
You don't need to be a consultant to see the diversity of people crossing Washington and Winter streets. Men in suits mingle with women in saris. Boys in baggy pants tease girls in tight jeans. On one corner, a Baptist hands out a pamphlet asking, "Who is He?" On another, an activist pleads: "Do you have a moment for gay rights?" A gaggle of street photographers often hangs out to snap candid shots. Police on horseback, bike, and foot patrol the streets. The glittering windows of the E.B. Horn jewelry store slow down some passersby; others stride quickly into Macy's, Eddie Bauer, T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, or one of the district's 525 retail businesses.
"One thing that's so special about Downtown Crossing, it is the face of Boston. Unlike Copley Place, unlike the Prudential Center, unlike Faneuil Hall," the BRA's Lathrop says. Sansone tells me: "It is one place in the morning. It is another place during the day. It is another place at night. It is even a different place on weekends. And, oh, by the way, it's a different world from the 21st floor up."
But can those different populations mingle without tension? Large groups of students who appear in the late afternoon often distress retailers and, some insist, intimidate shoppers. To discourage a rock- and hip-hop-loving crowd from loitering, classical music blares from the Corner Mall on Washington and Winter streets. Perceptions that the area is dangerous weren't helped by events of October 3, when two men were stabbed and shots fired there.
Boston Police Captain Bernard P. O'Rourke, commander of Area A-1, which includes Downtown Crossing, cited crime statistics from the blocks near Tremont, Boylston, Chauncy, Washington, Arch, and Court streets that show crime rates are, in his words, "very average" for the city, and in fact are actually low considering how many people pass through daily. For example, Downtown Crossing had 40 robberies, 42 aggravated assaults, and 512 larcenies recorded from January to November this year. A roughly equivalent area of Back Bay in the same period had 33 robberies, 41 aggravated assaults, and 670 larcenies.
"The large majority of those kids are causing nobody any undue concern other than the fact that they're in groups, they're a little loud, maybe a little vulgar," O'Rourke says. Ponti, the woman who lives on Washington Street, says she has never felt unsafe living there. "My final decision to buy the property was after I took a walk through here at night," she says, "because I knew I was going to have to walk my dog at night."
The problems, says Kenneth Gloss, who runs the Brattle Book Stop on West Street, are mostly about perception. It's not the kids who create a feeling of unease, he says. "The empty storefronts are more of a problem."A huge gash cuts through the heart OF Downtown Crossing: the deep hole of the One Franklin Street project. The historic facades of the Filene's building have been preserved but other walls have been ripped away, leaving the interiors exposed like skeletons. Just across the street is a former Barnes & Noble bookstore, its 37,000 square feet empty, its windows covered with peppy slogans from the city's branding campaign: "History Meet Future," "Push Meet Cart," "CEO Meet CFO," and "Spoon Meet Chowder."
The bright messages can't quite dispel the sense of a no-man's land. Nearby are the empty storefronts of Mattress Discounters and the closed grates of Fat Tony's and Kim's Menswear. In a doorway of a former CVS, a homeless man huddles with heaps of bedraggled possessions. "Space for Lease" signs seem as common as pigeons.
What the area needs in those empty spaces, residents and planners say, are more moderately priced sit-down restaurants, a home-goods store, and perhaps a grocer or dry cleaner. Not more cellphone stores, fast-food places, or pawnshops. But as in so many urban projects, there's a danger of driving out smaller unique shops or services. Planners insist the goal is not to strip Downtown Crossing of its gritty urban character. Streets need to be clean, but the area's 39 pushcarts will remain in some form, Sansone says. Stores should have "high quality" but not necessarily "high-end" goods. It is the ultimate balancing act.
"This area will never get gentrified per se," Menino tells me. "It will be a mixed use of retail and upscale. That's very important to us, because all of us can't go into the upscale area. Working people need moderate-income clothes or accessories." Although, he adds almost wistfully, "you're not going to have $3.99 bats at Raymond's anymore."
The One Franklin project is "the tipping point," says James Adler, who has run various pushcart businesses in Downtown Crossing for 24 years. "When that is completed, with all its beauty and its design shell, that will promote more business to come and set up shop. Right now, there are a lot of empty spaces. And that has to do with the economy and the fact that landlords are not lowering the rents."
Some of those empty storefronts will be filled temporarily when local artists are invited to sell wares there, rent-free, for the holidays.
