Seaport Neighborhood - Infill and Discussion

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

paperless paul said:
Fattony,

This critique seems somewhat unusual for you. I normally find much in your common with your view, but in this case I don't understand your comment/list at all.

Campbell's critique is that it the Seaport represents a "failure of urban design" and identifies the main causes of complaint: poor street design, isolated industrial-sized parcels, lack of diversity, lack of residents, uninteresting and lazy architecture and a lack of cultural amenities. He also identifies some positives: District Hall, Eastport Park and Liberty Wharf. This seems like a fair appraisal to me.
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I don't think I'm saying anything out of the ordinary for me. I'm just saying that the complainers are splitting hairs and grossly overstating their complains. There is no conceivable way the Seaport plan can be described as SUBURBAN. The fact that an architecture critic would write that is embarrassing. If this ridiculous critique is dragged out in 10 years it'll be laughed to death.

The difference between the street design and parcel size in the Seaport and beloved, extraordinarily successful urban parts of Boston is minuscule. People are making mountains out of molehills. Seaport Blvd has been deliberately left incomplete until the area is built out. We know this, we know this has always been the plan. Why bitch about it?

As for lack of residents - again, we know the plan as well as anyone. Better than Campbell probably. We know that all the least sexy stuff got built first. The BCEC was the first damn thing out there. It would have been completely foolish for it to be ringed in retail with the nearest residence a half mile or more away. Maybe in 20-30 years when every other parcel has completely saturated then the BCEC edges can be activated. But the whole neighborhood isn't ruined because of a dead wall on one street. There are over a thousand units under construction right now with many more in the pipeline. How can anyone complain about lack of residences with a half dozen cranes in the air? The residences, as planned for, are coming and the ones that have come already have sold quickly.

For diversity of income - I don't know what to tell you. Maybe 10-20 years ago it wouldn't have sounded crazy that waterfront real estate in a major urban center could be affordable. Today? I got news for you. Rich people get what they want and these days they want the damn Seaport. Boo freaking hoo.

Giant floor plates are in great demand by the people who pay to build buildings. When you have enough money to build something you can build it how you want. Not liking current trends in commercial office space does not make the Seaport anti-urban.

I'm not saying the Seaport is perfect. I'm not saying it couldn't improve. I'm saying that calling it SUBURBAN and a FAILURE is to completely miss the forest for the trees. If others want to piss and moan and split hairs, then fine. In the meantime there are a hell of a lot of URBAN people enjoying the Seaport.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

coleslaw said:
Doctors and scientists of LMA ride the Green Line, why do you think they would not ride the Silver Line?
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It won't just be Scientists and doctors--Adminstration will want to drive in or your just going to waste a lot of value time waiting for the bus which will be crammed.

One other thing for this area. What about the Neighborhood and community?---The only people that can afford Seaport are young working professionals 70-100K A year or out of the country top tier students who have money that can afford this area. So the Seaport in the end will never really be a real Boston community.

Like I said I can deal with Bad archecticture but we the taxpayers paid for this shitty vision on Prime Real Estate in Boston.

This development could have been done on route 128
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

TheRifleman said:
I can agree with some of that:

Only if you can agree with traffic will get worse because our leaders have overlooked the Transit scenario for the workers in the area. The workers in the area will end up driving in. I don't see scientists waiting for the Silverline Bus in the Winter time or walking to Vertex if they don't live in the area. I believe they will drive in--

Maybe there should be a monorail right down the strip to drop everyone off to one of there boxes
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I've made my peace with the traffic long ago, and have stated my feelings. It will get worse. People will either smarten up, or sit in traffic. Boo-hoo! Plenty of alternative.

The silverline being a bus really throws you off. You picture sitting and waiting at a bus station. The Silver Line has some of the biggest/nicest underground stations. The Courthouse station is ridiculous. So yes, no reason to not wait in it for the subway to take them to their train home. Scientists are not who you think they are.

The Vertex garage is not even 20% used from what I have been told. Vertex gives them ridiculously cheap parking too (20 bucks a month was the number I heard). And, still not anywhere near full during the workdays.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

TheRifleman said:
It won't just be Scientists and doctors--Adminstration will want to drive in or your just going to waste a lot of value time waiting for the bus which will be crammed.

One other thing for this area. What about the Neighborhood and community?---The only people that can afford Seaport are young working professionals 70-100K A year or out of the country top tier students who have money that can afford this area. So the Seaport in the end will never really be a real Boston community.

Like I said I can deal with Bad archecticture but we the taxpayers paid for this shitty vision on Prime Real Estate in Boston.

This development could have been done on route 128
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Even if you consider the T to be slow. It is still going to be faster to commute for people on the T (in general.) Wasting time waiting for a bus vs. wasting more time sitting in your car wasting gas. How is that preferred. Yes, young professionals will be a big portion of the folks in the area, and they are the ones most likely to use mass transit. The big wigs who run these places will probably still be parking their 7 series' in the garage. Good for them. Most keep the hours that allow for it.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Here's two far out ideas that could probably never happen...

