Millennium Tower (Filene's) | 426 Washington Street | Downtown

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Re: Filene's

Don't forget over Lafayette. There used to be speculation that it can support two 30-story towers there.

Kent -- Here's a comment from a major player in development quoted in the BBJ

Ted Raymond, chairman, Raymond Property Co.: "The most pressing need in the city is vertical development. Boston is a city that finds high-rise development a total anathema. But there are so many places in the city where it would be very smart to have tall buildings." (Pictured: Millennium Partners' 606-foot plan for the former Filene's building.)

I'm sure that this is a popular position with some folks -- More cranes!
 
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Re: Filene's

I'm wondering who is going to move into all this new office space? Isn't the biggest issue that a lot of places have pretty high vacancies right now? Boston isn't short on office space, it seems to be short on middle-class to upper-mid class housing. Have a ton of super luxury residential and office space already.

Peterborough
http://www.bostontipster.com

Since that article is over seven years old and office towers were all the rage back in the mid 00's, who says this couldn't turn into mostly residential and retail? Currently, there's a bunch of proposed buildings offering over 80,000 square feet for retail; which a Wegmans and a Target could easily use. Man, if they up'd the residential units in DTX and had a Wegmans, that area would be popular again!
 
Re: Filene's

Don't worry. They are preserving Burnham building in its entirety and the tower component is now a smaller footprint adjacent to the Burnham:

The Project includes approximately 1,185,000 square feet (sf) of space for residential, office, retail, restaurant, health club/spa and accessory uses in the rehabilitated Burnham Building and a to-be-constructed tower element (the Tower), together with approximately 550 parking spaces in a below-grade garage. To more appropriately preserve the Burnham Building, the Tower component will be constructed adjacent to, rather than cantilevered over, the Burnham Building, and will occupy a smaller footprint than the tower element of the Previously Approved Project. The Tower component is anticipated to include retail, restaurant and health club space on the lower floors, and residential space above. The Burnham Building component of the Project will include the rehabilitation of the building for primarily office and retail uses.


Full list of changes (some positive, some meh IMO)

The changes to the Project include:
 Increase of over 400 residential units, which will enliven the surrounding area and support its transformation to a vibrant 24-hour neighborhood;
 Decrease in commercial components;
 Increase in the availability of onsite parking to sufficiently support residential, office
and retail uses;
 Preservation and rehabilitation of the Burnham Building as a stand-alone structure, with separation from the new Tower element;
 Creation of a new automobile drop-off turn around to maximize pedestrian access through the plaza between Hawley and Washington Streets, and promote the interaction of the public with the occupants of the building. The drop-off is envisioned as an integral part of the special activities of Shopper’s Park. Paving, landscape materials, architectural canopies, signage, and lighting will be coordinated to unify the drop-off with the entire plaza;
 Use of a series of translucent canopies defining the storefronts along Washington Street, the base of the Tower as it opens to Shopper’s Park, and the residential entrances along Franklin to the corner of Hawley Street;
 Use of translucent glazing on all storefront and lobbies to increase pedestrian visibility to activity within;


1.4.4
Retail
Construction of a taller, narrower Tower more suitable for residential use; and The 1905 Building façade with no longer be a part of the Project.

Pays to read first.
 
Re: Filene's

On second thought, it's no big deal.

I'm sure what ever they put up on this corner will be as just well crafted and as richly detailed as this:

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Re: Filene's

Dude chill. It's not going anywhere. Read the PDF
 
Re: Filene's

I know the Burnham building isn't going anywhere.

The pictures I've posted are the 1905 building facade, which is a completely different part of the project and according to the quote I pulled directly from the PDF(typo and all), is toast.

Edit:

CPwLU.jpg
 
Re: Filene's

New tower massing looks...just like Millenium Tower San Fran...
 
Re: Filene's

I could understand the hysterics if it was curtains for the Burnham building, but the 1905 building seems rather stale/boring/tame/ugly compared to most of its contemporaries in the surrounding area.
 