What will make a permanent difference is having residents who care about their neighborhood. "If you have people out at night, living in the area, they care about how the lighting is," Gloss says. "They care about how the sidewalks look. They care about how the trash is put out. And the more people you have living here, be it students, be it actually [residents], that is a huge thing. They also vote."
Indeed, nowadays, Ponti finds, cabbies seem to know that people actually live in Downtown Crossing. And when she learned that Menino was in the area to film a Downtown Crossing holiday announcement, Ponti scurried into the street with a broom for a quick sweep. "This is," she explains as she rushes by, "my neighborhood."
Stephanie Schorow is a Boston-area writer and author of East of Boston: Notes From the Harbor Islands. E-mail her at sschorow@comcast.net.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2008/12/07/wont_you_be_my_neighbor/
KentXie
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I think if they are to build more residential towers here, they would need to build the office towers first and then have the residential towers go up at the same exact time, lest we get complaints such as shadows, blocked views, wind tunnel, and congestion.
kennedy
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Excuse me, but what views do you really get by being in DTX anyhow? You can't really see the common, there are already buildings behind you, and in front so you can't see the harbor or greenway or anything. Maybe the tops of the financial district buildings?
Can somebody post the Current article on Page 20, written by State Representatives Bryon Rushing and Marty Walz (Creating a Livable Common Ground) its a great article about Downtown Density!!!!
What happend to make all these articles come out?
What happend to make all these articles come out?
JimboJones
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Courant isn't online, so only way to get it here is to type it in manually ...
kz1000ps
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Downtown developments continue despite Filene?s stall
Boston Business Journal - by Denise Magnell
Friday, December 5, 2008
The recent halt to construction of Downtown Crossing?s redevelopment linchpin ? the Filene?s project at One Franklin ? could have reverberated up and down Washington Street. As it stands now, the project ? the shell of the old department store towering over a fenced-in crater ? has become an unlikely, bleak attraction for the tourists and shoppers that crowd the area.
But projects under construction and on the drawing boards for Boston?s shopping district seem to be on track in spite of developer John Hynes III?s decision to stop One Franklin construction while he lines up more financing.
Two major projects moving ahead in November include the 28-story One Bromfield complex at Washington and Bromfield streets, for which developers filed papers with the city to get the $200 million project rolling, and Suffolk University?s groundbreaking on its second downtown residence hall this year.
The unfolding of the Filene?s news came as the city unleashed a marketing campaign aimed at sparking interest in a revitalized Downtown Crossing ? and in the midst of planning for the city?s first Business Improvement District.
?I don?t think we?re surprised that everyone?s thinking about it, because (the Filene?s project) is very much the focus of what is being done downtown,? said Rosemarie Sansone, president of the Downtown Crossing Partnership. ?But we?re a team working on this neighborhood, and I haven?t heard of any project that is stopping because of it.?
Hynes has since told the Boston Redevelopment Authority he expects construction to resume soon after the new year, with a scaled-back residential piece of the mixed-use building to reduce its $700 million cost, said Randi Lathrop, BRA?s deputy director for community planning.
In the meantime, BRA is reviewing the One Bromfield tower, expected to break ground in 2010. Four smaller buildings will be taken down by New York-based Midwood Management Corp. to make way for 276 residential units with parking and retail space on lower floors.
?By that time, the financial market could change a great deal. Right now, one-third of the units in 45 Province have been sold, and considering this housing market, that?s terrific,? said Lathrop, referring to a luxury condo tower expected to open this spring.
Thousands of office workers and shoppers mix with an after-school crowd of urban teens who make up the estimated 230,000 people travelling daily through the shopping district.
In 1977, The Corner Mall, with retail shops and a food court, opened in the former Gilchrist?s department store, which ? along with Jordan Marsh (now Macy?s) and Filene?s ? once dominated the crossing of Washington Street with Winter and Summer streets.
Today, about 6,000 people live in the neighborhood, and BRA estimates that number could climb to 15,000 in the next decade. When Archstone Apartments opened last year, it added 420 rental units in Downtown Crossing.
City planners and business leaders still battle a negative perception of Downtown Crossing, stemming from decades of decline that led to an ever-changing scene of storefronts and ?for lease? signs, a mismatched array of flags and canopies and sidewalks crowded with pushcarts. With stores keeping business hours, downtown became a daytime-only destination.
