Mandarin Oriental | 776 Boylston St | Back Bay

Re: Mandarin Oriental

Suffolk 83 said:
what's wrong with parking lots? seriously.... I think most of you either never go in town so you just bitch about parking lots. they wouldnt exist for no reason... parking rates are INSANE. its one thing to destroy a parking structure and move it underground and build above it, but its another thing to completely eliminate parking. if thats what some people want to do, you live in never never land.
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Nothing wrong with parking; in fact like you I think there should be more.

Everything wrong with parking lots: wasteful use of land, ugly, destroy urban continuity and cohesion, making places unwalkable.

Bring on the parking garages! But put stores on their ground floors, please. And if you love us, mechanically ventilate them so you can put glass in their windows.

I don't know anybody on this forum who wants to "completely eliminate parking."

OK to chill out now? :)
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

bdurden said:
Improved mass transit would eliminate parking as a necessity.
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Indeed! But there are cities with worse mass transit (San Francisco, IMHO) where parking is discouraged in new development.

Will the BRA ever learn that *requiring* parking for new development decreases density and adds more cars to the city's streets? It is truly bizarre to see new residential going up with huge parking garages right along the Green Line, and affordable housing being built with underground parking in Jamaica Plain. Bad policy results in bad patterns of development.

Parking garages certainly have their place, but more parking will not make Boston a more walkable, more dense, more living city.
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

RE: The Lennox. I love the Lennox. The pic makes it looks more interesting than the Mandarin.
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

Re: Density of Boston and Parking

Boston where it is dense is dense-enough for anyone but devotees of Hong Kong or Taipei

The densest part of Paris is less dense {sq ft per sq ft or average height} than the financial district of Boston. I would suspect that this may true in the Back Bay and South End and the denser residential parts of Boston

What is fundamentally different regarding density is that Paris stays close to its core density while within walking distance of the financial district in Boston there are two family and even single family homes. You pretty much have to leave the Paris City limits to encounter such low density as that of the districts of Roslindale, West Roxbury and even much of Dorchester that are at or below inner suburban density {e.g. Arlington}.

As for parking -- I too don't like to see new parking built except to replace old parking in a better and more aesthetically pleasing form {e.g. P.O. Square Park} or anything that replaces an Ugly Garage with underground {New England Aquarium, Government Center}

As for surface lots -- they are usually too small by themselves to be profitably built-on, as they are often the result of a fire or other destruction of an older building on a small footprint.

If I was the chief of the BRA planning or perhaps the MfL {Mayor for Life} ? I?d do what could be done {short of eminent domain} to {in order}
1) Sell the City owned garages and all vacant lots for development and require replacement of parking spaces somewhere within walking distance ? the only exception would be city owned industrial sites
2) Encourage through the use of tax policy?, extra height?? -- the owners of parking garages to build underground parking or incorporate novel modern automation to stack cars without the ramps, fumes, etc., to enable hidden internal garages
3) Encourage owners of surface lots to build upward ? even without replacing all the parking
4) Encourage developers who are replacing an older building with a tower {e.g. Filenes} to build bigger -- if they remove a surface parking lot in the neighborhood and build on it as well ? ideally replacing the parking within walking distance
4) Strongly discourage the creation of more surface lots within the city limits ? except on a temporary basis {say 5 years} after the loss of a structure to fire or collapse

Westy
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

whighlander said:
Re: Density of Boston and Parking

Boston where it is dense is dense-enough for anyone but devotees of Hong Kong or Taipei

The densest part of Paris is less dense {sq ft per sq ft or average height} than the financial district of Boston. I would suspect that this may true in the Back Bay and South End and the denser residential parts of Boston
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I'm sure this claim could be made about many American districts in cities, but its irrelevant in terms of population density.

whighlander said:
As for parking -- I too don't like to see new parking built except to replace old parking in a better and more aesthetically pleasing form {e.g. P.O. Square Park} or anything that replaces an Ugly Garage with underground {New England Aquarium, Government Center}
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Miami Beach has some good examples of contextual parking garages.
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

bdurden,

Actually there are very few US cities that are as built-upon as densely for as large an area as the Financial District in Boston ? Manhattan south of Central Park most obviously, then Chicago on the Loop, Montgomery Street area in SF, and then?

