Hook Wharf | 400 Atlantic Ave | Downtown

Shepard said:
So will the side facing the Greenway be garage entrance, drop off zone, etc?
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I guess it would have to be as they talk about enlivening the harbor side ant the northern ave side and you can see that it is not on the seaport boulevard side. I really hope not.
 
I must be beaten down by reality, since I look at nice render and think "Hmm... I can see how that will be VE-d."
 
I expect there will be no garage; looks to me that some of the site rests on pilings. Can't fill the land without a Federal permit, no Federal permit will be given unless Hook creates an offsetting wetland elsewhere.

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I expect that Chapter 91 and limitations on the site itself will cut this building back. Personally, I don't like the silver/aluminium color of this building at this location.
 
>I expect there will be no garage;

Look closely at the rendering - isn't floors 2 and 3 a garage?
 
Smartiro said:
>I expect there will be no garage;

Look closely at the rendering - isn't floors 2 and 3 a garage?
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Yes! Good catch.

Only 2 floors of a 285 building isn't all that much parking.
 
fattony said:
Yes! Good catch.

Only 2 floors of a 285 building isn't all that much parking.
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I was guessing this would be about 25 floors of units (that's 250 feet of the structure so maybe 23 or 24 to allow for garage, retail, and penthouse). It's pretty small floor plate, so what 5 units per floor? 125 Units don't need too much parking, especially when we are seeing less than 1 spot per unit elsewhere.
 
I'm concerned that the parking podium will be value engineered back to basically concrete slabs with open views of the parking decks. That and the inevitable garage entrance and drop off zone along the Greenway and I begin to have some serious reservations about how this plays in the site.
 
Shepard said:
I'm concerned that the parking podium will be value engineered back to basically concrete slabs with open views of the parking decks. That and the inevitable garage entrance and drop off zone along the Greenway and I begin to have some serious reservations about how this plays in the site.
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Those floor-to-ceiling glass walls in the parking deck worry me too. One wrong shift and a car is sailing right through that glass wall into the Harbor.
 
Smartiro said:
>I expect there will be no garage;

Look closely at the rendering - isn't floors 2 and 3 a garage?
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Yeah, now I see the garage.

The lot is a bit less than 19,000 sq ft, and from the assessor's map, guessing somewhere between 30-50 percent of the lot is on pilings. Ground floor is 9,000 sq ft of seafood retail, wholesale trade, and restaurant. Wholesale strikes me as needing loading docks. And a steep ramp up to / down from the garage Don't know where the retail customers are going to park.

Wholesale distribution, if its sited at this location, requires large holding tanks for the lobstahs.

Flash slideshow with images of the buildings and site over the decades.

http://www.jameshooklobster.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=6
 
According to the Herald, height is 305 feet, and the parking garage may be tossed.

http://www.bostonherald.com/busines..._for_james_hook_co_305_foot_residential_tower

According to the Herald article, half the site is sitting on wooden pilings. IMO, the owners are introducing too many competing uses for the site: restaurant, retail store, wholesale trade, residential. All this with the need for elevated mechanicals, and no parking for customers, and maybe no parking for residents?
 
Seems likely that the parking for the location will be scaled back or removed entirely. Seems like a decent location for it as there is little on street parking in the area so it's hard for existing residents to argue it will adversely impact their resident parking.
 
I'd assume some residential parking. Retail doesn't need parking, and wholesale would be more likely to pick up at a loading dock or drop off zone. Quick in and out for the big stuff.
 
SeamusMcFly said:
I'd assume some residential parking. Retail doesn't need parking, and wholesale would be more likely to pick up at a loading dock or drop off zone. Quick in and out for the big stuff.
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Pre-fire, there were 110 tanks capable of holding 250,000 pounds of lobster. Assuming 175,000 lobster at capacity, that's over 1500 lobsters per tank, average. Sales were 7,500-10,000 pounds of lobster a day.
 
I agree, the wholesale operation seems like a rather tricky use for this building. There will need to be space for trucks to load and unload, a lot of that business could likely take place before 7am, and fishy smells would more than likely waft upwards towards the residences. (I once lived two floors over a specialty foods shop in Brooklyn and my apartment never stopped smelling of olive brine.)
 
I think that was the point I was trying to make. That's not parking per se, but dedicated loading area. This isn't people showing up in the family truckster to buy a few lobsters, these are 14' - 24' box trucks loading up on 100's to 1,000's of lobsters. They are ready to be loaded, and it takes 10 - 15 minutes to get them in and out. As mentioned above, this can happen quite early. Alot, probably end up on planes to be shipped quick to the non-coastal shellfish lovers.
 
To all the points raised above re: parking and wholesale presence, I'd really like to see a Greenway-facing rendering. Is it me or does the building look like concrete with glass?
 
It really seems to me that the wholesale operation should go elsewhere.

Hook should take the money they get from the development and invest in a separate wholesale feeder site in either the far Seaport or New Market area. The downtown waterfront is no longer the right place for a wholesale operation.
 
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