?A stigma has become attached to downtown that it?s not safe, a little crazy, and difficult to get in and out of,? said Michael Kebadjian, whose family-owned Kebadjian Bros. has operated its jewelry business at the Boston Jewelers Exchange Building for 52 years. ?But once we have the right mix of infrastructure, parking and a clientele that wants better stores, that will draw a better clientele. It goes hand in hand.?
In conjunction with the Filene?s project, an improved streetscape will include an expanded pedestrian mall with kiosks and pushcarts lined up in the middle.
?We?re in transition. There?s a lot of work to do, but we?ve already done a lot of work. There are new businesses, new restaurants. There are new signage regulations so the buildings look like they belong to one area,? said Sansone.
Boston developer Ronald Druker, who also owns the Corner Mall and the Orpheum Theater, credits Mayor Thomas Menino and the BRA with ?doing everything they can to promote the area. In spite of Filene?s being stalled, it?s still a solid, well-leased area.?
Lathrop said Downtown Crossing has a low vacancy rate, but some highly visible storefronts ? such as the Barnes and Noble store that closed two years ago, and remains vacant ? give a different impression.
?We have 525 businesses down there filling 1.3 million square feet of retail space,? she said.
Washington Street?s latest groundbreaking occurred recently when Suffolk University began renovating the former Modern Theatre into a dormitory and ground-floor theater and gallery space. Down the street, the former Paramount Theater is under construction by Emerson College for an $80 million student dormitory and cultural center.
Along with The Opera House, which opened to much fanfare in 2004 after a $38 million refurbishment, the theaters had been on the National Trust for Historic Preservation?s most endangered list as late as 1995.
At the opposite end of Washington Street, where it ends at Court Street across from Government Center, the Ames Hotel is planned at the long-vacant Ames Building, a historic landmark that was Boston?s first skyscraper when it opened in the 1890s. The $40 million renovation will create a 125-room boutique hotel with two restaurants when it opens next year.
The formation of a Business Improvement District will allow the city to charge business owners within Downtown Crossing ?surcharges? for additional services such as sanitation and security beyond the normal city services.
Previous attempts to start an improvement district failed to get legislative approval, but by allowing property owners to ?opt out? of the association if they choose, state approval isn?t needed.
?This time it will go through. There?s a real foundation through the planning effort, a different climate than before, and a lot of the property has changed hands since last time,? said Lathrop.
Link
Boston Business Journal - by Denise Magnell
Friday, December 5, 2008
The recent halt to construction of Downtown Crossing?s redevelopment linchpin ? the Filene?s project at One Franklin ? could have reverberated up and down Washington Street. As it stands now, the project ? the shell of the old department store towering over a fenced-in crater ? has become an unlikely, bleak attraction for the tourists and shoppers that crowd the area.
But projects under construction and on the drawing boards for Boston?s shopping district seem to be on track in spite of developer John Hynes III?s decision to stop One Franklin construction while he lines up more financing.
Two major projects moving ahead in November include the 28-story One Bromfield complex at Washington and Bromfield streets, for which developers filed papers with the city to get the $200 million project rolling, and Suffolk University?s groundbreaking on its second downtown residence hall this year.
The unfolding of the Filene?s news came as the city unleashed a marketing campaign aimed at sparking interest in a revitalized Downtown Crossing ? and in the midst of planning for the city?s first Business Improvement District.
?I don?t think we?re surprised that everyone?s thinking about it, because (the Filene?s project) is very much the focus of what is being done downtown,? said Rosemarie Sansone, president of the Downtown Crossing Partnership. ?But we?re a team working on this neighborhood, and I haven?t heard of any project that is stopping because of it.?
Hynes has since told the Boston Redevelopment Authority he expects construction to resume soon after the new year, with a scaled-back residential piece of the mixed-use building to reduce its $700 million cost, said Randi Lathrop, BRA?s deputy director for community planning.
In the meantime, BRA is reviewing the One Bromfield tower, expected to break ground in 2010. Four smaller buildings will be taken down by New York-based Midwood Management Corp. to make way for 276 residential units with parking and retail space on lower floors.
?By that time, the financial market could change a great deal. Right now, one-third of the units in 45 Province have been sold, and considering this housing market, that?s terrific,? said Lathrop, referring to a luxury condo tower expected to open this spring.
