Fenway Center (One Kenmore) | Turnpike Parcel 7, Beacon Street | Fenway

JumboBuc said:
Put me in the camp that will be happy with this project even if only Phase I gets completed. It'll still add two buildings' worth of housing and activate that wind-swept lot on Beacon.



That lot is owned by two men by the names of "John Henry" and "Thomas Werner". It's not in the scope of the Fenway Center project.

The Sox actually also own the land under Phase I of the Fenway Center project, but Rosenthal has the rights to develop it thanks to years (decades?) of land swaps and deals between him and the team.

The Sox have made some rumblings lately about early-stage plans to redevelop some of their vacant Fenway properties (they're looking at adding more bars/restaurants/entertainment venues and also new office space for the team), so hopefully some of those parking lots will be soon to go.
Click to expand...

I've never quite understood why the Red Sox keep their baseball ops and other offices in the Fenway Park basement. I'm sure that space could be put to better (read: money-making) use. I hope they follow the Cubs example and move them across Brookline Avenue to that parking lot parcel.
 
Hydrobus said:
Don't wanna be a downer . . . but I feel like phase two is never going to happen and this whole project was maybe a pretext to get approval for phase 1. Which maybe is OK. Phase 1 looks dense, urban and well massed.

I dont understand how they could build a supermarket over the mass pike in suburban Newton in the 80's but now it is prohibitively expensive to deck, even in a much more valuable location.
Click to expand...

very valid point.
 
Hydrobus said:
Don't wanna be a downer . . . but I feel like phase two is never going to happen and this whole project was maybe a pretext to get approval for phase 1. Which maybe is OK. Phase 1 looks dense, urban and well massed.

I dont understand how they could build a supermarket over the mass pike in suburban Newton in the 80's but now it is prohibitively expensive to deck, even in a much more valuable location.
Click to expand...

Can there be construction approvals with stipulations attached? In this case, could authorities have mandated that Phase I include Building 1, Building 2, and the highway decking, and then Phase II would include Buildings 3 and 4 and the parking garage? That way any sort of developer leverage from the possibility of air rights development would be eliminated.
 
Nah, leave it alone. Getting Phase 1 done will add good density to the area, knit Kenmore to Audobon, and help close in the speedway part of Beacon there. Phase 2 is probably never gonna happen, at least not anytime in the next 15 years or under this developer. Everyone knows that. There's no need to make getting the doable part done any harder than it needs to be.

Edit - and for that matter, the developer doesn't "owe" anyone Phase 2 at all. Why should he be forced or mandated to build over a highway, which is massively expensive?
 
JumboBuc said:
The Sox actually also own the land under Phase I of the Fenway Center project, but Rosenthal has the rights to develop it thanks to years (decades?) of land swaps and deals between him and the team.

The Sox have made some rumblings lately about early-stage plans to redevelop some of their vacant Fenway properties (they're looking at adding more bars/restaurants/entertainment venues and also new office space for the team), so hopefully some of those parking lots will be soon to go.
Click to expand...

Mild correction: MassDOT owns that parcel, and the Red Sox are a taxpaying lessee for their use of the parcel for gameday parking. Not sure how MASCO fits into the mix, but I'm pretty sure they use the parcel for parking appurtenant to the LMA shuttle outside of gamedays, so there must be some off-the-record arrangement there as well. Presumably Rosenthal picks up that lease now, maybe even immediately now that his approvals are in hand.

I won't take it too much further off topic on your last point except to say that I'm thinking of reviving one of the Fenway Park threads to talk about what the Red Sox could be doing with their current holdings. It's an interesting topic now that so much has been built up around them so fast. They (or John Henry) own the Lansdowne Garage, the Ipswich Street Garage, the building with Tony C's (nee Jerry Remy's) in it, and the surface lots 1) at Brookline and Yawkey, 2) at Van Ness and Yawkey, and 3) at Van Ness and Ipswich, to say nothing of the deeply underutilized laundry building and garage behind the center field bleachers. Put that all together and it's a set of holdings almost as big as the ballpark itself. Probably only Samuels has more in the neighborhood. What I wouldn't give to see their version of an IMP for all of that stuff.