As to residential density {simple arithmetic ? 1 significant figure}:
1) Chelsea has about 1/20 the population of Boston on about 1/40th the land area of Boston,
2) Cambridge has about 1/5 the population of Boston on about 1/10 the land area
3) Similarly with Summerville

If the Back Bay population density was maintained over Boston?s fully city area -- Boston's population would double

Obviously, that isn?t going to happen ? however, there is no good reason why places within walking distance {10 to 15 minutes} couldn?t be as dense as the Back Bay and with higher buildings at the edges of the Financial District, DTX, North Station, South Station/Gateway ? perhaps even somewhat higher

Similarly, East Boston along the waterfront could be substantially denser without needing to worry the FAA {6 to 10 floor average height}, several of the major streets and avenues {Huntington, Mass, Dot} could be taller and denser especially with improved transit

Paradoxically, while Boston lost population over the decades since WW II ? it a actually gained residential unit density ? most of the population loss was due to family sizes decreasing drastically ? e.g a 3-decker might have held 15 to even 25 people when it was built today it probably holds six to ten or even fewer

Westy
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

The main problem with parking in a urban environment is that more parking = more traffic. In a city, you don't want most people to drive, you want them to walk, bike, take transit, etc. We only need to look at NYC to see what happens when the balance gets out of whack. They are proposing a congestion charge for midtown because there is too much traffic, of which the negative effects are too great (noise, pollution, danger to pedestrians, etc). And that's a place where only 5% or so of people drive.

Boston has done a good job reducing congestion, especially downtown, because parking is scare and expensive. That encourages people to not bring their cars into the city center, making it much more pleasant.
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

It's going to get interesting as Fan Pier and other projects are built. So much parking is simply going to disappear. Now if only the NIMBY's would allow public transportation to be built, we could start to see some positive momentum in reducing autos downtown.
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

you should only reduce parking if mass transit improves and is open till 3am
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

Suffolk,

3 AM parking is not a problem --- last time that I checked -- there was a lot of parking available after midnight on streets and mostly empty lots and garages

However, a fully developed Fan Pier, Waterside Place, Seaport Square and the new Fort Point Channel district -- is going to need a lot more transit service than just the Silver Line unless there is both a substantial amount of parking and a lot of the people frequenting those places live within walking distance

Westy
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

i think he's referring to mass transit open till 3am
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

i was walking by the madrian today and noticed that there is somesort of steel archway cemented into the sidewalk infront of the portion closest to the pru enterence. didnt have my camera so no pics, sorry
anyone know what this is? is it somesort of landscaping trellis that is going over the sidewalk?
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

isn't there a TC Choy's going in there or something? It's probably just their elaborate entrance.
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

saw that today as well. I feel like it has to be temporary. Maybe it was there throughout much of the construction and we just didnt notice it before? Maybe it is to protect some work that needs to be done on the sidewalk before it opens?
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

Pics from today, starting off with what ever that arched structure is.

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Re: Mandarin Oriental

That black granite looks rather plasticky in photos, but quite sexy in person. I like the way this one looks a lot.
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

the arched structure looks a hell of alot like a green line entrance.... hynes new entry? shot in the dark.
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

Can't be a green line entrance -- that would have been in the news (and there's that minor obstacle called the Pike that would make a tunnel -- unless deeply dug -- impossible from that side of Boylston. Besides, the sidewalk is way too narrow in that location for the structure to be permanent. In all likelihood, it's probably just a temp structure that serves some purpose during construction.
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

I saw the aluminum tube thingee without the canvas. Looked like a temporary structure to me, almost like a tent frame. I suspect its a cover for a workspace.
 
Re: Mandarin Oriental

stellarfun said:
I saw the aluminum tube thingee without the canvas. Looked like a temporary structure to me, almost like a tent frame. I suspect its a cover for a workspace.
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I would say that it's more than likley that this structure is protecting some utility work that will need cold weather protection.
 
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