Pinnacle at Central Wharf (Harbor Garage) | 70 East India Row | Waterfront | Downtown

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DZH22 said:
Yeah but what about the whole waterfront process? The one that Hook Lobster was also beholden to? I thought the CLF thing was supposed to be a temporary blip here, but instead somehow it's able to fully derail this plan?
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By itself it was a temporary blip, but it gave Janey (or any mayor other than Walsh) an opening to be a coward and pull the Boston plan under pressure from the plaintiffs.
 
bigpicture7 said:
Believe me I hear ya, but how was this in any way officially a 10-year process? 9 years of chummy back channel chats with the mayor's office followed by actually submitting a design to the BPDA a year or two ago doesn't count as 10 years. The design never advanced at the BPDA and never received any approvals.
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From BPDA website:

"A Municipal Harbor Planning process was initiated in 2013 to harmonize the Greenway Guideline’s recommendations with the state’s Waterways Regulations and leverage new growth spurred by the removal of the elevated artery and Harbor cleanup to improve dated public infrastructure and enhance public use of the waterfront. The resulting Municipal Harbor Plan and Watersheet Activation Plan developed flexible dimensional standards for the Harbor Garage and Hook Wharf sites, and improvements to the public realm and waterfront to be delivered along with the redevelopment of the properties. The Harbor Plan provides over an acre of new open space including a new park and Harbor Islands Gateway at Long Wharf, additions to Harborwalk, funding to support activation of the Fort Point Channel, and support ofthe New England Aquarium’s Blueway Vision."

So after 8 years of meetings and negotiations to finally submit the plan to the State a weak Mayor panders to the 'progressives' to curry favor for an election in 2 weeks... Total BS. I see lawsuits coming.
 
Vivanna said:
From BPDA website:

"A Municipal Harbor Planning process was initiated in 2013 to harmonize the Greenway Guideline’s recommendations with the state’s Waterways Regulations and leverage new growth spurred by the removal of the elevated artery and Harbor cleanup to improve dated public infrastructure and enhance public use of the waterfront. The resulting Municipal Harbor Plan and Watersheet Activation Plan developed flexible dimensional standards for the Harbor Garage and Hook Wharf sites, and improvements to the public realm and waterfront to be delivered along with the redevelopment of the properties. The Harbor Plan provides over an acre of new open space including a new park and Harbor Islands Gateway at Long Wharf, additions to Harborwalk, funding to support activation of the Fort Point Channel, and support ofthe New England Aquarium’s Blueway Vision."

So after 8 years of meetings and negotiations to finally submit the plan to the State a weak Mayor panders to the 'progressives' to curry favor for an election in 2 weeks... Total BS. I see lawsuits coming.
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Fair enough (and, wow, time flies when one's having fun). Perhaps such lawsuits could be averted if whomever is elected swiftly reestablishes a reasonably similar plan (Janey did express an intent to revise and reinstate the plan). I'm not saying that's going to happen, but if indeed it was all a political ploy and certain candidate(s) take office, it's not impossible for a resumption of the prior trajectory.
 
Maybe it's me but I'm just not that worked up about this. Don't like the move from a purely process standpoint, but the tower itself really wasn't that great if we're being honest..
 
I'm not in love with the proposed tower, but consider it highly reasonable and aesthetically interesting. It's a million times better than the embarrassing block-wide parking garage that screams "Boston is not a world class city."
 
itchy said:
Chiofaro needs to sue the pants off this idiotic city.
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1. Chiofaro is not the owner of the Harbor Garage, Prudential is. So he has no property interest that would allow him to sue.

2. When Prudential bought the Harbor Garage (after an auction) from Sam Zell's Equity Office Properties Trust (Chicago) in 2007, the property was encumbered by an easement granted to the residents of HT. This easement gave the residents several hundred parking spaces in the garage for a period of 50 years. That easement expires in February 2022, and a state court recently ruled against the HT residents with respect to their claim that the easement ran to perpetuity.

