MGH Ragon Building | 55 Fruit Street | West End

JeffDowntown said:
Not the first time a local hospital has land banked via surface parking :rolleyes:
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You really can't blame them. If I were a 200+ year-old institution who planned on being around for hundreds of years more, I also wouldn't want to let go of my prime real estate. Once it's gone it's, realistically, gone forever.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Not the first time a local hospital has land banked via surface parking :rolleyes:
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Can I double down on my hall of shame nomination now?

JumboBuc said:
You really can't blame them. If I were a 200+ year-old institution who planned on being around for hundreds of years more, I also wouldn't want to let go of my prime real estate. Once it's gone it's, realistically, gone forever.
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That's what hundred year ground leases are for; other institutions around Boston do that all the time. Being a big old institution doesn't necessitate being a poor institutional citizen for one's city.
 
bigpicture7 said:
That's what hundred year ground leases are for; other institutions around Boston do that all the time. Being a big old institution doesn't necessitate being a poor institutional citizen for one's city.
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99-year ground leases are de facto sales. They're just structured as "leases" for legal, financing, and tax reasons. UMass Boston doesn't, for example, actually intend to get the land under the future "Dorchester Bay City" development back in 2118 and incorporate it into their campus. That land is gone from UMass's perspective.

And even if 99-year leases were indeed just normal leases that terminated and reverted to the owner, that would still tie up the land for, well, 99 years. MGH may not have public plans for land behind North Station today, but nobody thinks they'll actually keep it as a parking lot until 2120.

Maybe they don't plan on using it for anything more productive than parking in the next, say, 15-20 years, but that's well short of the life of anything else that would be worth building on the land as an alternative.
 
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JumboBuc said:
99-year ground leases are de facto sales. They're just structured as "leases" for legal, financing, and tax reasons. UMass Boston doesn't, for example, actually intend to get the land under the future "Dorchester Bay City" development back in 2118 and incorporate it into their campus. That land is gone from UMass's perspective.

And even if 99-year leases were indeed just normal leases that terminated and reverted to the owner, that would still tie up the land for, well, 99 years. MGH may not have public plans for land behind North Station today, but nobody thinks they'll actually keep it as a parking lot until 2120.

Maybe they don't plan on using it for anything more productive than parking in the next, say, 15-20 years, but that's well short of the life of anything else that would be worth building on the land as an alternative.
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I had typed out a longer response, but I'll just say that think there are some other key differences between sales and ground leases that you're not accounting for. An expert can correct me, but I also think the possibility exists for them to be bought out prior to term.
 
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['s.QUOTE="shmessy, post: 397770, member: 1319"]
The Red-Blue connector has been kicked around for years
[/QUOTE]
Uh, decades! Almost as long as the Blue Line extension to Lynn which I remember being proposed in the 1960's.
 
JumboBuc said:
MGH may not have public plans for land behind North Station today, but nobody thinks they'll actually keep it as a parking lot until 2120.
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Now that you’ve said it, this is definitely what’s going to happen.
 
shmessy said:
View attachment 12339
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This image has me thinking of Kendall's SoMa towers. Except there's a traffic sewer right in front instead of the relatively calm and tame Main Street.

Would love for them to attempt something more interesting in the tower portions of the building and perhaps different colors or exteriors to give the long-distance presentation of two distinct buildings.

That street wall needs activation. Today it's a dead wall. 🧱 If they're not doing something to give that street wall some active presence, they're doing the neighborhood a huge disservice. If their architects are saying stuff like "visibility" or "perforation" it is going to be a dead zone. Some kind of civic or community use, a small scale restaurant (au bon pain/panera or bistro), or some amount of activity is so necessary to make the entire stretch so much more cohesive.
 
TomOfBoston said:
['s.QUOTE="shmessy, post: 397770, member: 1319"]
The Red-Blue connector has been kicked around for years
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Uh, decades! Almost as long as the Blue Line extension to Lynn which I remember being proposed in the 1960's.
[/QUOTE]

Hey, that’s a Boston Globe quote, not a quote from me.
 
ra84970 said:
That street wall needs activation. Today it's a dead wall. 🧱 If they're not doing something to give that street wall some active presence, they're doing the neighborhood a huge disservice. If their architects are saying stuff like "visibility" or "perforation" it is going to be a dead zone. Some kind of civic or community use, a small scale restaurant (au bon pain/panera or bistro), or some amount of activity is so necessary to make the entire stretch so much more cohesive.
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There was an au bon pain on this block for years that did not make it. Recently there are new nearby additions of flour and blackbird donuts that seem to be doing well.
 
IMG_20210512_214539863.jpg
IMG_20210512_214503710.jpg
 
Equilibria said:
BCDC:

bpda.app.box.com

20210511 MGH CSP BCDC Presentation.pdf | Powered by Box

bpda.app.box.com bpda.app.box.com

The address of this project has changed. Please change the thread title to "Massachusetts General Hospital Clinical Building | 55 Fruit Street | West End". ("MGH" isn't searchable which makes this thread hard to find).
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I really like the varied and darker color changes. Does a good job in decreasing the "monolith" character of the earlier version.
 
king_vibe said:
Really embarrassing.
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What is it with hospitals thinking they have to 'humanize' their huge new buildings by swallowing up the facades of old ones? Similar thing has happened at Childrens' Hospital, I believe. Silly use of old material for no real reason.
 
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