Kenmore Square North (WHOOP) | 533-541 Commonwealth Ave | Fenway

Absolutely no reason to kill 541 Commonwealth. Take the shit ass photography school. Bulldoze Bertucci's. But don't kill the second best building in the square.

This is a sad day.
 
Sad day. My guess; is the floor to floor heights of the old facade doesn't work with the floor to floor/ codes of the new planning.

They need to figure out how to keep it.

Damn shame.
 
BronsonShore said:
Absolutely no reason to kill 541 Commonwealth. Take the shit ass photography school. Bulldoze Bertucci's. But don't kill the second best building in the square.

This is a sad day.
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Completely agree. I'm a pro development guy but there's no reason to get rid of that building, especially for the generic shit they're proposing. Yikes.
 
Rover said:
Completely agree. I'm a pro development guy but there's no reason to get rid of that building, especially for the generic shit they're proposing. Yikes.
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Count me in agreement too. Just strolled through the Kenmore bus stop, where they have the old black&white photos of the square...we are truly killing the historic aesthetic.

I am fully onboard with their demo'ing of the less historically significant buildings on that stretch, but that one on the corner needs to be saved.

I don't buy the "not feasible" thing. If they really need the office square footage, they can restore the corner building and add 2-3 office floors over it that are structurally cantilevered off of the new structure they're building next door. Yes, they'd perhaps have to "sacrifice" some useable office square footage, but they could surely rent the old building for a restaurant/cafe/shop with a few apartments over it.

(and BTW, there's really no such thing as "too structurally compromised to save" in this day and age. Just look at what they are doing to the old Am. Red Cross building in Kendall...that thing was about to keel over, and they are surgically repairing it brick-by-brick/beam-by-beam) This really does just come down to the size of the profit margin vs. preservation.
 
Once again, the problem seems to be the floor-to-floor height of the facade not matching the floor to floor height of new office construction. That fact aside, in eliminating the key element connecting Kenmore Square to its past–the developer is being unduly lazy.
 
Love the obelisk idea.

The new design is OK, but I too wish they had kept the brick/orange. Kenmore is going to be all white and glass.

Need to slice off a floor or so from the top - the Citgo sign won't be clearly viewed from ground level.
 
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This looks like it belongs in Kendall Sq, not Kenmore Sq.
 
Oh wow, it got a lot better. Swap some of the white panels with some brick or terra cotta (maybe a modern riff on the building's facade next door) and stamp & sign it.
 
datadyne007 said:
Oh wow, it got a lot better. Swap the white panels with some brick or terra cotta and stamp & sign it.
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Agreed. Putting aside that the building there should not be destroyed, this actually looks pretty decent. I appreciate the rhythm created by repetition as well as the depth.
 
This building would look really great in Waltham or Burlington, replacing an empty lot. Otherwise, some of you seem to have very low standards for such a visible location that already contains an attractive historic structure.
 
if they have to cut that facade into 192 segments in order to reconstruct it with a taller floor-to-floor

so be it.
 
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