Ink Block (Boston Herald) | 300 Harrison Avenue | South End

meddlepal said:
Went to the Whole Foods today and it's really really nice. I'm unlikely to ever go to Shaw's again. Hooray!

Also it was packed with people. It was actually a bit difficult to walk around since there were so many people in the store.
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meddlepal -- that might be the "Better stock-up for the Epic Blizzard of 15" effect -- perhaps after we dig out and transportation resumes sometime in March -- you might want to re-sample the crowd :)
 
Why isn't more of the Ink Block 5-8 stories taller?
 
I don't have a good answer for that one. The Harrison-Albany Corridor was rezoned for heights 100-150 feet (yes?) so it would seem they could have gone higher (like, the Troy). I figured they built low due to fears they couldn't sell out tall buildings ... but then why wouldn't they have built out one at a time. (Having said that, they have three (?) more parcels on which to build, so they can go higher on those.
 
JohnAKeith said:
I don't have a good answer for that one. The Harrison-Albany Corridor was rezoned for heights 100-150 feet (yes?) so it would seem they could have gone higher (like, the Troy). I figured they built low due to fears they couldn't sell out tall buildings ... but then why wouldn't they have built out one at a time. (Having said that, they have three (?) more parcels on which to build, so they can go higher on those.
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Yes, this area was rezoned for more height.

The BRA should push back on this scale. The whole point of the zoning height along Albany Street is to create a buffer for the neighborhood from I-93.

Amazing that we have a section of the city where density is allowed (desired) and we get mid-rise sprawl from the developer.
 
I seem to remember there was even community requests for higher/denser buildings.
 
The Ink Block apartments facing I-90 are wood framed on a steel podium. The condominiums at Sepia (pictured above in foreground) are clearly steel construction, and able to make it financially viable because of the $800/sq. ft. to $1000/sq. ft. costs these condos are selling for. The hotel and apartments take longer to recoup the expense on a pro forma, so it probably made the most sense to build with the less expensive material for the project to become profitable (i.e. wood framed), which as was stated will mean lower building heights (7-8 stories max).

JohnAKeith makes a great point though. After the developer presumably profits soon off of this development, they'll have the capital and credit to build bigger on the remaining parcels on site. Or at the very least get the permitting approval for higher construction and sell the site for an even more handsome profit (like what Samuels just did with Van Ness in Fenway).
 
According to the docs on the BRA's website, the area is zoned up to 200' along Albany Street/Expressway in the New York Streets area.
 
My understanding is that wood can be used up to 5 stories. At 6 they would need to use steel.
 
nico said:
My understanding is that wood can be used up to 5 stories. At 6 they would need to use steel.
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Nico -- wood obviously works well structurally at up to more than 100m as there are coastal redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) in Northern California well above that including Hyperion, the world's tallest tree

from http://www.monumentaltrees.com/en/trees/coastredwood/tallest_tree_in_the_world/
Hyperion, the world's tallest living tree

....Hyperion... is no less than 115.72 m (379.7 feet) tall! This enormous tree was discovered only in August 2006 in a remote part of the Redwood National Park, California by naturalists Chris Atkins and Michael Taylor. Their first preliminary measurements were done with professional laser measurement equipment based on goniometry.

In September 2006 the tree was remeasured by Steve Sillett. This was done in the most accurate way: he climbed to the top of the tree to drop a tape from there straight to the ground. This tape drop was filmed for National Geographic.
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As an aside: The sounds almost like the beginning of the Joke about how to determine the height of a building with a Barometer :)

In July 2006 some other record tall trees were discovered: "Helios" (named after the Greek God of the sun), the world's tallest known tree as of June 2006 (114.09 m), "Icarus" (113.14 m), and "Daedalus" (110.76 m).
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So 100 m seems very reasonable given the strength of wood -- that by the way is close to 33 stories

Sounds like the old standard of 5 stories is ultraconservative
 
Equilibria said:
Because it was cheaper to frame it with wood, and wood can't go taller?

(That's a pure guess)
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This article from the DC housing market jives with that story.

Essentially wood based buildings can only currently be built to 6 stories using wood. Switching from wood to steal is exceedingly expensive (on a per square foot basis), so it only makes sense if you can get a lot more density to drive down per unit land costs.

"A hidden height limit holds back affordable mid-rise construction in DC"
Payton Chung, Greater Greater Washington
http://greatergreaterwashington.org...-back-affordable-mid-rise-construction-in-dc/


... the city's building code, which is based on an international standard—the International Code Council (ICC) and its "I-Codes."

The ICC's Table 503 sets limits on how high different types of buildings can be. Thanks to technological improvements to wood and fire safety improvements to buildings, mid-rise buildings can be built up to five floors high using Type III [wood] construction. These five floors can, in turn, be placed atop a one-story concrete podium to build a six-story mixed-use building.
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Thus going from, say, a six-story building to seven stories only increases the available square footage by 16.7%, but increases construction costs by 46.3%.
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whighlander said:
Nico -- wood obviously works well structurally at up to more than 100m as there are coastal redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) in Northern California well above that including Hyperion, the world's tallest tree

from http://www.monumentaltrees.com/en/trees/coastredwood/tallest_tree_in_the_world/


As an aside: The sounds almost like the beginning of the Joke about how to determine the height of a building with a Barometer :)



So 100 m seems very reasonable given the strength of wood -- that by the way is close to 33 stories

Sounds like the old standard of 5 stories is ultraconservative
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I won't even engage on the idea of chopping down forests of sequoias to build tall buildings...

That said, I believe that the height limit has much more to do with fire hazard than it does the structural integrity of wood.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
I won't even engage on the idea of chopping down forests of sequoias to build tall buildings...

That said, I believe that the height limit has much more to do with fire hazard than it does the structural integrity of wood.
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Not to mention that it's not even a fair comparison. A tree is a solid mass of wood with minimal external load, while a building is mostly empty space and has to support the weight of its occupants.

I'd wager we could erect a steel "tree" 5 miles high; that doesn't mean we could build a building that high.
 
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