Fan Pier Developments | Seaport

Any updates? I'd like to see how much progress is being made on the facade.
 
I find it ironic though not surprising that the most intimately-scaled, Boston-like streets in the seaport--this new east-west road in between all the Fan Pier buildings and Park Lane further out--end up getting every building's asshole emptying their shit out onto them.

Quaint facades and engaging storefronts? Noooo....here's a garage entrance, a loading dock, a trash compactor, a blank wall. What a big fuck you that is towards what makes Boston special and towards every pedestrian turning down these streets expecting to find anything remotely engaging.

Makes me think of a South Park from last year: "coming this June, fuck you!"
 
kz1000ps said:
I find it ironic though not surprising that the most intimately-scaled, Boston-like streets in the seaport--this new east-west road in between all the Fan Pier buildings and Park Lane further out--end up getting every building's asshole emptying their shit out onto them.

Quaint facades and engaging storefronts? Noooo....here's a garage entrance, a loading dock, a trash compactor, a blank wall. What a big fuck you that is towards what makes Boston special and towards every pedestrian turning down these streets expecting to find anything remotely engaging.

Makes me think of a South Park from last year: "coming this June, fuck you!"
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The question is then where do you put those?
Toward Seaport Blvd? No, the transit is there.
Toward the waterfront? No, the Harborwalk path is there.

The reality of urban design is that you have to sacrifice one edge of your building for service. There's no option or alternative. The industry's solution (so far) is to take a minor road and sacrifice it for a service road.
 
Of course there's practical sense in putting service entrances on a minor road; my griping has more to do with the fact that in those rare instances where we do get a narrow, human-scaled street, it inevitably has nothing but assholes lining it. That's shitty.
 
kz1000ps said:
Of course there's practical sense in putting service entrances on a minor road; my griping has more to do with the fact that in those rare instances where we do get a narrow, human-scaled street, it inevitably has nothing but assholes lining it. That's shitty.
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Maybe the better question is: why don't these services get distributed around buildings in a way that would make storefronts, etc. opening onto the small streets possible?

Or why don't some of these activities (loading, etc.) take place on the street, as they have to do in the parts of Boston without alleys? (Sadly the answer is that no one would prefer to do it this way -- even though the boulevards of the Seaport are wide enough that loading, etc. wouldn't have much of an impact, it's quite unpleasant in, say, sleet.)

What ever happened to ALLEYS?
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If the interior streets were just called alleys, which is what they effectively are, I wonder if there'd be less grousing (at least about them - I'm sure there'd still be complaints about the size and scale of buildings on blocks in general).

The overall problem here is probably that the scale of the buildings being put up even makes service entrances possible or necessary. It's hard to combine large buildings and four walls of active street, but easy to do so if your building doesn't have to be serviced as if it's an economy of scale.
 
Some small streets in 'old' Boston get sacrificed this way too. I'm thinking of Providence Street between Arlington and Berkeley, for instance.
 
What ever happened to ALLEYS
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Unnecessary with the invention of the super-block. When the block is devoid of multi-tenant parcels, alleys are nothing but wasted space. This is not to say that they are bad in an of themselves, just ... not needed.

It the objection is that there is a break in the street for service ... that happens on an multi-tenant block too ... where the alley daylights. I am sure a rousing argument can be had for which is less friendly. For instance ... alleys were seen as a place to have a knife fight or get mugged. Service doors are just ugly.

cca
 
BeeLine said:
Vertex 2/B View of NE corner. 8/27

Vertex 2/B Fan Pier Boston 8/27
Vertex 1/A View of the SW corner. Skin going up. 8/27

Vertex 1/A Fan Pier Boston 8/27
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Thank you for these!

It looks like the most interesting of the different facades will face the ocean, with a generic One Marina Park glass curtain wall going up alongside the courthouse.

The street gets the worst of the three, with something that looks to be 128 by the Sea. It appears to be achingly bland.
 
posted?


fan-pier-boston_3-thumb.jpg
 
Some of these buildings have the perfect top floors for restaurants! Incredible views, mostly unobstructed, of the city and harbor since the courthouse is shorter and wouldn't block views!! I would think that the rent from a restaurant would more than offset the money Fallon would get for penthouse condos or penthouse office suits!
 
Still showing those horrible boat docks in front of the ICA. Ugh.
 
atlantaden said:
Some of these buildings have the perfect top floors for restaurants! Incredible views, mostly unobstructed, of the city and harbor since the courthouse is shorter and wouldn't block views!! I would think that the rent from a restaurant would more than offset the money Fallon would get for penthouse condos or penthouse office suits!
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I am not so sure that a restaurant would be more profitable for a developer than selling the most sought after units for millions of dollars each. A good compromise would be some kind of restaurant/bar public space on one of the middle floors since the views would still be spectacular. Noise to adjacent units however might prohibit such an idea. I don't have any inside info but I bet Fallon is banking on selling those penthouse units for somewhere in the 3-4 million each range given the location and views. I am not sure a restaurant lease would generate that kind of immediate cash.
 
Considering how long it's going to take for Fan Pier to be fully built out and the rumored precarious finances of the ICA, I don't think you need to really concern yourself that much with the "integrity" of that view.
 
Does Fallon own those two buildings behind ICA? or is that different. Also, this rendering shows a park where the new Pier 4 development is going to be. Thank God its not a park.
 
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