3.) Existing Boston zoning and Chapter 91 severely restricts development of the Harbor Garage. For example, see several slides from this presentation of the Downtown Municipal Harbor Plan in 2013.
http://www.bostonplans.org/getattachment/23158cef-db38-4edd-8fa1-b8ae4baaa6e8

Until zoning relief is given (as would be allowed under an approved Municipal Harbor Plan) Prudential / Chiofaro can't build anything that even remotely resembles the Pinnacle.

4.) The miscues in the saga of this development, including by Prudential/Chiofaro, the Commonwealth, and the city of Boston, are many. The Commonwealth's lawyers failed to draft rulemaking that was consistent with the law of the Commonwealth with respect to approval of municipal harbor plans (not just the one for Downtown Boston). The city of Boston, under Marty Walsh, purposely slow-walked guidelines that were to be specific to this project, and which are to cover the interface between the public and The Pinnacle, the public realm surrounding the development site, and climate resiliency.

5.) I am not a Massachusetts lawyer, but I doubt very much that Prudential / Chiofaro have much of a case. It would be different if the Harbor Plan had been legally approved, and Prudential/Chiofaro had proceeded to spend significant sums relying on that approval.

6.) How many registered voters live in HT? How many members of archBoston are registered to vote in Boston.? The acting mayor, IMO, is pandering to the voters who live in HT.
 
stellarfun said:
1. Chiofaro is not the owner of the Harbor Garage, Prudential is. So he has no property interest that would allow him to sue.
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I’m sure an LLC owns it but you have no support for the statement that Prudential owns it and Chiofaro doesn’t. Chiofaro likely has an economic interest and a management interest as is common but unless we see the operating agreements for the multiple tiers of LLCs for this we can’t officially say either way.
 
TallIsGood said:
I’m sure an LLC owns it but you have no support for the statement that Prudential owns it and Chiofaro doesn’t. Chiofaro likely has an economic interest and a management interest as is common but unless we see the operating agreements for the multiple tiers of LLCs for this we can’t officially say either way.
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The garage is owned by Rams Head Development Corp (RHDC)., an LLC, incorporated in 2007.
https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_ma/000965905
The address of the owner is 7 Giralda Farms, Madison NJ, which is an office of PGIM, Prudential's real estate branch.

The ENF identifies Chiofaro as the development "agent".
https://www.pinnaclecentralwharf.com/pdf/City-of-Boston-Article-80-Project-Notification-Form.pdf

Its been years since my course on the law of agency, but generally a principal (the owner) cannot also be the agent (someone who acts on behalf of the owner). The potential for conflicts of interest and self-dealing are too great. (If you contract with a real estate agent to sell your house, that contract does not give the agent an ownership stake in the house.)

When TishmanSpeyer forced Chiofaro, in 2004, to declare bankruptcy on IP, he was financially wiped out.
https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2004/05/03/daily55.html

After Prudential came to his rescue, and Tishman Speyer was bought off, Chiofaro was given a small ownership stake in IP (it may be 5 percent, I can't recall the precise value) and given responsibility for management of the property. But in 2007, Chiofaro did not have enough nickels to rub together nor sufficient leverage equity in IP to buy the HT garage for $153 million. Hence, the creation of the RHDC LLC for that purpose.
 
#bancars said:
www.bostonglobe.com

Blowing up the harbor zoning plan doesnât feel like a victory. It shows that the public process is broken - The Boston Globe

We need to ask ourselves how did we get here and how can we avoid this fiasco from ever happening again? There is plenty of blame to go around.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
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Wut.

www.bostonglobe.com

The Boston waterfront is exclusive and expensive, and a new coalition wants to change that - The Boston Globe

Results from a new survey about Boston’s waterfront confirms that concerns break strikingly along income levels and racial lines, with Black, Latino, and Asian American residents most worried about being cut off.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

Leung is the Dan Shaughnessy of the business page. Her career is ginning up controversy and endless navel-gazing. Her columns have no value.
 
Equilibria said:
Leung is the Dan Shaughnessy of the business page. Her career is ginning up controversy and endless navel-gazing. Her columns have no value.
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Indeed, and just like Shaughnessy, Shirley Leung is one of the worst people ever to grace the Boston Globe.
 
