Hurley Building Redevelopment | 19 Staniford St | West End

First time starting a thread so apologies if I cock it up.

Commonwealth hopes to dodge $200 mil repair/reno bill by putting the Hurley Building, 3.25-acre site on the market. Story here

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Equilibria said:
Mods, we gots to choose!
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Hahaha, I'm fine with keeping this thread. I like the picture on the first post. There's a bit more information in the documents on the Mass.gov website than what the globe has though: https://www.mass.gov/news/charles-f-hurley-building-redevelopment. Looks like they're thinking public/private partnership with the state retaining office space on-site and the remainder being available for private use. Also, for the height enthusiasts, the document indicates the site is restricted to 400 feet (100 along the street) per zoning, and it falls at about the ~825 line on the FAA map.
 
Hard to imagine what you can put here that won't piss off Beacon Hill.
 
Fair enough. It's a shame they aren't tearing all down, but this is a white whale for erasing the legacy of urban renewal.

FWIW, the FAA height limit on this site is 800-825'. The City and Commonwealth should clearly intimate that they won't settle for less, just as the BPDA did at Winthrop Square (where they actually said they wouldn't take less than something much higher than the FAA limit...).

I'm not a height junkie, but there's no excuse not to do it here. It's a forest of towers on all sides.

meddlepal said:
Hard to imagine what you can put here that won't piss off Beacon Hill.
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If you set it back in the site, it's as far from Cambridge Street as the residential tower at Bulfinch Crossing...
 
Imagine we got an 800-footer with a beautiful crown lit up at night? If we did, I'd shut up about lack of height in Boston forever. Something a la the London Shard or the BoA Corp Center in Charlotte....
 
Ironically -- the original design by Paul Rudolph featured a tower attached to the low rise

What happened to the tower you ask -- well the cost of hand hammering perfectly ugly concrete to make it even uglier -- ballooned way out of proportion to the original estimate --and the tower was "deep sixed"
That was the point that Mass began the full transition into the Dukakis era and money got tight -- so thankfully they went with a cheaper high rise on Cambridge Street

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Ah what might have been 🙃
 
This thread is a perfect example of just how useless this site has become. This is an architectural gem and you jabronies are salivating over replacing it with the tallest glass box you can come up with. There used to be discourse on here about architecture, now it's just a bunch of Dubai fan boys.

If they seriously propose tearing this down I might have to move back to Boston and start a campaign to save it.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
This thread is a perfect example of just how useless this site has become. This is an architectural gem and you jabronies are salivating over replacing it with the tallest glass box you can come up with. There used to be discourse on here about architecture, now it's just a bunch of Dubai fan boys.

If they seriously propose tearing this down I might have to move back to Boston and start a campaign to save it.
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This building is one of, if not, the ugliest buildings I have ever seen in my life.

Not to mention, this separates the neighborhood with its barrier effect and serves 0 purpose where it is at.
 
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vanshnookenraggen said:
This thread is a perfect example of just how useless this site has become. This is an architectural gem and you jabronies are salivating over replacing it with the tallest glass box you can come up with. There used to be discourse on here about architecture, now it's just a bunch of Dubai fan boys.

If they seriously propose tearing this down I might have to move back to Boston and start a campaign to save it.
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They should tear down part of it in order to remove the barrier effect it has on the neighborhood. Then they can restore what's worth restoring and finish it off with the 800' tower many of us covet. (and finally break that damn 800' barrier for Boston!)
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
This thread is a perfect example of just how useless this site has become. This is an architectural gem and you jabronies are salivating over replacing it with the tallest glass box you can come up with. There used to be discourse on here about architecture, now it's just a bunch of Dubai fan boys.

If they seriously propose tearing this down I might have to move back to Boston and start a campaign to save it.
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I'm far from a Dubai fanboi. This superblock is an urban dead zone, lacking in energy, vitality and activity. It's a depressing too-big-slice of Albany right there in the heart of the city. It's cool architecture, and it was fun while it lasted, but it's a fortress that needs to be taken down.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
This thread is a perfect example of just how useless this site has become. This is an architectural gem and you jabronies are salivating over replacing it with the tallest glass box you can come up with. There used to be discourse on here about architecture, now it's just a bunch of Dubai fan boys.

If they seriously propose tearing this down I might have to move back to Boston and start a campaign to save it.
Click to expand...
Just seeing this now. Horrible news, completely unexpected, and then to scroll down and see all of the reactions… Sad. This is no longer an architecture forum.
 
See the following from mass.gov slides. With the US DOL involved, this could get interesting.

The US Department of Labor funded the initial construction and site acquisition of the Hurley Building, and still has a significant amount of equity in the site. • As required by federal rules, the Commonwealth is working with USDOL to ensure that federal equity is used to further the work of the Commonwealth’s Labor and Workforce Development agencies.
 
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