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Looking at this I see the potential for a new Battery Park City but I have a feeling that all we will get is a second Charles River Apartments.
Seaport Neighborhood - Infill and Discussion
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Ron Newman
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I'm sure some of these buildings will contain garages.
JimboJones
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Yep.
Boston 2017 says there will be an improved Silver Line route down Commercial St.
Because it works so well, now ...
Boston 2017 says there will be an improved Silver Line route down Commercial St.
Because it works so well, now ...
C
ChunkyMonkey
Guest
Plane and simple: FAA firm on height limits for Seaport
By Scott Van Voorhis
Boston Herald Business Reporter
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
If you believe Mayor Thomas M. Menino calls all the development shots in Boston, think again.
When it comes to South Boston?s waterfront, the Hub?s long-promised new harborside neighborhood, the Federal Aviation Administration, not just City Hall, is setting the tone.
The FAA has been quietly pushing for years to limit the heights of new buildings planned for the Seaport, home to such monumental development proposals as the nearly three-million-square-foot Fan Pier project.
The federal agency regulates air travel at Logan and airports across the country. And it has been fighting to keep skyscrapers out of what is now a busy corridor for jets taking off from Logan - one that happens to be directly across the harbor from all that planned development.
Now, after years of lobbying, the FAA has emerged as the clear victor in the battle of the building heights.
Veteran tower developer John Hynes, as he lays out plans for a six-million-square-foot ?Seaport Square? development just across Northern Avenue, says his buildings will top out in the 250-to-270-foot range.
With a minor exception or two, Hynes expects his project to be no taller than the planned Fan Pier buildings next door - a big shift in previous planning.
The site?s former owner, Frank McCourt, who now owns the Los Angeles Dodgers, spent years talking up the idea that he would build a wall of towers that would gaze right over Fan Pier buildings onto the nearby harbor.
But Hynes acknowledged, in a recent interview that FAA height restrictions, among other factors, mean there will be no bid to build skyward over Fan Pier.
Instead, Hynes is crafting a plan that features a more human scale, comparable to the Back Bay. A school, hotels and offices are planned.
It?s a change that has happened without much public debate, driven mostly by behind-the-scenes edicts by the FAA.
?They (the FAA) are not interested in having a public discussion,? said Vivien Li, head of the Boston Harbor Association. ?They don?t want to be lobbied. These are technical safety considerations.?
Hynes is not the only one affected.
There?s a grudging consensus among developers with plans to build on or near the waterfront that their new hotels, office and condo high-rises will have to stay below the 300-foot limit.
Waterfront developer John Drew, for example is also expected to toe the FAA?s height line with his proposed Waterside Place,
Chicago?s billionaire Pritzker family waged a fierce and ultimately losing battle with the FAA to boost building heights on Fan Pier. By the time the dust settled in 2002 after months of wrangling, the economy had tanked and the Pritzkers decided to sell.
As more than one Boston developer has learned, its not just City Hall you can?t fight. It?s the FAA as well.
By Scott Van Voorhis
Boston Herald Business Reporter
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
If you believe Mayor Thomas M. Menino calls all the development shots in Boston, think again.
When it comes to South Boston?s waterfront, the Hub?s long-promised new harborside neighborhood, the Federal Aviation Administration, not just City Hall, is setting the tone.
The FAA has been quietly pushing for years to limit the heights of new buildings planned for the Seaport, home to such monumental development proposals as the nearly three-million-square-foot Fan Pier project.
The federal agency regulates air travel at Logan and airports across the country. And it has been fighting to keep skyscrapers out of what is now a busy corridor for jets taking off from Logan - one that happens to be directly across the harbor from all that planned development.
Now, after years of lobbying, the FAA has emerged as the clear victor in the battle of the building heights.
Veteran tower developer John Hynes, as he lays out plans for a six-million-square-foot ?Seaport Square? development just across Northern Avenue, says his buildings will top out in the 250-to-270-foot range.
With a minor exception or two, Hynes expects his project to be no taller than the planned Fan Pier buildings next door - a big shift in previous planning.
The site?s former owner, Frank McCourt, who now owns the Los Angeles Dodgers, spent years talking up the idea that he would build a wall of towers that would gaze right over Fan Pier buildings onto the nearby harbor.
But Hynes acknowledged, in a recent interview that FAA height restrictions, among other factors, mean there will be no bid to build skyward over Fan Pier.
