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

Status
Not open for further replies.
abdinoor said:
I'm not a concrete expert but I would guess this is some sort of test site. Possibly they drilled and patched and the black is a sealant?
Click to expand...

I'm no concrete expert either, but I know test are typically carried out by either doing a slump test on site, or by making concrete cylinders from each batch(each truck?) letting them cure for the full 28 days, then performing a a compression test. Here's my best guess as to what they are for: I believe the black patches are punch outs for the routing of MEP items. If you look at the underside of the slab there are several black patches scatter about, presumably for things like floor drains, power & tel/data floor boxes, etc.
 
I'd guess that they are weld plates to support the future canopy structure.
 
So today I learned that Newbury Street offers a straight shot down at this one. Should make for some good construction porn down the road.

15483648635_a6bf202ccf_b.jpg
 
Ha, Construction porn, I love it!

I sometimes forget that this building is actually under construction, given all of the other projects.
 
Walked by this last night. Looks like the 3 giant floors of retail have been completely poured and there is rebar extending up for the first floor of the sports club. These 2 floors are a bit smaller than the retail, and after that we'll see an indentation on the Franklin St side signifying the first mech floor, followed by the ~45 fairly homogeneous floors of the tower.

If you also look closely, it appears that the upper floor plates, above the 30th floor, will be larger than floors 7-30. It looks like the 12th floor will put it beyond the old building. This one is extremely impressive at street level, but is going to take a couple more months to really "show up" outside of its immediate area.
 
DZH22 said:
If you also look closely, it appears that the upper floor plates, above the 30th floor, will be larger than floors 7-30. It looks like the 12th floor will put it beyond the old building.
Click to expand...

How is that possible? Do you mean in height? Do you base that on renderings?
 
Mongo said:
How is that possible? Do you mean in height? Do you base that on renderings?
Click to expand...

Yes I mean the height. There's that elevation drawing. I don't where the heck the link to it is anymore. It shows that the new tower won't pass the old building until the 12th floor. It also has a slightly different shade of blue for floors 30+. It looks like the upper residentials will have slightly higher ceilings than the lower, but not as high as the podium floors.
 
datadyne007 said:
Just nit-picky archi-speak, but when you say "floor plate" you are referring to the dimensions of the slab, not the floor-to-floor (FTF) height.

The section is here: http://www.archboston.org/community/showpost.php?p=204513&postcount=4546
Click to expand...

My bad, next time I will say taller instead of larger, or just say "floor to ceiling height". Compared to the rest of the building, floors 7-30 look like they are being built for midgets. By the way, I realize that term is not politically correct, but I'd rather not have another blowout fight on here about something so trivial and stupid.
 
DZH22 said:
My bad, next time I will say taller instead of larger, or just say "floor to ceiling height". Compared to the rest of the building, floors 7-30 look like they are being built for midgets. By the way, I realize that term is not politically correct, but I'd rather not have another blowout fight on here about something so trivial and stupid.
Click to expand...

Generally, residential buildings have a smaller floor to ceiling height than commercial -- there isn't the need to fit as much of the mechanical framework above the ceiling.

A good example is the Radian, 26 stories(?), but looks tiny compared to commercial buildings with the same number of floors.
 
DZH22 said:
My bad, next time I will say taller instead of larger, or just say "floor to ceiling height". Compared to the rest of the building, floors 7-30 look like they are being built for midgets. By the way, I realize that term is not politically correct, but I'd rather not have another blowout fight on here about something so trivial and stupid.
Click to expand...

Often in tall residential towers there are 2 management companies. That's the case here and the reason why the building has two lobbies (see below), 2 sets of elevators and 2 residential "sections." The 7-30 portion is being designed for one company (light blue in the section) and 30+ are for another one (dark blue in the section). For luxury condos*, the key minimum FTC (floor-to-ceiling) height is 9'-0" meaning that you need a ~10'-0" FTF height, which is probably what 7-30 have. 30+ seems to have slightly higher ceilings, so the FTC could be 9'-6" with a 10'-6" FTF.

*For reference, in luxury apartments (N/A here - there are none here) the minimum FTC is only 8' with a 9' FTF.

The ground floor:
wk0oqc.png
 
Last edited:
datadyne007 said:
Often in tall apartment towers there are 2 management companies. That's the case here and the reason why the building has two lobbies, a bunch of elevators and 2 residential "sections." The 7-30 section is being designed for one company (light blue) and 30+ are for another one (dark blue). For luxury condos*, the key minimum FTC (floor-to-ceiling) height is 9'-0" meaning that you need a ~10'-0" FTF height, which is probably what 7-30 have. 30+ seems to have slightly higher ceilings, so the FTC could be 9'-6" with a 10'-6" FTF.

*For reference, in luxury apartments (N/A here) the minimum FTC is only 8' with a 9' FTF.
Click to expand...

I wasn't aware of that, would 7-30 be rented apartments then? Served by a separate lobby? How sure of this are you?
 
akmags said:
Generally, residential buildings have a smaller floor to ceiling height than commercial -- there isn't the need to fit as much of the mechanical framework above the ceiling.

A good example is the Radian, 26 stories(?), but looks tiny compared to commercial buildings with the same number of floors.
Click to expand...

Yes, I know this well. It's why I rip on Emporis for their "estimated" heights. They base it completely on floors, without any regard for the type of building. Thus, an 11 story residential on Emporis is estimated at the exact same height as an 11 story office building, 11 story hotel, 11 story lab, etc.

It's also why I discredit skyline rating methods that base it on number of floors. Under that method, the Harbor Towers and Longfellow Towers get more "points" than many of our 500'+ office buildings.

In this case, I was commenting on the difference between the upper residential floor heights and lower residential floor heights.
 
Mongo said:
I wasn't aware of that, would 7-30 be rented apartments then? Served by a separate lobby? How sure of this are you?
Click to expand...

I edited my post to be a little clearer. There are no apartments here, just 2 separate portions of the condo tower.

I also edited in the ground floor plan.
 
Last edited:
^^^Nice pic KZ, which actually reminds me of something I just noticed. In one of the renders (showing it within the skyline), the Pregnant BOA Building is mistakenly made shorter than 1 Federal. It's like a baby BOA! Looks really weird once you see how it alters the skyline.

Mongo said:
uFT9oTb.jpg
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
I noticed they were taking the crane in the middle of the tower down today (either that or it was undergoing some emergency repair). The boom was completely taken off and it was just the tower + cab.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top