Wheeling back to Rosenthal, I'm still not sure I believe that Phase 1 is even happening, and probably will be skeptical (if only reflexively) until a few months after topping-off. Chance of Phase 2 is less than zero, at least with Rosenthal in charge. That's not meant to be derogatory, it's just that he's a suburban developer who happens to now have one hugely complex urban development under his umbrella, and who couldn't get Phase 1 off the ground without bringing in Gerding Edlen to help. These are the facts. But now that something does seem to be happening I'm happy he's gotten this far.
 
Well we will find out soon as work is slated to start on phase 1 by years end.
 
Could someone please clarify, in a sentence, what needed to be approved? There was the original project; approved years ago. Revised project; approved year(s) ago. Right?
 
JohnAKeith said:
Could someone please clarify, in a sentence, what needed to be approved? There was the original project; approved years ago. Revised project; approved year(s) ago. Right?
Click to expand...

I am probably wrong, but I thought it was approval of not having to tie the air rights project being done to the terrafirma phase - wasn't MassDOT before requiring the air rights project be done first to ensure it would get done?
 
Who owns the lot along Beacon on the far side of Maitland? That's an odd windswept lot too
 
So it can remain vacant tax free parking for a long time. Ugh
 
curcuas said:
So it can remain vacant tax free parking for a long time. Ugh
Click to expand...

Depends how Children's is using it, but if they charge employees for parking there, for example, that's considered unrelated business income, and non-profit or not, it's subject to taxation.
 
curcuas said:
So it can remain vacant tax free parking for a long time. Ugh
Click to expand...
HenryAlan said:
Depends how Children's is using it, but if they charge employees for parking there, for example, that's considered unrelated business income, and non-profit or not, it's subject to taxation.
Click to expand...

The link I posted above that shows parcel ownership also shows assessed value and property taxes:
JumboBuc said:
Looks like Children's owns it
Click to expand...
The four parcels that make up that lot are assessed as "Commercial Land" and taxed accordingly ($25.37 annually per $1k of assessed value). By my calculation, that lot is paying a bit over $201k per year in property taxes. Notice that these parcels are owned by "BCH 819 Beacon St LLC" with a mailing address at 300 Longwood Ave (aka Boston Children's Hospital). I don't believe an LLC can be a non-profit. This is in contrast to the actual hospital parcels Children's owns, which appear to be primarily owned by "Children's Hospital Corp" and are listed as "Exempt".

A non-profit can control commercial entities (such as LLCs) within limits. They pay tax on those commercial entities just like any other organization would, including on their land holdings.

And generally: the Boston Assessing Website is really easy to use! There's no need to guess over lot ownership and property taxes; you can look it all up with a simple search! If you don't know the exact parcel address, just click around the map! Boston's neighboring cities (Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, etc.) all have their own versions too.
 
Also note that any development of those Children's parcels will be complicated by the fact that the Green Line tunnel between Kenmore and Fenway runs underneath them, in a more or less diagonal line from the portal at Miner St. to the intersection of Beacon and Maitland. The tunnel does go under that Miner St. building right at the portal, so that gives you an idea of what might be possible on the site facing Beacon (i.e. a continuation of Beacon's height and density there). But the T holds the MTA's old easement on that parcel and would have approval rights over anything that goes there.
 
From today's Globe:

Work on the long-delayed Fenway Center project finally about to start
. . .
“We will mobilize immediately,” said Kelly Saito, managing partner of Gerding Edlen, a builder that’s partnering with Rosenthal on the project. “By January 1, we should be into heavy construction.”
. . .
The two buildings — with 313 apartments and a price tag of $260 million — will go up in what is now a parking lot at the corner of Beacon and Maitland streets. As they do, Rosenthal said, he and his partners will work to land financing for the far-more-costly second phase above the highway itself.
Click to expand...
https://www.bostonglobe.com/busines...about-start/fk7FZov6SfgX1JekVAHa9L/story.html
Aerial%2001-Phase%20I%20View%20West.jpg
 
Work on the long-delayed Fenway Center project finally about to start
Click to expand...

Hmmm...wasn't there a headline once that went Work on the long-delayed Columbus Center project finally about to start?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top