Pierce Boston (née The Point )| Boylston St/Brookline Av | Fenway

I like it. I know that were people that take time out of our days to post on a forum about architecture in Boston so we pay way more attention to things than your normal person, but just looking at this from your everyday civilian lense I think it looks good. Its interesting how its situated on the corner the way it is, its non offensive- use this facade and you cant really lose- reflective blue glass, ground floor retail, not huge but for the area it dominates, and it pulls the skyline westward. Yea they used grey where they should have used white and that black part on the crown isn't the Chrysler building.....overall this is a success and I think to 99% of people including myself it looks perfectly fine and effective.
 
To each his own.

From the renderings, I thought I was going to like it, I was pretty optimistic. Now that it's done, I'm completely "blah" when considering it without regard for context, and pretty disappointed when context is taken into account.

I've been by it on foot, I get the same reaction in person on site as I do looking at pics.

oh well. Maybe something does something awesome where that gas station is across the street.
 
To me basically everything even waterside place after they've been here a bit kind of just fade into the background besides 888 boylston. To me that is the only major dud that sticks out that we've had. Everything else just blends into the background and you notice the pru, hancock, MT, and then a bunch of other stuff around them. 888 Boylston goes out of its way to stick out and be noticed in an extremely prominent place on the skyline and to me really thats the only failure we've had so far this boom. The rest of the few duds we've had are so short or so bland that they don't matter.
 
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Any rumors out there on retail tenants for this? This has a lot of retail space, and I haven't heard a peep on tenants. Compare that to the Harlo down the street, which had its retail 100% leased up by the time their residential website went live.

I guess Samuels has shown that he'll hold out for top-dollar retail leases. His other projects in the Fenway have kept good chunks of their ground floors vacant for years after completion (plenty of spaces in the Trilogy and Van Ness are still vacant, and the Viridian just filled up a couple weeks ago).

Given the speed at which the Harlo filled and the length of retail vacancies in Samuels buildings, you gotta think that Skanska was more flexible on rent. I much prefer the "retail-as-a-residential-amenity" model of Skanska to the "retail-as-a-profit-center" model of Samuels.
 
JumboBuc said:
Any rumors out there on retail tenants for this? This has a lot of retail space, and I haven't heard a peep on tenants. Compare that to the Harlo down the street, which had its retail 100% leased up by the time their residential website went live.

I guess Samuels has shown that he'll hold out for top-dollar retail leases. His other projects in the Fenway have kept good chunks of their ground floors vacant for years after completion (plenty of spaces in the Trilogy and Van Ness are still vacant, and the Viridian just filled up a couple weeks ago).

Given the speed at which the Harlo filled and the length of retail vacancies in Samuels buildings, you gotta think that Skanska was more flexible on rent. I much prefer the "retail-as-a-residential-amenity" model of Skanska to the "retail-as-a-profit-center" model of Samuels.
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I haven't heard anything either. My hope is that they're holding out for a higher end restaurant, a bar and some shops. Fenway's recent retail additions have been good, but they have all skewed towards fast casual eateries. The one exception being Van Ness which has Eventide, Sephora, a barber shop and a beer store.

The Skanksa model gets tenants quickly, but on the other hand it brought in two fast casual eateries and a bakery. In just the last year or two, the Boylston-Brookline area of Fenway has gotten six fast casual restaurants by my count. IMO we need diverse retail including proper restaurants and shops rather than more cheap places to get lunch.
 
I've heard Tiffani Faison will put high end Italian - but that's just talk for now...
 
FenwayResident said:
I haven't heard anything either. My hope is that they're holding out for a higher end restaurant and/or bar. Fenway's recent retail additions have been good, but they have all skewed towards fast casual eateries. The one exception being Van Ness which has Eventide, Sephora, a barber shop and a beer store.

The Skanksa model gets tenants quickly, but on the other hand it brought in two fast casual eateries and a bakery. In just the last year or two, the Boylston-Brookline area of Fenway has gotten six fast casual restaurants by my count. IMO we need diverse retail including proper restaurants and shops rather than more cheap places to get lunch.
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Fast casual is so plentiful because it's what the market wants; this is true everywhere but especially given the Fenway's demographics. And I'd consider Eventide and Tatte to also be fast casual (prepared food ordered from a counter to eat on-premises or to go). I bet the far majority of these fast casual places (except for Tatte) get most of their business from dinner, not lunch.

That being said, I agree that the Pierce would be a good spot for a proper sit-down restaurant. I expect that we'll get one in the "Retail 1A" space, possibly spanning two floors. But that'll still leave as many as five more spaces.

"Shops" (i.e., any place that sells things you can buy on Amazon) have a hard time in the current economy, unless their margins are huge (cosmetics, luxury goods). Groceries, meals, alcohol, services (hair, nails, etc.), and fitness (yoga, spinning) are what's growing in today's retail market.

WestFens said:
I've heard Tiffani Faison will put high end Italian - but that's just talk for now...
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There have been rumors of a third Faison restaurant in the Fenway for more than a year, but they've all led to nothing. But the Fenway needs an Italian place. And an Indian joint.
 
JumboBuc said:
"Shops" (i.e., any place that sells things you can buy on Amazon) have a hard time in the current economy, unless their margins are huge (cosmetics, luxury goods). Groceries, meals, alcohol, services (hair, nails, etc.), and fitness (yoga, spinning) are what's growing in today's retail market.
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Agreed, I was going for "not restaurants" when I said "shops." In this part of Fenway, what's needed most IMO:

1) Another cleaners. Lapels has a monopoly on this area and is a ripoff.
2) A dedicated wine and liquor store. Fenway doesn't have great booze selection outside of Craft Beer Cellar. Star Market is good for the basics but sometimes I want things a bit more upmarket.
3) A pharmacy/minimart. Sometimes I want to pick a quick thing or two up and not deal with Target.
4) A hipster brewery/beer bar. My dream is better local beer than Beerworks or Cheeky Monkey. Yardhouse is quantity over quality and too sports-oriented.
5) Massage/spa

I think in this building #2, #4 and #5 are the most likely to pop up since they're the most upmarket. That being said I wouldn't be disappointed with a couple new places to eat either.
 
had lunch near this thing today. other than the head-on, ground-level view (which is pretty nice) this is one fat, flat slab of ugly. so that's a score of 25% -- well in the "F" territory.
 
This is an example of a building that looked much better in the renders.
 
chrisbrat said:
had lunch near this thing today. other than the head-on, ground-level view (which is pretty nice) this is one fat, flat slab of ugly. so that's a score of 25% -- well in the "F" territory.
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Don't hold back, Chris, tell us how you really feel.
 
if you insist. ok, here goes: i hate pumpkin-flavored everything and can't sit through even five minutes of "cheers" re-runs.

phew -- that's a load off
 
A 30 storey tower in this neighborhood where there once was a lousy D'Angelo's and a crummy liquor store?

Please stop complaining. Yes, it is slabby on its side, but this is a very high quality tower and bookends the development along Boylston very well.
 
Glass-buildings.jpg


from pierceboston.com
 
^ more like, "let's fly drones around for hours and hours until we find the one angle at which our building actually looks good"
 
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