Fan Pier Developments | Seaport

http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2011/01/by_casey_ross_g.html?p1=News_links

Drug maker Vertex Pharmaceuticals will relocate to two new buildings on Fan Pier in Boston's seaport district, the first big trophy in Mayor Thomas M. Menino's effort to transform the city's waterfront into an Innovation District filled with technology companies, academic institutions, and medical firms.

Vertex has signed a letter of intent to move its headquarters from Cambridge to developer Joseph F. Fallon's Fan Pier complex in late 2013. The 23-acre complex currently has one building now, but is slated to host hundreds of new residences, a hotel, public parks and a marina.

The deal with Vertex, at 1.1 million square feet, is one of the largest lease transactions in the city's history, officials said. The formal lease still must be signed, and the firm's relocation to Fan Pier is contingent on federal approval of its first major drug, Telaprevir, a treatment for Hepatitis C.

Regulators are expected to act on the company's application by June.

The deal is a coup for Boston in its effort to lure biotechnology companies from neighboring Cambridge, home to many other large drug companies that want to be close to competitors and to that city's prestigious universities. It also offers a huge boost for Fan Pier, which will soon be able to resume construction after work was stalled in 2008 by a recession that dried up funding for large scale development projects nationwide.

The work slowdown caused Vertex, which was considering the move to Fan Pier back then, to renew its lease of its office and lab space in Cambridge last year.

But Vertex never turned its back on Fan Pier and continued to talk with representatives of the project during the last several months. The Vertex buildings will be the second and third major structures in the complex, adding to One Marina Park Drive, an 18-story office and retail building completed last year.
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Aha. So in order to make the BRA's Kendall-by-the-Sea appear a success, we're now poaching biotech/pharma from Cambridge. So, not only have we tossed sound urban planning to the wind - but regional planning as well!
 
Anybody have numbers on how much Vertex paid for Square Foot?

"The deal with Vertex, at 1.1 million square feet, is one of the largest lease transactions in the city's history, officials said. The formal lease still must be signed, and the firm's relocation to Fan Pier is contingent on federal approval of its first major drug, Telaprevir, a treatment for Hepatitis C."


What happens if the drug is a BUST?
 
Shepard said:
Aha. So in order to make the BRA's Kendall-by-the-Sea appear a success, we're now poaching biotech/pharma from Cambridge. So, not only have we tossed sound urban planning to the wind - but regional planning as well!
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Someone said this better, this is really re-arranging the chairs on the shipdeck. Mumbles has finally gotten his own little weird way of turning the Seaport into Framingham, when something that's viable to the area could've gone there.



Because we need to continue to profit off of people's illnesses!
 
Shepard said:
Aha. So in order to make the BRA's Kendall-by-the-Sea appear a success, we're now poaching biotech/pharma from Cambridge. So, not only have we tossed sound urban planning to the wind - but regional planning as well!
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A couple of things. First, urban planning is not what's bothering you here. From an urban planning standpoint, Kendall works well. It's easy to get to, through, and around, there is street life and a variety of thriving home and workplace uses, and it isn't dingy, run-down, or in any way distressed.

What bothers most of the people on this board about Fan Pier is the architecture (likewise in Kendall). The Planning shortcomings of the area, as far as I can tell, are that it is not easy to reach by more or less any mode other than walking across Fort Point Channel from convenient areas of the Financial District and that the buildings are not tall enough to compensate for the wide streets and instill a somewhat urban feel as opposed to the suburban one. These are, by-and-large, preexisting conditions that the Fan Pier folks could not do anything about.

Given that the Silver Line is a pathetic excuse for mass transit, and given that the proximity of Logan to Downtown, while beneficial in many ways, does limit building height, the designers of Fan Pier could either build stumpy buildings or build nothing (building rows of individually constructed and designed, picturesque townhouses not being a viable option). I take my issues with this development as well - primarily with the banal street names - but there's only so much they could do. The renderings of the completed development show a lovely marina and harborwalk, restaurants and stores creating ground-level life and sufficient but not overwhelming green space. When it's done, it's the best we'll have been able to get in a neighborhood there, and it's personal opinion whether it looks nice. Frankly, what is required to satisfy this board would horrify a lot of ordinary residents (see La Defense, Paris).

