NEMA Boston | 399 Congress St. | Seaport

statler

statler

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The Herald said:
New Seaport stay: Hub developer building $100M hotel
By Donna Goodison
Wednesday, August 9, 2006

A Boston developer is pushing ahead with plans for a $100 million Congress Street hotel project, aimed at giving visiting conventioneers and tourists lower-priced options for a night?s rest.
Madison Seaport Holdings LLC wants to build a 24-story building that would house two hotels totaling 502 rooms: an extended-stay hotel and a limited-service hotel.
The project has started the permitting-review process with the Boston Redevelopment Authority and the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. It?s targeted for a vacant and sausage-shaped site within 500 feet of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center in South Boston. Madison bought the land from Nstar this past spring.
The hotels would be located on the seven through 24th floors, with a pool/spa and outdoor sundeck on the 22nd floor.
?They would complement the product that?s down there, which is mostly the four- and five-star hotels,? said Denis Dowdle, Madison?s manager and president of Madison Properties Inc. ?There?s a lot of convention business that would prefer a lower-priced hotel room and doesn?t need all the ballroom and meeting space.?
The building?s ground floor would have a lobby and four retail spaces totaling 8,414 square feet. A ramp would provide access to 150 parking spaces on the second through fifth floors.
The hotels would be the first of their kind in the Seaport District.
?Having a variety of hotel rooms in this area is good given the fact that not every conventioneer can afford the top-of-the-line hotels,? said Vivien Li, executive director of the Boston Harbor Association.
Madison is talking to hotel companies about operating the hotel, franchising it or a joint venture, Dowdle said.
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Link
 
Old Rendering:
sausagesitehotel3ox.png
 
It looks a little tall, they may have to scale it down so it doesn't block the runways at Logan! :lol:
 
Here is a picture of the new moderate-priced hotel, from today's Globe.
410w.jpg


From the Boston Business Journal March 7
BRA approves 505-room hotel in Seaport
Boston Business Journal - 4:02 PM EST Thursday, March 8, 2007
by Michelle Hillman
Boston Business Journal

The Boston Redevelopment Authority approved a 505-room hotel in the South Boston Seaport District on Thursday.

The project will likely break ground in the next 12 months, said Denis Dowdle, president of Madison Properties, which is developing the hotel. Dowdle bought the sliver of land on Congress Street known as the "sausage parcel" last April from Nstar for $5.6 million.

Dowdle still needs to find a hotel operator and receive final design review before he can break ground. The three-star hotel will include two concepts in one -- short-term and long-term stay rooms -- and provide a much needed moderately-priced lodging,a ccording to a presentation made by the development team. The hotel will contain "sky lobbies" as well as a swimming pool and sundeck.

The parcel of land the hotel will be constructed on is kitty-corner from the World Trade Center West and between B Street and the East Service Road. Described as an island, it is bordered by a Massachusetts Turnpike ramp on its south side and sits in the shadow of a ventilation building for the Ted Williams Tunnel.
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A longer article is in the Globe as well.
http://www.boston.com/business/glob...a_backs_midpriced_hotel_near_convention_hall/
 
I thought it was going to surround that ugly vent building, but I guess it is just right next to it.
 
It looks like this is slated to be built at the same time as Waterside Place in an almost adjacent plot. Ugh another logistic nightmare for the builders.
 
i can't make up my mind on whether i like this or not. It has the potential to be nice, but i guarantee that they will use a cheap looking facade for the red (brick?) part, and ruin the whole thing.
 
Looks like an ugly office building that you would find in White Plains, NY.
 
Anything that shields that vent building from view is good.

But they really need to build a project around that thing.
 
Very interesting and round. I like it.
 
The article says that the two lobbies will be on floors 6 and 7. From the picture, it appears that floors 1-5 will be a disguised parking garage.
 
It reminds me of the WTC buildings near by so at least it will fit in.
 
Judging from this single rendering, it appears to be a pretty decent response to its site. I really like the cantilever over the off ramp. What is that, around 70 feet? Could be pretty dramatic. Hopefully they kept the design for the other end posted above, as well.

This building has the potential to be iconic.
 
...

... buildint aint bad, but why AREN'T they covering the vent???? That should be a prerequisite for anything adjacent to it.
 
re

I really don't like this building. For one thing, its the sausage plot, and it so could've worked off of that. Yes, its not a luxury hotel and its purpose isn't to impress, but some structural curvature or any distinction besides faux-brick precast siding would've been great. Sometimes restrictions, such as oddly wedged or shaped plots, force you to make an interesting design. The architects simply didn't utilize what an opportunity they had to make an interesting building.

Instead, as the family oriented hotel it is, they picked a design out of what I'm assuming is an Orlando catalog that not only doesn't pretend to have height to it, like the other squat neighbors in the Seaport do, but plays off being a vertically challenged subject and not taking into factor the restrictions of the area that may force the architects to get imaginative.

OoOoO, a big overhang. Great. High 5 gang. I'm just disappointed that almost nothing unique is going to come of this new building also when it looked like we may be at least hiding the trend started in the Seaport with the WTC and the "luxury condo's" and the generic hotels.

It's not the worst we could've asked for but it is not a real or imaginative effort for whats going to be the big new neighborhood in the most coveted piece of land on the east coast (so they say).
 
I actutally think the building is kinda cool. I like the overhang. I understand our expectations are that of a flat-iron masterpiece on such a parcel. Ultimately it's the height restrictions that make this neighborhood so average, not the rt.128 inspired architecture.
 
If they wanted to go with the nautical theme, they could have at least used more imagination.

A good example is the u/c Artech in Miami designed by Carlos Ott:
artech-condo.gif


Artech-front.jpg
 
I'm not a fan of brick and glass combination exteriors. Boston has a lot of old brick buildings and some look great, but I wish the city and its architecture would turn a page. New steel and glass buildings would be a welcome contrast IMO. Precast concrete should be avoided like the plague.
 
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