Thousands of office workers and shoppers mix with an after-school crowd of urban teens who make up the estimated 230,000 people travelling daily through the shopping district.
In 1977, The Corner Mall, with retail shops and a food court, opened in the former Gilchrist?s department store, which ? along with Jordan Marsh (now Macy?s) and Filene?s ? once dominated the crossing of Washington Street with Winter and Summer streets.
Today, about 6,000 people live in the neighborhood, and BRA estimates that number could climb to 15,000 in the next decade. When Archstone Apartments opened last year, it added 420 rental units in Downtown Crossing.
City planners and business leaders still battle a negative perception of Downtown Crossing, stemming from decades of decline that led to an ever-changing scene of storefronts and ?for lease? signs, a mismatched array of flags and canopies and sidewalks crowded with pushcarts. With stores keeping business hours, downtown became a daytime-only destination.
?A stigma has become attached to downtown that it?s not safe, a little crazy, and difficult to get in and out of,? said Michael Kebadjian, whose family-owned Kebadjian Bros. has operated its jewelry business at the Boston Jewelers Exchange Building for 52 years. ?But once we have the right mix of infrastructure, parking and a clientele that wants better stores, that will draw a better clientele. It goes hand in hand.?
In conjunction with the Filene?s project, an improved streetscape will include an expanded pedestrian mall with kiosks and pushcarts lined up in the middle.
?We?re in transition. There?s a lot of work to do, but we?ve already done a lot of work. There are new businesses, new restaurants. There are new signage regulations so the buildings look like they belong to one area,? said Sansone.
Boston developer Ronald Druker, who also owns the Corner Mall and the Orpheum Theater, credits Mayor Thomas Menino and the BRA with ?doing everything they can to promote the area. In spite of Filene?s being stalled, it?s still a solid, well-leased area.?
Lathrop said Downtown Crossing has a low vacancy rate, but some highly visible storefronts ? such as the Barnes and Noble store that closed two years ago, and remains vacant ? give a different impression.
?We have 525 businesses down there filling 1.3 million square feet of retail space,? she said.
Washington Street?s latest groundbreaking occurred recently when Suffolk University began renovating the former Modern Theatre into a dormitory and ground-floor theater and gallery space. Down the street, the former Paramount Theater is under construction by Emerson College for an $80 million student dormitory and cultural center.
Along with The Opera House, which opened to much fanfare in 2004 after a $38 million refurbishment, the theaters had been on the National Trust for Historic Preservation?s most endangered list as late as 1995.
At the opposite end of Washington Street, where it ends at Court Street across from Government Center, the Ames Hotel is planned at the long-vacant Ames Building, a historic landmark that was Boston?s first skyscraper when it opened in the 1890s. The $40 million renovation will create a 125-room boutique hotel with two restaurants when it opens next year.
The formation of a Business Improvement District will allow the city to charge business owners within Downtown Crossing ?surcharges? for additional services such as sanitation and security beyond the normal city services.
Previous attempts to start an improvement district failed to get legislative approval, but by allowing property owners to ?opt out? of the association if they choose, state approval isn?t needed.
?This time it will go through. There?s a real foundation through the planning effort, a different climate than before, and a lot of the property has changed hands since last time,? said Lathrop.
Link
I don't know about this, but what are the odds the developers here come back and say, we can continue construction sooner but we need to go a hundred feet taller to make it more profitable and get the financing? I'd wouldn't mind that scenario playing out.
Do any of the databases have them? Lexisnexis for example?
I know, but some of you guys have great color scanners. The scanner at my office sucks.
I'll see if I can type it up at some point.
JimboJones
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Ask Ted Flanders.
Big Piece on DTX on Boston.com. Too big to post it all here, but here's the headline:
link to the full story: http://www.boston.com/realestate/news/articles/2008/12/07/wont_you_be_my_neighbor/
link to the full story: http://www.boston.com/realestate/news/articles/2008/12/07/wont_you_be_my_neighbor/
Ron Newman
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That was already published, in the Sunday Globe magazine.
Ron Newman
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I assume 505 is one of the temporary Christmas craft shops that turn up in various parts of the region during December. What is being built at Rogers Jewelers?
BosDevelop
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Is the last picture the block of winter street where there have been 7 different gyms in the last 5 years and where the old McDonalds location has been vacant for at least 3-4 years? That block is depressing.