Re: Filene's

I always found the 2 story granite base with the clock on the corner to be quite charming. So that's a bit of loss to the historic streetscape of Franklin. The red brick above that, meh, no loss. :(
 
Re: Filene's

Why do they need to tear down the 1905 façade instead of incorporating it? (There is no "1905 building" anymore, or Burnham building for that matter, just the historic façades.)
 
Re: Filene's

It's probably not worth the added costs and it doesn't bring much(if anything IMO) to the current proposal.
 
Re: Filene's

Would be nice to see the stone in the first two stories of that saved...otherwise, it might even be an improvement for the streetscape.
 
Re: Filene's

How does it save money if that facade has already been preserved? I think you'll miss it when it's replaced with flat glass and alucobond.
 
Re: Filene's

The basement of the Burnham Bldg will have retail and it will be connected to the Shopping Concourse!
 
Re: Filene's

Other interesting tid bits:

The above ground MBTA facilities will be renovated. The above grade portion of the Orange Line headhouse will be rebuilt. The proposed enclosure will reduce the overall footprint of the headhouse within Shopper’s Park and will maximize transparency through the use of clear glass curtain wall and steel frame structural elements. The headhouse will be designed as a memorable, pavilion-like glass and steel structure.

I'm curious to see how they pull this off:
The renovation of Shopper’s Park includes: 1) the proposed reopening of one-way vehicular traffic on a portion of Franklin Street between Washington and Hawley Streets in order to access the Project’s drop-off/pick-up driveway, and 2) realignment of the existing curbs and taxi drop-off zone on the south side of Franklin Street, between Washington and Hawley Streets. The renovation plan proposes to relocate the bus stop for bus lines 92 and 93 one block east, from the corner of Franklin and Hawley Streets to the corner of Franklin and Arch Streets.
The new automobile drop-off turn around will be designed to maximize pedestrian access through the plaza between Hawley and Washington Streets, and promote the interaction of the public with the occupants of the building. The drop-off is envisioned as an integral part of the special activities of Shopper’s Park. Paving, landscape materials, architectural canopies, signage, and lighting will be coordinated to unify the drop-off with the entire plaza.

It is anticipated that the construction will commence in the spring of 2013. Once begun, construction is expected to last approximately 18 months for the Burnham Building and 36 months for the new Tower.
 
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Re: Filene's

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Looks like what they did on Avery St. Hopefully it turns out better than that did.
 
Re: Filene's

The 1905 Jones, McDuffee, and Stratton Company eight-story plus mezzanine, pier and spandrel commercial building was partially demolished as a component of the Previously Approved Project and only two facades, one bay deep, remain. The remnant features a two-level granite storefront base, topped with a single granite-faced story, and six additional stories in red brick. The storefront level features a glazed corner entrance, flanked by glazed display windows. The remainder of the building consists of six-story, red brick pilasters with granite bases flanking recessed, metal window sash and decorative metal spandrels. The building terminates with recessed red brick spandrels and a flat roof. An original decorative cornice was removed from the building prior to 1950. The building underwent substantial façade restoration efforts in 1997 resulting in the replacement of all the brick cladding, portions of granite units, replacement of deteriorated cast iron brackets with Fiber Reinforced Plastic (FRP) replicas and replacement of the existing aluminum windows withnew aluminum windows.
Emphasis mine.

In order to focus the preservation effort on the Burnham Building and to achieve separation with the Tower, the remnant of the 1905 Building is proposed for removal. The existing facades, retained for the Previously Approved Project, contain little historic fabric following their 1997 rehabilitation and do not convey the history of the Project Site or of Filene’s.

So that's their justification for razing the 1905 facade.

Knowing that it is mostly rebuilt with modern materials makes me feel a bit better about it, but I still say whatever alucobond/precast atrocity they replace it with will still be a huge step down from what is there now.
 
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