MassDOT Pike Parcels 12 - 15 | Boylston St. and Mass. Ave | Back Bay

Real estate scion aims to build on air

By Shirley Leung

In this town, Adam Weiner is as close as it gets to real estate royalty.

His father is New England mall baron Stephen Weiner, whose strip malls and shopping meccas ring Boston. His mentor is construction king John Fish, whom he apprenticed with, learning the nuts, bolts, and concrete side of the business. His partner is Steve Samuels, and together they are forming the city’s newest real estate dynasty.

Weiner, 40, has enjoyed a breakout year. His company, Weiner Ventures , has been a significant investor in Samuels’ portfolio of high profile projects, including the Fenway Triangle, the redevelopment of Howard Johnson Inn, and Barry’s Corner in Allston.

You’ll be hearing more from the young developer in 2014 as he chases the Holy Grail of development: air rights. Yes, they are as elusive and ephemeral as they sound. Just ask Arthur Winn, whose Columbus Center never got off the ground, or John Rosenthal, who has spent a decade trying to build Fenway Center.

Even the state, which is in the business of marketing air rights, acknowledges these projects seem impossibly difficult, yet highly coveted because land in prime locations is so scarce.

“To me, it’s like alchemy. I get people to pay millions of dollars for air,” said Jeffrey Simon, the state’s assistant secretary of transportation who oversees real estate projects.

Weiner and Samuels earlier this year won the air rights near the intersection of Boylston Street and Massachusetts Avenue, besting development giants Don Chiofaro and Dick Friedman. They are paying $18 million for a 99-year lease for Parcel 12 and Parcel 15, where they plan to spend $360 million to build a hotel, residences, and shops.

Weiner will take the lead, and the development agreement should be done by the spring. Can he succeed where others have not?

“I have tremendous confidence this is going to be built,” said Simon. “They are very good developers.”

Weiner’s father also believes that and not because it’s his son’s project. Simply put, the elder Weiner said, it comes down to “terra firma.”

Others, he explained, have had to pull off costly engineering feats. Columbus Center, for example, was to be built on over 90 percent air. Only 25 percent of the Parcel 15 project and less than half of the Parcel 12 project will be built in the air.

“Having terra firma,” said Stephen Weiner, “makes it more possible.”

Weiner, 72, has stepped away from hands-on management of his empire, but continues to advise his son. Was Adam destined for the family business?

“I always wanted him to pick what he wanted to do,” said his father. Well, maybe he got a little push. Dad brought a teenage Adam along to visit properties on the weekends.

After graduating from Dartmouth, Adam Weiner got an MBA from Boston University and then did management consulting.

“But he kept coming back to the family issues and the family business,” recalled his father. “Whether it was undue influence or him on his own, I think he wanted to do it.”

A chance meeting with Fish, the head of Suffolk Construction, at a Bruegger’s Bagels in Weston, gave Adam Weiner an opportunity to learn another side of the business. He worked for Fish for about five years, two of them as his right-hand assistant soaking in contracts, budgets, and schedules.

“He is a young man with a lot of resources and high intellectual capacity,” said Fish. “When you couple those talents together, it can be pretty powerful.”

Unlike his father, who made the suburbs his kingdom, Adam Weiner is staking out the city. He has lived in the Back Bay since he was 16, and like any ambitious developer, what drives him is the chance to leave a lasting impression. “You are building a physical connection between you and the city,” said Weiner, who started his firm in 2006.

He met Samuels a few years ago after inking an option to purchase the Howard Johnson on Boylston. Samuels had just started his Fenway renaissance, and Weiner wanted to get to know him. It blossomed into a business partnership. The HoJo’s became a part of Samuels’ portfolio, and Weiner became a big backer.

Together they are trying to break the air rights curse. The last successful project over the turnpike was 30 years ago with Copley Place. And the first one? The not-too-shabby Prudential Center, which opened in 1965.

Adam Weiner may be the heir apparent, and now he’s trying to get us to walk on air.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...alty-boston/0KZaNA4ZxM5E0Etv0pZrGK/story.html
 
In some of the documentation I was browsing they fully expected to renovate the closed Hynes entrance to be ADA accessable.
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Any chance they could go further, and connect it under Boylston Street to provide a fully indoor path to the Hynes itself?
 
Ron Newman said:
Any chance they could go further, and connect it under Boylston Street to provide a fully indoor path to the Hynes itself?
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"Anything is possible with money". Other then the usual complications with digging, no, although I don't know how much of a purpose it would serve. Access to Hynes is restricted, and most conventioneers seem to arrive via bus, with a few exceptions like comic con. If it could be tied in with the 888 Boylston development for direct access to the pru and hynes, then that would be something.
 
Ron Newman said:
Any chance they could go further, and connect it under Boylston Street to provide a fully indoor path to the Hynes itself?
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I think direct access to the Pru mall would be even more valuable. No idea if that's even remotely possible though.
 
cozzyd said:
A series of gerbil tubes might be easier
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Cozzy --- Pru is Gerbil Tube Ready -- there are already enough Gerbil Tubes to walk in a climate controlled way from the entrance of the Sheraton @ Belvidere & Dalton through the Lobby of the Marriott Copley to the entrance escalator to the Westin @ Huntington & Dartmouth

A couple of more gerbil tubes and you'd be at Mass Ave and Boylston

Then a couple more and all the above could link to the redevelopment of the Midtown and the new towers @ the Christian Science Plaza

A similar network of gerbil tubes could link hotels and shops to the BCEC
 
I saw today what really appeared to be soil testing on the "homeless garden" triangle south of Cambria. I didn't think anything was officially in play here yet. Anyone know what's up? (Anyone with a camera nearby?)
 
