Fan Pier Developments | Seaport

Not sure if anyone has posted this before.

http://www.fanpiermovie.com/

Rather impressive, IMO. I hate that empty grass lot between One Marina and the ICA though. I just don't see it being active, ever. And in the video it shows a bazillion people just standing around on it.

But other than that, looks pretty awesome.
 
I spoke too soon. The video makes it appear that most of the facades not facing the water will be designed with the uninspired, suburban office park mentality of One Marina Park Drive.
 
"There's something very unique about being on the waterfront in any metropolitan city" - Joe Fallon.

Lulz.
 
If one looks at two San Francisco developments, one can see what it takes to develop and execute a uniform vision of what the developed area should look like.

And unlike the South Boston waterfront, with its maize of fragmented ownership and vested property rights and interests, the two San Francisco projects started with a single owner. Both are far larger than the South Boston waterfront as well.

One is Mission Bay, which I suspect if you don't like Fan Pier and the buildings on the Massport parcels, you won't like this development either. Mission Bay was intended and planned as a biotech center, and some bio tech companies have moved there. But now, another tech company, Workforce, has bought land that had been planned for biotech, and will build a 2 million sq ft HQ building. In doing so, that leaves only 500,000 sq ft of future space available for biotech. The result is that Mission Bay's original vision of becoming a counterpart to Kendall Square or Longwood with respect to biotech will be unfulfilled.

The other is the Presidio, which is being developed by a quasi-Federal agency, the Presidio Trust. Its powers are quite absolute. There was a recent proposal to build an art museum at the Presidio that ultimately came to naught. (Think of Harvard giving up its planned contemporary art museum on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, and multiply the antecedent controversy 25x. The Presidio museum re-design, like Harvard's museum sought to be unobtrusive.) People who love density and have little need for open space won't like what the Presidio is doing. But has the Presidio succeeded in executing its vision? Probably.

Below, the rendering for the redesigned art museum at the Presidio. It would have been privately funded, cost $150 million.

PresidioWRNS1.jpg


The original proposed design, that architect was sacked.

GluckmanCamp2.jpg


^^^ One of the lessons. Don't galvanize the potential opposition, which is what happened when the first design was unveiled.

Aerial view of the redesign.
img_5567-copy.jpg
 
I'm quite impressed -- Joe falon is an excelent


Movie Producer

Now let's see how he is as a builder of a signature community -- Fan Pier will be some of the first of Boston that someoe arriving at Logan will see

As for the street level view -- I think its always easieer to fix the ground floor if you screw up -- same with parks

For example just look at two bits of Boston that have or are transforming:
1) the park at Copley Sq. - it has gone through 3 signiicantly differnt versions in the past 40 or so years -- the current one is valstly superior to the first
2) Boston downown wharf distrit werfrot -- unimaginably transformed in 40 years -- therre were buildings with large appartments for rent at the $100/ month rate in 1970 -- today some of the condos rent as appartments for $100 per sq. m / month

Also as has been noted here -- MIT along with other land owners and developers is working to change the ground-floor slreet-level character of Kendall sq. -- the MIT backyard

Nothing against San Diego -- its a nice city -- but it is not the equivalnt to Kendall Sq. when it comes to being a reseach Hub. Through MIT's lead of the new Kendall Initiative (2030) -- MiT working with others such as Novartis with a mjor stake in the Kendall / Central is seeking to humanize and toruristify Kendall to ceate a beter backyard and a back-pulic door to the MIT campus -- as Kendall is already the most desired location gloabally from the standpoint of Research and development (more so research) -- the competition is not San Diego -- but Singapore, Oxford, (the other Cambridge), etc., now and potentially other places globally in the future.

Fan Pier / Innovation District can learn from Kendall -- though since it has the unique Harbor location combined with BECX and Logan immediacy the exact distribution of users / paricipants will be different and the outcome will also be unque to the Innovation District

On the downside:
1) the ID lacks the "anchor tennancy" of MIT or even Novartis -- Vertex is a lock on B$ / year for 10 years -- but it is hardly an MIT or a Novartis
2) less good access to the core of the T -- Silver Line is OK -- but its still a bus -- its not even the Green Line and its subject to the problems inherent with buses on the street (D Street in particular)
3) the ultimate opportunity to build tall is limited by the FAA

On the upside there are some advantages:
1) South Station is a short walk from a lot of the ID
2) there is already a core of the Seaport Hotel and Office Buildings and the BECX and Wesstin
3) The proximity to Logan
4) the Bank of America pavilion and the ICA
5) the Harbor itself -- as at Kendall MIT sits on all the waterfront -- wih tthe exception of the building housing the Microsoft NERD
6) a lot of easily rehabbed well built 19th Century buildings -- mosty toward the Fort Point Channel

So in the long run the ID has a great opportunity -- perhaps not in its immediate first incarnation -- but about the time that Kendall 2030 is in full swing

As for what the ID can learn from San Diego -- build a nice Marriott right on the Harbor -- thinking at the end of Pier 4
 
Appologize for all the typos -- my keyboard is missing about 1/7 keystrokes and I didn't run the post through a spell check
 
True and they might even do it as i would bet that the Olen Collge of Engineering would be happy to acquire at least part of the Babson campus for their future growth
 
And they are certainly "pile-driving". The past week or so I've been walking from Intercontinental to the Courthouse fairly regularly and I can say that it's quite loud. Nice to see some action!
 
And they are certainly "pile-driving". The past week or so I've been walking from Intercontinental to the Courthouse fairly regularly and I can say that it's quite loud. Nice to see some action!

Being on the WIT campus, we had to endure the pile driving for the MassArt tower for months on end at 8am and now we have to endure the pile driving for the Ira Allen addition that is literally next to studio - So close that the floor shakes. At least there really isn't much activity on Fan Pier to disturb.
 
wow. i have never seen piles not completely (or at least mostly) in the ground.

To be honest, I have no idea why they aren't either. At the most, I've only seen 3 piles standing like that on a construction site. I really don't know why they've got them all like that. It looks damn cool though!
 
I work in One Marina Park Drive and the work this week has been really noticeably loud. I love watching the heavy equipment do its thing, though.

And they are certainly "pile-driving". The past week or so I've been walking from Intercontinental to the Courthouse fairly regularly and I can say that it's quite loud. Nice to see some action!
 
Stupid question: Can the piles just smash right through granite boulders?
 

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