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

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Re: Filene's

datadyne007 said:
How in the heck can that remind you of International Place?
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I'm guessing it's the roundness and the hat. if made of stone with everyones favorite windows, I can see it. The massing and height to width ratio is about right.

Personally when I saw the Chicago tower it reminded me more of 33 Arch. A 33 Arch that was built out of large lego blocks that someone decided to restack into a taller slimmer version. This is how the fins got there.
 
Re: Filene's

Hutchison said:
I guess they do. I'm just an layman when it comes to architecture, but personally I find One Museum Park too busy. While I admit the 1 IP link is a stretch, from the angle in the photograph, One Museum Park strikes me as another round tower with a smaller tower randomly grafted onto/into it. Also, I wasn't saying that I prefer the Filene's proposal itself, just that with regards to massing, I would prefer stealing Legacy Tower from Chicago instead.
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I think a shorter version of the original Waterview Tower would work nicely here too, if they allow it to punch up to 700 ft.

WaterviewTowerontheChicagoRiver.jpg
 
Re: Filene's

KentXie said:
Deadeningly bland. Tell me, what does Boston have that is not deadeningly bland? 111 Huntington and One Lincoln and maybe Millennium Place for me comes to mind, but the rest? JHT is a glass box where from one angle it looks like an amazingly slim and sharp skyscraper while from the other angle it's a featureless fat stump. The Pru is an outdated tower with a tiara on top colored in the dullest gray possible. The Federal Reserve tower is a washboard. One Boston Place is a lego block on top of a box. One Beacon St. looks exactly like One Federal St. At least the First National Bank has a defining feature that separates it from the other two with it's bulging middle. One Financial Center is a stump with teal zebra stripes. 28 State Street is a block with an L tetris piece on top. It would help if they were strikingly taller but they aren't.

Of course there are others that are not deadeningly bland (the art-deco in Boston) but I don't feel like listing all of them nor do I feel like trashing the other ones that I didn't mention.

But like you said, to each their own.

Edit: I will admit that I have been spoiled by my trip to Chicago and now nearly every building in Boston looks inferior to me in my eyes.
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I agree that there are few stellar building in Boston (though I do like the JHT not because it is fancy, but it has an elegance and reflects that a lot of intelligence went into it). I was just saying (and I hope not rudely--apologies if I was) that the building you seemed enthusiastic about was--in my eyes--on par with the sub-par stuff we already have.
 
Re: Filene's

Heading out and making my way to the community meeting riiiight... now.
 
Re: Filene's

The meeting was great--BostonUrbEx, datadyne007, and I were there, and I think the 3 of us collectively asked the most questions. Millennium Partners and their team are awesome, they have the right idea for how this should be done, and the project received a generally warm reception from the small showing of community members that were there.

I'll let BostonUrbEx and datadyne007 share more details. (90% of the presentation was in the PNF).
 
Re: Filene's

dshoost88 said:
and I think the 3 of us collectively asked the most questions
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Collectively?

I think individually we were the top 3 in asking questions. :)


Frankly, the only thing I am disappointed in here is that there's potentially (at most) 552 parking spaces being created. I really can't say I have much else to complain about.

I will upload scans of the handouts in just a moment.
 
Re: Filene's

I was really happy when he said that retail could (and likely will need to) push further down to B2. Millennium is currently designing for the worst-case scenario and it was refreshing to see that they are not holding these design plans as final.

I also formulated this idea about the Shopping Concourse (which Millennium and the MBTA are working on to see what they can improve!) as the meeting was ending. It has so much (LOST, right now) potential, as DTX is THE busiest station on the entire system. The volume of commuters passing through is astronomical. What if they put individual stalls of retail along the shopping concourse (along with the entrance to the major department store) and filled them with food options, maybe souvenirs, etc. The precedent to look to would be U-Alexanderplatz in Berlin, which is set up very similarly to DTX.

