Filene’s hole deserves icon
By Paul Restuccia
Friday, June 15, 2012
The unveiling of plans for the new Filene’s tower is no doubt a cause for celebration and a chance to mend the ugly scar that’s marred Downtown Crossing for years.
The proposal has a lot going for it. Unlike the previous design, the new plan will not put any part of the new building atop the treasured Burnham building that housed Filene’s, and it pairs that architectural gem with a slim glass tower that will become the fourth-tallest building in Boston.
But excited as I am about having 500 more residential units and more retail downtown, my heart sank when I saw the rendering. Why does the tower have to be so dull? The rendering for the 606-foot tower designed by Handel Architects shows a flat-top glass skyscraper topped with stone that resembles the firm’s Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco it designed for Millennium Partners, whose Boston division is behind the new proposal.
Millennium has a good track record in Boston for getting projects done. But the city, which has been touting this location as a place for an iconic tower, should ask more of Millennium and its architect than a retread design.
Developer Don Chiofaro had an idea for an iconic tower along the waterfront, but it was in the wrong place, and he’s rethinking his concept. But the Filene’s site is ideal for an icon that will be visible across the city and from the Charles River.
When you think of what’s being built in London — the elegant triangular skyscraper known as The Shard designed by Renzo Piano, the architect who did the Gardner Museum expansion and is doing an addition to the Fogg Museum in Cambridge — the design of Boston’s Millennium Tower looks mundane.
I’m not suggesting that the developer hire Piano. Gary Handel is a fine architect. His firm’s Ritz Carlton Residences project for Millennium along Avery and Washington streets is well-designed. Handel’s firm has created iconic towers elsewhere in the world, and certainly has the design chops to create one for the Hub.
An iconic design would be good for the developer too — a distinctive tower would add the panache needed for selling high-price condos and market office and retail space in the struggling Downtown Crossing district.
Millennium compares the pairing of the Burnham building and the Millennium Tower to that of the Trinity Church and the Hancock tower, two of Boston’s finest buildings. If that’s its intent, the Millennium Tower’s design falls far short of the Hancock.
When Boston Redevelopment Authority head Peter Meade and chief planner Kairos Shen vet this project, they need to dare to ask for a tower that sings on the skyline. Grateful as they — and certainly the mayor — are that this project has been resuscitated, the city should demand no less than a skyscraper that you’d want to put on a postcard, as we do the Hancock Tower and Zakim Bridge.
We don’t have that many chances in Boston to really make a mark on the skyline, and the city should make sure that this time we get the iconic downtown skyscraper we’ve long wanted and deserved.
Paul Restuccia writes about real estate for the Boston Herald.
