Parcel 25 | South Bay

Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

Cancellation of the school is the right decision, $244,000,000—— a quarter of a billion dollars! A rare show of fiscal restraint. The MLK school under construction in Cambridge has a $95 million price tag. Gold leaf on the toilet seats?
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

So will this parcel go out to bid again? Will the 2 bids that were submitted in 2012 be reconsidered, or are those dead? I'd like to see something similar to Parcel 24 here; namely, tall affordable (by affordable i mean non-luxury) housing, with ground floor retail to extend the activity along Kneeland street further east.
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

I don't understand why schools can't be the "ground floor retail" of a standard mixed use development. It seems like such a waste to have a ~2 floor building in such a prime area. Give the land to a developer, perhaps with some healthy tax breaks, with a permanent easement for a school on the first few floors. They could even "white box" it, so the city pays for the actual fit-out of the space, with the developer just supplying the shell.

It would be one thing if we still built beautiful academic buildings like some of the legacy schools around, but with the godawful architecture that most municipalities typically get why does it need to be freestanding?
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

Dave I was thinking the same thing, let one of the developers use private money to build something over this parcel, and then have the school be one of the tenants. You stated the idea much more eloquently, I'm guessing the school directors want to have their own building?
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

This would have been 2 schools combined and about 10 floors. Also there wouldn't have been any land cost as the site would have been rented to the city from the Highway Dept. for a $1 a year. Still best to kill it though, high cost overruns would likely have been a certainty.
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

I'm glad it didn't go through. Seemed ridiculous to take prime real estate for this purpose. Let a private developer deal with the intricacies of how to build.

I'm not sure any other proposal in any other place will be much cheaper. Density and all that.
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

JohnAKeith said:
I'm glad it didn't go through. Seemed ridiculous to take prime real estate for this purpose. Let a private developer deal with the intricacies of how to build.

I'm not sure any other proposal in any other place will be much cheaper. Density and all that.
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If you want residential neighborhoods in the City, you also have to build schools. On prime real estate. If you don't like schools downtown, you get Houston, a hollow core at night.
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

JeffDowntown said:
If you want residential neighborhoods in the City, you also have to build schools. On prime real estate. If you don't like schools downtown, you get Houston, a hollow core at night.
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Disagree. A school does not need to be within a quarter a mile of downtown. (1) within 2 miles is not unreasonable (2) most families living are not sending their kids to BPS.
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

davem said:
I don't understand why schools can't be the "ground floor retail" of a standard mixed use development. It seems like such a waste to have a ~2 floor building in such a prime area. Give the land to a developer, perhaps with some healthy tax breaks, with a permanent easement for a school on the first few floors. They could even "white box" it, so the city pays for the actual fit-out of the space, with the developer just supplying the shell.

It would be one thing if we still built beautiful academic buildings like some of the legacy schools around, but with the godawful architecture that most municipalities typically get why does it need to be freestanding?
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I'd go even further, with retail on the first floor, a school on floors 2-3, then residential/business/etc. on the remaining floors.
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

I'm assuming the city or some public entity owns the two level parking garage between Hearld St and Paul Place, west of Shawmut Ave. If so, why don't they put the schools there? Sink the grage under a new 10 story High School.This would be a great place for these schools. It's in the primary neighborhood it serves and is close to transportion (SL bus) for the BAA students. Am I missing something?
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

I believe it's owned by Druker.

Don't forget the advocates for a downtown school were trying to get the previous developer of the Government Center Garage to include a school in his plans, so that might still be an option for parcel 25. Of course that means a higher building to cover the cost but I think the neighborhood would have no problem with that trade off.
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

Then who owns the parking garage north of the old Teredyn building west of Harrison? I know some state offices are in the Teredyn building, do they own the garge? If so, build it here. Even if Drucker owns the other garage what prevents the city from taking it for the public good? It has got to be a lot cheaper than what they had proposed on parcel 25.
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

A lot of the cost on parcel 25 would be because of the difficulty of building on that site. If the developer is given enough incentive, height, they might be willing to give the city two floors for free or at nominal cost.