As for what they have found to fill this space, it is not the responsibility of the BRA, the Mayor of Boston, or the management at Vertex to ensure the vitality of Cambridge. I'm not saying that the region benefits from a intra-regional move like this, nor that the region would not benefit more if this company had moved from Waltham or San Jose. You have, however, implied that the BRA's scheme here is a failure simply because they had to poach a tenant from a neighboring and independent city. Nothing of the sort. Boston gets the tax revenue now, not Cambridge.

I certainly don't love that this is the best they could do, but it seems like a great move for Vertex, which at present has scattered its employees to the four winds. Of course it means that all of those likely transit-commuters will now be driving. If you want the real folly in this neighborhood, look at the MBTA.
 
You have to admit that Fan Pier & Seaport are probably going to be a disappointment in the end and missed opportunity in making this area of Boston GREAT.

This area might end up worse than our Greenway. The people running this city would fuck up a free lunch. Never mind Fallon is one of Menino's BUTT buddies. Defintely a pay day for the Mayor.
 
This is good news. The void left in Cambridge will eventually get filled up by new companies and Boston gets to tap into this job generator.
 
^Equilibria

The Seaport is nothing less than an abysmal failure of urban design and planning. You'd never know that if you read the Boston Globe, since the Globe reprints BRA press releases instead of analyzing what's actually getting approved and built.

Prior to 1997, the Seaport was destined to develop as Kendall Square on the Harbor, predominately commercial construction, along with some proposals for large projects (stadium, megaplex, convention center, etc.).

In 1997, the BRA placed a moratorium on new construction over the entire Seaport, in the form of an Interim Planing Overlay District (IPOD). The IPOD effectively capped all heights at a maximum of 150'. The BRA stated that the IPOD was critical to lend time for the agency to embark on a multi-year "Master Planning Process."

Fast forward twelve years, and the Seaport is now progressing EXACTLY as it would have without the BRA's creation of the IPOD ? it is destined to be Kendall Square on the Harbor. The BRA claimed year after year that it required residential construction in exchange for the significant density forked over during rezoning -- but the facts on the ground disprove that as total B.S. All residential construction has been phased into oblivion, existing only on paper rather than being required to accompany office/hotel construction.

The wide boulevards contradict the BRA's assertions that it was accommodating some measure of finely scaled streets rather than stumpy megablocks like Massport's mess. You would have had to be around during the Fan Pier planning process to hear the Pritzker's planning team at Urban Strategies discuss their fine-grained "vision" which included angled alleys and narrow streets. Even the BRA's own Seaport Public Realm Plan is 10x better than the reality of office stumps moving to the front of the queue.

I could go on but I'm tired of apologizing to ArchBoston members for being redundant.
 
Sicilian said:
^Equilibria

The Seaport is nothing less than an abysmal failure of urban design and planning. You'd never know that if you read the Boston Globe, since the Globe reprints BRA press releases instead of analyzing what's actually getting approved and built.

Prior to 1997, the Seaport was destined to develop as Kendall Square on the Harbor, predominately commercial construction, along with some proposals for large projects (stadium, megaplex, convention center, etc.).

In 1997, the BRA placed a moratorium on new construction over the entire Seaport, in the form of an Interim Planing Overlay District (IPOD). The IPOD effectively capped all heights at a maximum of 150'. The BRA stated that the IPOD was critical to lend time for the agency to embark on a multi-year "Master Planning Process."

Fast forward twelve years, and the Seaport is now progressing EXACTLY as it would have without the BRA's creation of the IPOD ? it is destined to be Kendall Square on the Harbor. The BRA claimed year after year that it required residential construction in exchange for the significant density forked over during rezoning -- but the facts on the ground disprove that as total B.S. All residential construction has been phased into oblivion, existing only on paper rather than being required to accompany office/hotel construction.

The wide boulevards contradict the BRA's assertions that it was accommodating some measure of finely scaled streets rather than stumpy megablocks like Massport's mess. You would have had to be around during the Fan Pier planning process to hear the Pritzker's planning team at Urban Strategies discuss their fine-grained "vision" which included angled alleys and narrow streets. Even the BRA's own Seaport Public Realm Plan is 10x better than the reality of office stumps moving to the front of the queue.