Instead, Hynes is crafting a plan that features a more human scale, comparable to the Back Bay. A school, hotels and offices are planned.
It?s a change that has happened without much public debate, driven mostly by behind-the-scenes edicts by the FAA.
?They (the FAA) are not interested in having a public discussion,? said Vivien Li, head of the Boston Harbor Association. ?They don?t want to be lobbied. These are technical safety considerations.?
Hynes is not the only one affected.
There?s a grudging consensus among developers with plans to build on or near the waterfront that their new hotels, office and condo high-rises will have to stay below the 300-foot limit.
Waterfront developer John Drew, for example is also expected to toe the FAA?s height line with his proposed Waterside Place,
Chicago?s billionaire Pritzker family waged a fierce and ultimately losing battle with the FAA to boost building heights on Fan Pier. By the time the dust settled in 2002 after months of wrangling, the economy had tanked and the Pritzkers decided to sell.
As more than one Boston developer has learned, its not just City Hall you can?t fight. It?s the FAA as well.
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GREAT! Developers are now forced to keep their buildings to a more human scale.
B
BostonSkyGuy
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That's like going up against Tyson and Ali if you're a developer.
lexicon506
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I thought it was pretty much already accepted that heights in the Seaport would be strictly limited. As much as I like height, the FAA is not being unreasonable. I've flown into and out of Logan many times, and the planes get very close to land over the Seaport. As long as the FAA stays out of Winthrop Sq. and SST, I'm cool with this one. And who knows, maybe forcing developers to build on a more human scale will result in the kind of development we're looking for, rather than the monolithic giants that are currently the norm. After all, its scale is what Boston is known for best.
JimboJones
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Nothing new here?
Is this news? Didn't they already have height limits written into the Seaport plan released like ten years ago? (I thought some had a 400-foot height, so maybe the lower heights proposals are new?)
Also, I thought it was funny that in the Globe this weekend, their renderings of Boston 2017 featured 115 Winthrop prominently, but SST was nowhere to be found. (Or am I wrong.)
Is this news? Didn't they already have height limits written into the Seaport plan released like ten years ago? (I thought some had a 400-foot height, so maybe the lower heights proposals are new?)
Also, I thought it was funny that in the Globe this weekend, their renderings of Boston 2017 featured 115 Winthrop prominently, but SST was nowhere to be found. (Or am I wrong.)
TheBostonBoy
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Ya, your right. It was so weird how they didn't have SST. They made it seem like 115 Winthrop Square was like a definite go and that SST was quickly abandoned and forgotten about.... could this be our future??? :shock:
Anyways, it seemed like they focused mainly on 115 Winthrop, rather than other large towers like SST. I am glad you brought that up too because I had been wondering about that too lol
Anyways, it seemed like they focused mainly on 115 Winthrop, rather than other large towers like SST. I am glad you brought that up too because I had been wondering about that too lol
"Not human" scale is the result of big footprints, not tall buildings. There's a miniature skyscraper on Beacon Street facing the Common. It sits on a single lot that once had a town house, and no one thinks this building is out of scale on fine-grained Beacon Hill. There's an even taller apartment building on Commonwealth Avene around Exeter Street that also occupies a house lot.lexicon506 said:
Now imagine a standard one-story Wal-Mart in the Financial District or North End. Now that would be seriously out of human scale!
B
bosman
Guest
Don't take too much stock into them leaving out SST. For one, they were only focusing on the more prominent development projects (i.e. Trans National Place and the Seaport District). Also, SST has been dormant for awhile now. It's approved, but to this point, I don't think there has been any action regarding any sort of development at the site.
TheBostonBoy
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Ya true. They were just trying to keep your attention on Trans National Place and whatnot. If they put SST their, people would be like I have never seen that tower, what is that? So true that
It's not the result of tall buildings, but it's not necessarily the result of big footprints either. The Mandarin Oriental has a footprint that's bigger than most Seaport buildings but in the MO thread no one has criticized it for being a monolithic giant, which it is. In fact, it's being praised for enhancing Boylston St, which it does. So a big footprint does not automatically equal an inhumanly-scaled streetscape. I consider the WTC complex human-scaled, thought in a very different way than the Back Bay.ablarc said:
GLOBE EDITORIAL
Fan Pier fantastic
June 3, 2007
AFTER 20 YEARS of controversy, a building has been constructed on the parking lot that occupies the best undeveloped site on the Boston waterfront. This one-story marketing center looks nothing like the lavish 18-story office building or 20-story hotel/condominium building that are among those planned for the site. But it's an indication that Joseph Fallon, the developer, is ready to start construction on the project. If the final build-out looks as good as the developer's computer-rendered image shown above, it will be worth the wait.