Still out there and looking busy this morning. This only has Turnpike Authority approval though, right? I don't think it's gone through BRA yet.
 
14771301375_fa826ba25f_b.jpg
 
are they going to be knocking down the garage and Bukowski's tavern, or will it remain and simply be incorporated into the building? At the height this thing is going I would suspect they'd be knocking it down to build on the footprint but I could be wrong.
 
I thought the Dalton St Garage was not being touched by any of these projects.
 
Dalton Street Garage better not be going anywhere. I park my car there everyday!
 
Looks like MassDOT wants another round of ideas for Parcel 13.

STATE SEEKS TURNPIKE AIR RIGHTS DEVELOPER NEAR HYNES
By Andy Metzger

STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, SEPT. 3, 2014.....The state went back out to bid Wednesday on a development opportunity above the Massachusetts Turnpike in Boston's Back Bay, which would involving renovating a Green Line station.

Transportation Secretary Richard Davey told the News Service the redevelopment, known as Parcel 13, would make the Hynes Convention Center station accessible to people with disabilities and refurbish an old pedestrian tunnel that runs under Massachusetts Avenue.

Davey said the development at the corner of Mass. Avenue and Boylston Street would also reconnect the underground trolley station to Boylston Street. A disused old head house sits alongside the turnpike.

"We put this out to bid a few years ago," said Davey, who said there were no acceptable bids. The new request for proposals was dated Sept. 2 and appeared on the state's website on Wednesday.

The development opportunity would make use of air rights above the Massachusetts Turnpike before it dives under Boylston Street.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation said there are 54,500 square feet of potential development space, and an additional requirement for the developer to enter into a station improvements agreement with the MBTA. The maximum build-out is 320,700 gross square feet.

Davey said a 2009 reform law made such a redevelopment more feasible because the turnpike and the MBTA are under MassDOT now. The parcel is located next to Boston Architectural College and a power substation, and would lie over both the T station and the turnpike, including an emergency ventilator. Across the street, Berklee College of Music is developing a performance center and student housing.

Samuels & Associates and Weiner Ventures are developing Parcel 12, which now consists of a bus shelter on an overpass above the turnpike, and Parcel 15 including air rights above the turnpike across Boylston Street. Those developments are described in bid documents as "a $360 million, 32-story, hotel, residential, and retail complex." On its website, Weiner said Parcel 12 along Massachusetts Avenue would include housing and an "exciting two-story swath of retail shops."

Unlike the diminishing open parcels on the South Boston waterfront or the vast expanse of the former freight yard in Allston, the air rights over the turnpike are nestled amid an established neighborhood that was built up years ago.

The subway station, originally construct in 1912 and 1914 and renovated in 1976, includes no elevators and an old entrance alongside the turnpike is disused as is the tunnel leading across the street. The MBTA "will require" the station to remain open during the construction, according to the request for proposals.

While the state will not "provide direct or indirect subsidies" for the development, the MBTA "will fund all design and construction costs" related to station improvements, according to the RFP. The document envisions a new recessed bus drop-off area, improved lighting in the station, and repairs to a leaky roof.

MassDOT said developers should "maximize opportunities arising from the inclusion" of the subway station, create open space and cover as much of the highway as possible.

A Boston Redevelopment Authority feasibility study determined there were limited areas to build foundations for the building. The proposals are due Nov. 7.

END
09/03/2014
Serving the working press since 1910
http://www.statehousenews.com
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^ Their stipulations are excellent. Requiring reopening the Boylston entrance as well as the pedestrian tunnel is HUGE.
 
Shepard said:
What is a recessed bus drop off area?
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Likely means moving the #1 northbound stop onto the overpass, then taking air rights space to build a shelter set back from the sidewalk like the southbound side. Probably also fed direct from Hynes station like the restored tunnel to the outbound shelter.

Will solve the problem of the bus stop crowds blocking the sidewalk and subway station entrance. That's a tough corner to navigate at rush hour with all the pedestrian interference from #1 boarders.


Policy-wise this is great for securing funding. If it's a contingency that the station rebuild be shackled to the redev that zooms it to the top of the station renovation priority list with full force of city, BRA, Beacon Hill, and private advocacy pushing it along. After 10 years of ADA renovation blitz the fatigue was starting to set in with Hynes slipping more and more into afterthought status. If they didn't do something dramatic to light a renewed fire under the politicians they were pretty much ready to let this critical station rot indefinitely and declare the system "close enough" while moving on to other new shiny things. Now this is the other new shiny thing.

The best news is they shored themselves up on the very last 'hard' ADA renovation. Wollaston is funded and about to go under construction, and the very last (non-exempt) prepayment station left to self-fund is tiny, basic Symphony...which was never going to get done as long as Hynes stuck out like a festering boil.
 
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