You might try searching the city's assessment page for the owner of the garages. I can't seem to get the page to work on my iPod. I thought I read that Druker owned the Paul Place garage, I wouldn't be surprised if his father build Castle Square Housing.

http://www.cityofboston.gov/assessing/search/

--edit--

After a little research

The Teradyne building and garage was bought by Nordic Properties. I don't who owns the buildings now

http://graphics.boston.com/globe/magazine/2000/12-10/city.shtml

The 400-car concrete garage of today was built in the mid-1960s, as part of the Castle Square housing development. It was conceived as a bulwark to protect the residents from the noisy turnpike corridor. Architect Samuel Glaser tried to give it a mod look, with bold cantilevers and sculpted panels, but today the concrete is spalling, and the garage looks terrible. It's now operated by New England Medical Center. The owner is Boston developer Ronald Druker. Druker, best known for his Heritage on the Garden complex on Boylston Street, has no plans for the site. "If the world grows up around it," he says, "and there's a higher and better use, then something might happen."
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Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

PaulC said:
I believe it's owned by Druker.

Don't forget the advocates for a downtown school were trying to get the previous developer of the Government Center Garage to include a school in his plans, so that might still be an option for parcel 25. Of course that means a higher building to cover the cost but I think the neighborhood would have no problem with that trade off.
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I think that the community would be fine with a mixed development and more height on that site. FYI, this is a different set of schools than the one advocated for Government Center. This is Josiah Quincy Upper School (Currently in the old Abraham Lincoln building in Bay Village and 15 year old "temporary trailers" on Washington Street) and Boston Academy for the Arts (out of space in their Fenway building). The Abraham Lincoln School building, circa 1890, has been deemed too costly to upgrade to current standards for a high school (and the required build out is opposed by the Bay Village neighborhood.)

I am not sure how developers would react though. It is certainly not as simple as "set aside a few floors". The proposed school (for two high schools) would have been 11 floors. And the build-out for a school is pretty specialized, including large multi-floor spaces like auditoriums, gymnasiums, etc. Plus you have to manage student access, buses, etc.

Does anyone know of an example in Massachusetts of a combined commercial/school property? (In MA is important, because each state handles school construction funding differently. An example from NY, IL or CA probably does not mean much in MA).
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

JeffDowntown said:
I think that the community would be fine with a mixed development and more height on that site. FYI, this is a different set of schools than the one advocated for Government Center.
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I was just using that as an example to show that this has been concidered before. The city didn't seem to have a problem with this, perhaps it hadn't reached that point. The main concern at that sight seem to be that it was to congested an area for school children

Perhaps an other option is to have the schools included in buildings over the pike. The floor prints look bigger so the need for fewer floors and perhaps the schools could be on separate parcels, fewer floors still. The only thing is that I think the parcels might be set aside for low income housing making it harder to cover the cost of the schools.
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

PaulC said:
I was just using that as an example to show that this has been concidered before. The city didn't seem to have a problem with this, perhaps it hadn't reached that point. The main concern at that sight seem to be that it was to congested an area for school children

Perhaps an other option is to have the schools included in buildings over the pike. The floor prints look bigger so the need for fewer floors and perhaps the schools could be on separate parcels, fewer floors still. The only thing is that I think the parcels might be set aside for low income housing making it harder to cover the cost of the schools.
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I actually think over the Pike would be a better location, but probably even harder financially. Parcel 25 requires pretty limited decking, it is mostly land.

Also, I suspect part of the problem with Parcel 25 for a school is it is also a very congested location for children. Kneeland Street is a traffic nightmare with all the 93 access traffic.
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

meddlepal said:
Disagree. A school does not need to be within a quarter a mile of downtown. (1) within 2 miles is not unreasonable (2) most families living are not sending their kids to BPS.
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This is how Boston ends up becoming a "boutique city". Create entire neighborhood that are structurally unwelcoming to families (or at least middle class families).
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

So does this mean that both Trinity and Archstone have to go back to their respective drawing boards and come up with new competing proposals?
 
Re: Parcel 25 (South Bay)

^as long as both proposals were competent, and i don't remember either well enough to say whether they were, I don't see any reason why they can't just be re-examined and choose one. These 2 companies showed the interest and took the time/effort to draw up their respective proposals, why can't they just now be considered again?
 
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