393b40 said:
Indeed, and just like Shaughnessy, Shirley Leung is one of the worst people ever to grace the Boston Globe.
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That is *quite* the feat with the op-ed stable the Globe has these days.
 
Once the election is over, whomever is mayor will regurgitate the current plan. That's my prediction.

Why?

The cost of burying a 1400 space garage next to the ocean in filled land is probably $200-250 million.

To pay for that, one needs an expensive building on top. One will never recoup the cost in parking fees.. (IIRC, Ted Oatis, Chiofaro's now deceased business partner estimated the cost at $175 million or so, ten years ago.)

Does anyone think the HT residents will pony up $55 million for their 400 spaces (I'm not going to search the EA for the number of spaces they currently have, but I believe the original formula was 0.75 spaces for every unit in HT).

Is the Aquarium going to pony up $$$ for the spaces they insist they need for Aquarium visitors?

Is the city going to pick up the capital cost of burying the garage? Give me the date that hell will freeze over.
 
stellarfun said:
Once the election is over, whomever is mayor will regurgitate the current plan. That's my prediction.
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I agree. The majority of Boston voters who are unaffiliated with Harbor Towers simply will not be choosing their mayoral candidate based on this one issue; meanwhile, many/most Harbor Towers residents will make their choice primarily based on this issue. So there are votes to gain here without significant votes to lose. Moreover, there are likely more HT voters than there are units, since many units have more than one 18y.o+ individuals associated with them ("hey, 20-yr-old son who uses this address...be sure to vote in this election you otherwise wouldn't have given a crap about").

Simple logic tells you that there was little/nothing for Janey to gain by ignoring this issue, and tons to gain by acting on it (all she did was pull the plans and state she'll put something back in their place later). The more I think about this, the more I realize: of course she was going to do this.
 
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393b40 said:
Indeed, and just like Shaughnessy, Shirley Leung is one of the worst people ever to grace the Boston Globe.
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At least Shaughnessy sometimes has interesting information, Leung's columns are predictably liberal and full of victimhood.
 
stellarfun said:
Once the election is over, whomever is mayor will regurgitate the current plan. That's my prediction.
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Nope. The motivation for the Walsh administration to work with Chiofaro was to prove they weren't the Menino people (it was the biggest possible pro-development statement you could make at the time). (probably) Wu won't have that motive, and your typical Boston mayor sees no reason to kick the hornet's nest by allowing anything over 150' on that parcel even if that means the garage stays forever. Everyone hates the garage in theory, but the Aquarium needs it, Chiofaro and his backers make money off of it, the HT people like parking in it, and everyone else can ignore it while telling themselves that a tower would somehow be less environmentally friendly than a car-focused concrete box, because that's the lie they've been fed by the CLF/Spruill consortium and they have other concerns in their lives to expend rational thought on.

I wouldn't be shocked if that garage is still there in 2121, while the heirs to all these people argue over whether the law means 150 feet from the old sea level or the new sea level.
 
Equilibria said:
Nope. The motivation for the Walsh administration to work with Chiofaro was to prove they weren't the Menino people (it was the biggest possible pro-development statement you could make at the time). (probably) Wu won't have that motive, and your typical Boston mayor sees no reason to kick the hornet's nest by allowing anything over 150' on that parcel even if that means the garage stays forever. Everyone hates the garage in theory, but the Aquarium needs it, Chiofaro and his backers make money off of it, the HT people like parking in it, and everyone else can ignore it while telling themselves that a tower would somehow be less environmentally friendly than a car-focused concrete box, because that's the lie they've been fed by the CLF/Spruill consortium and they have other concerns in their lives to expend rational thought on.

I wouldn't be shocked if that garage is still there in 2121, while the heirs to all these people argue over whether the law means 150 feet from the old sea level or the new sea level.
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Except that garage will need to be demolished at some point because its no longer structurally safe. And leaving the garage as is, doesn't address the compelling need to make that whole area climate-resilient. And who pays for that?
 
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