The enhanced photo hangs inside the marketing center, which Fallon will open in a couple of weeks to seek tenants for his first office building, with a groundbreaking scheduled for the fall. The office building will be located just to the downtown side of the park that is at the lower left of the image. Fallon will soon put up another marketing center to seek tenants for a residential/hotel building in back of the Institute of Contemporary Art. He hopes to begin construction of the second building next year.
With office space in greater demand than residential property, this construction sequence makes sense. Fallon said in an interview last week that the office market is tightening and that tenants are looking for energy-efficient space. It's not hard to imagine the marketing pitch -- a beautiful site and a thrifty, "sustainable" building.
While it will take a decade or so for all eight buildings to be completed, Fallon plans to immediately construct the park and the dock that will form a cove across from the ICA. Creation of the park will lessen the unpleasantness of construction. And the dock will facilitate the expansion of water taxi services.
Development of the Fan Pier means the erosion of the huge parking lot that has served commuters for decades. The MBTA Silver Line is one alternative to the car, but that bus service is getting crowded because of development elsewhere on the waterfront. The Massachusetts Port Authority is planning to build a water transit stop farther down the waterfront. People who live or work on the Fan Pier will need reliable water transit as well.
The computer-enhanced image is a wonderful seagull's-eye view of the development, which emphasizes the green space and the docking facilities along the water. But the image doesn't offer much information on the office building planned for the far interior, next to the federal courthouse. The Boston Redevelopment Authority, which has final say over the design, needs to make sure that this area is not left in shadows for most of the day by looming high-rises.
"There's no other site on the East Coast like this," Fallon said, referring to the waterfront location, proximity to downtown, and the cultural amenities of the ICA next door. With luck and a tweak or two, Fan Pier will become an enduring enhancement of the city.
Link
Fan Pier fantastic
June 3, 2007
AFTER 20 YEARS of controversy, a building has been constructed on the parking lot that occupies the best undeveloped site on the Boston waterfront. This one-story marketing center looks nothing like the lavish 18-story office building or 20-story hotel/condominium building that are among those planned for the site. But it's an indication that Joseph Fallon, the developer, is ready to start construction on the project. If the final build-out looks as good as the developer's computer-rendered image shown above, it will be worth the wait.
The enhanced photo hangs inside the marketing center, which Fallon will open in a couple of weeks to seek tenants for his first office building, with a groundbreaking scheduled for the fall. The office building will be located just to the downtown side of the park that is at the lower left of the image. Fallon will soon put up another marketing center to seek tenants for a residential/hotel building in back of the Institute of Contemporary Art. He hopes to begin construction of the second building next year.
With office space in greater demand than residential property, this construction sequence makes sense. Fallon said in an interview last week that the office market is tightening and that tenants are looking for energy-efficient space. It's not hard to imagine the marketing pitch -- a beautiful site and a thrifty, "sustainable" building.
While it will take a decade or so for all eight buildings to be completed, Fallon plans to immediately construct the park and the dock that will form a cove across from the ICA. Creation of the park will lessen the unpleasantness of construction. And the dock will facilitate the expansion of water taxi services.
Development of the Fan Pier means the erosion of the huge parking lot that has served commuters for decades. The MBTA Silver Line is one alternative to the car, but that bus service is getting crowded because of development elsewhere on the waterfront. The Massachusetts Port Authority is planning to build a water transit stop farther down the waterfront. People who live or work on the Fan Pier will need reliable water transit as well.
The computer-enhanced image is a wonderful seagull's-eye view of the development, which emphasizes the green space and the docking facilities along the water. But the image doesn't offer much information on the office building planned for the far interior, next to the federal courthouse. The Boston Redevelopment Authority, which has final say over the design, needs to make sure that this area is not left in shadows for most of the day by looming high-rises.
"There's no other site on the East Coast like this," Fallon said, referring to the waterfront location, proximity to downtown, and the cultural amenities of the ICA next door. With luck and a tweak or two, Fan Pier will become an enduring enhancement of the city.
Link