I could go on but I'm tired of apologizing to ArchBoston members for being redundant.
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You're apologetic...I'm not, Sicilican.


I will bring this up until my dying day. The downfall of the whole Seaport/South Boston area was when Mumbles told New England Patriots onwer Robert Kraft to take a hike. With Patriot Place in Foxboro, Kraft combined retail with his Stadium. If the residents and the city had allowed him to build, it would've been like Far Pier, only with a stadium, and better. Imagine Gillette and Patriot Place where the BCEC is now.

I know that JohnAKeith and czsz would have an issue with this. But I would rather have a stadium that allows people to have fun for one week than a drug manufacturer who profits off people's illnesses.
 
Sicilian said:
^Equilibria

The Seaport is nothing less than an abysmal failure of urban design and planning. You'd never know that if you read the Boston Globe, since the Globe reprints BRA press releases instead of analyzing what's actually getting approved and built.
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You are correct that I wasn't around for the earliest stages of the planning process, but again, you fall prey to the difference between what you find attractive and what constitutes good planning. The plan was for taller buildings. They got sliced down by the FAA. Other than that, I fail to see how any of the changes you listed make the area *more poorly planned*. Replacing narrow diagonal streets with wide boulevards improves traffic flow and access. It may not be the aesthetic we're looking for around here, but it's actually better-planned.

I also don't agree that the fact that residential phases are delayed is a failure of planning. They were planned. They are planned. They may never actually exist, but in the plan, they were there. It's the execution you hate here, not the planning.

In fact, the reason that the residential element isn't the first thing being built here is because it would never be financed or occupied right now, or at least it's not as good a bet. They aren't building stumpy office buildings because they like them and want to cover the city in them (well, not all of them are...) they're building them because that's what there's a demand for. They got their tenant and the area will lose some parking lots and gain some life. The residential component can be planned perfectly, but in practice it can still look like Filene's or the Chicago Spire.

And MMC, allow me to be equally blunt. If there stadium had been built there (not a horrible idea if it was a retractable roof and thus usable for other events besides football games) we would have a Patriot Place-like project on the drawing board (it's way easier to build that in Foxborough) and this entire website would be ablaze with hatred of it. Heck, there's a whole thread devoted to hating Patriot Place as it is. I'm not saying you or I would have felt that way, but it's a suburban lifestyle center. That's not what should be going in South Boston.
 
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Mayor Menino's Crohn's said:
You're apologetic...I'm not, Sicilican.


I will bring this up until my dying day. The downfall of the whole Seaport/South Boston area was when Mumbles told New England Patriots onwer Robert Kraft to take a hike. With Patriot Place in Foxboro, Kraft combined retail with his Stadium. If the residents and the city had allowed him to build, it would've been like Far Pier, only with a stadium, and better. Imagine Gillette and Patriot Place where the BCEC is now.

I know that JohnAKeith and czsz would have an issue with this. But I would rather have a stadium that allows people to have fun for one week than a drug manufacturer who profits off people's illnesses.
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I completely agree with you. It would be awesome if Patriot Place were on the waterfront. It would really make it a destination instead of having the stadium out in the woods. The land on the waterfront is just naturally too awkward to support the public activity they're trying to force on it. Plopping a stadium and mall in that wasteland would have been the perfect solution.

Had the retail concept (Patriot Place) been planned yet when Menino said no to Kraft?
 
I know that JohnAKeith and czsz would have an issue with this. But I would rather have a stadium that allows people to have fun for one week than a drug manufacturer who profits off curing people's illnesses.
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Fixed that for you. So to summarize, jobs / year-round liveliness / saving lives < football once a week during the season and a mall. Okay.

Somehow, cities, including Boston, are able to build dynamic, engaging neighborhoods without (and often thanks to the lack of) football stadiums. Actually, it's hard to think of many great urban neighborhoods that have grown up around football stadia anywhere. And yet this is apparently the only thing that could have prevented the "downfall" of development in the Seaport.
 
Rt 128 By The Sea

These buildings will occupy the two parcels directly adjacent to the courthouse. Amazingly, they appear to be even stumpier than One Marina Park Drive.

fan_pier_plan_2011.jpg


Rt-128-By-The-Sea

vertex_fan_pier.jpg
 
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