Back to reality, the Shopping Concourse improvements are likely to be a wall featuring the history of Filene's (spoken right from the Millennium partner himself). This is great (as a Filene's fanboy), but it still leaves the concourse relatively dead. We need to get people moving and interacting here and retail is the way to do it, ala Alexanderplatz.
 
Re: Filene's

Did any of you raise the issue of the 1905 façade, and why Millennium can't incorporate it into their project?
 
Re: Filene's

Ron Newman said:
Did any of you raise the issue of the 1905 façade, and why Millennium can't incorporate it into their project?
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I knew there was a question I forgot to ask!!

Also, I asked about the two res lobbies. They don't even have an answer because they haven't even schematically thought about unit plans/sizing. He even said they would entertain the thought of microunits!! ("Innovation Housing") They just are planning in two res lobbies blindly during this schematic design phase. I wouldn't even call it DD. He mentioned one for rental, one for owners was possible.

Also, the word "hotel" seems to be taboo for Millennium on this project. No hotel component whatsoever.
 
Re: Filene's

First, thank you all for going and representing your own / the ArchBoston perspective (which I'm sure is pretty similar) at this meeting.

Did they mention the potential for other uses in one of the lobby spaces?

Was the curb cut discussed?
 
Re: Filene's

czsz said:
First, thank you all for going and representing your own / the ArchBoston perspective (which I'm sure is pretty similar) at this meeting.
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UrbEx wore the T-shirt. The BRA, Millennium people, and even some community members loved it. Lots of interest was generated in the forum tonight.

Did they mention the potential for other uses in one of the lobby spaces?
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Not really. The answer itself was up-in-the-air because they literally have NO clue as to what kind of res is going in this tower, with an amphitheater like the TKTS in Times Square. They are simply testing floorplan schemes. The same thing applies to the 500+ spot parking garage. It's just schematics. No DD stuff at all.[/quote]

Was the curb cut discussed?
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Extensively, as was Shoppers Park in general which they are going for a iconic gathering space. Honestly that spot is the only place where the port cochere could happen. It's really not the end of the world. Service has to happen along Hawley St., just as it did with Filene's, so that renders Hawley useless for the port cochere. You wouldn't want it on Washington or Summer, so Franklin/Hawley is the only logical place.
 
Re: Filene's

Does it need a port cohere is the real question, I guess?

UrbEx - thanks for the new render. Was streetwall discussed? It would be nice to see some more continuity with the Burnham Building along Washington...
 
Re: Filene's

czsz said:
Does it need a port cohere is the real question, I guess?
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It can always be removed and made into a wider sidewalk in the future, so I don't think it is too much of a big deal. It didn't seem to scream "this is forever!"
 
Re: Filene's

czsz said:
Does it need a port cohere is the real question, I guess?
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Sadly, for luxury high-rise living, yes. In the US, you're not going to get a tenant that's willing to give up the valet for their residents just quite yet. You also likely won't sell those units.

UrbEx - thanks for the new render. Was streetwall discussed? It would be nice to see some more continuity with the Burnham Building along Washington...
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Their design team seems to be obsessed with letting the Burnham building stand on its own and are doing everything they can to separate it. They even showed diagrams of the streetwall and you could clearly see the weak spot in the podium connector.
 
Re: Filene's

datadyne007 said:
He even said they would entertain the thought of microunits!! ("Innovation Housing")
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#facepalm

Sounds like somebody knows what to say to get on Boss Menino's good side -- and that somebody is one of the few numbers of developers with (lots of) projects. Shocker.
 
Re: Filene's

czsz said:
Does it need a port cohere is the real question, I guess?

UrbEx - thanks for the new render. Was streetwall discussed? It would be nice to see some more continuity with the Burnham Building along Washington...
Click to expand...

I agree. That little gap in between the two building is the only part I dislike. They should build the base at the same height (it would be awesome if they did look at Waterview Place as an example) and stick a mega department store in there.
 
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