1) The canal idea in the backbay was crazy but what about turning one side of Seaport boulevard into a canal. It would break up the street wit a unique feature. It could link the harbor and fort point areas by water. It could provide an additional public transport option that wouldn't be affected by traffic. It might help against raising sea levels (not sure how this works).

2) Move the casino from Everet to this area. Put it down past the harpoon brewry and tie it in to the canal system. Attract more tourism to the area and add life during the weekends.

It's sad that, of these two far out ideas, the casino one is less likely to happen.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

The casino makes more sense here, but unfortunately for anyone who thinks that.... that train has sailed.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Ruairi said:
2) Move the casino from Everet to this area. Put it down past the harpoon brewry and tie it in to the canal system. Attract more tourism to the area and add life during the weekends.
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DRINK!
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Ruairi said:
The canal idea in the backbay was crazy but what about turning one side of Seaport boulevard into a canal. It would break up the street wit a unique feature. It could link the harbor and fort point areas by water. It could provide an additional public transport option that wouldn't be affected by traffic. It might help against raising sea levels (not sure how this works).
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Funny you should say that. Way back when Carpenter & Company and the Pritzkers made their deal with Anthony Athanas to develop the Fan Pier, the Master Plan included a canal that would have made the Fan Pier an island connected to the remainder of the area by several bridges. The plan died with Anthony Athanas trying to renege on the deal to get a sweeter pot, ending in a lawsuit that Anthony lost and ultimately the feds agreeing, in essence, to bail Anthony out by building the federal courthouse where it sits today.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

TheRifleman said:
One other thing for this area. What about the Neighborhood and community?---The only people that can afford Seaport are young working professionals 70-100K A year or out of the country top tier students who have money that can afford this area. So the Seaport in the end will never really be a real Boston community.
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That's no different from Boston's other high rent districts - Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and the South End are not affordable to people at or below the city's median income. I expect the people who live in the Seaport initially will be the people who work in offices there. There was a time when I would have jumped at the chance to live in a building that had an Equinox gym on site and was within walking distance to the Financial District.

The Seaport Square PNF states that there will be a k-12 school, public library, 15% affordable housing (per BRA mandate), and 15% "workforce" housing. When and if any of that gets built is up in the air, but at least it's there in writing.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

elemenoh said:
The Seaport Square PNF states that there will be a k-12 school, public library, 15% affordable housing (per BRA mandate), and 15% "workforce" housing. When and if any of that gets built is up in the air, but at least it's there in writing.
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That's what I find disheartening about the Campbell piece and about our discussion here. Yes, the trend has been set by the current buildings. Yes, the urban planning of the area is bad. Yes, the whole thing is controlled by developers. But of the Seaport Square parcels, only two are built out, with another five on their way up. The development is twenty parcels.

For non-Seaport Square developments: Fan Pier has--so far-- been disappointing. But it too has three of its eight parcels without any specific design, along with a still-unbuilt waterfront park. Pier 4, I think, has tremendous potential to do good.

Basically, I think we should stop despairing over what has already happened and try to affect real change in what still remains to be constructed.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

That's what I find disheartening about the Campbell piece and about our discussion here. Yes, the trend has been set by the current buildings. Yes, the urban planning of the area is bad. Yes, the whole thing is controlled by developers. But of the Seaport Square parcels, only two are built out, with another five on their way up. The development is twenty parcels.

For non-Seaport Square developments: Fan Pier has--so far-- been disappointing. But it too has three of its eight parcels without any specific design, along with a still-unbuilt waterfront park. Pier 4, I think, has tremendous potential to do good.

Basically, I think we should stop despairing over what has already happened and try to affect real change in what still remains to be constructed.
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Well, I think that was the point of the piece - to point out what desperately needs to be done, now. And it's not as if there's any reason to anticipate that the remaining 3/8 Fan Pier buildings, or other developments, will make any significant architectural departure from what we've got. The editorial is sounding the call to change that.

elemenoh said:
That's no different from Boston's other high rent districts - Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and the South End are not affordable to people at or below the city's median income.
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Well, that's not entirely true. The Cambridge Street side of Beacon Hill is mostly people with modest salaries. The housing stock there is tatty old Boston shit, and while it's not that "affordable" (nothing in Boston is anymore), it's not totally out of reach for someone making a modest salary. Ditto for the Back Bay - lots of garden units and little bits of old garages turned into matchbox apartments. Now I'm not saying that someone making minimum wage could afford these, but there certainly are plenty of people in the low-moderate income range living there. Now the Seaport is a little different - yes, it will have some proper "affordable" units as a certain percentage, but not many and a different demographic than what I'm talking about above. The nice thing about old and sometimes shitty old housing stock is that there are all sorts of sidehouses and old bits and pieces of buildings to carve out little overpriced but relatively cheap homes for people wanting to live there. These new buildings are obviously not like that and it's pretty much all or nothing. So while Beacon Hill and Back Bay are mostly rich with a scattering of not rich tucked away here and there, there isn't going to be any "here and there" in these glass boxes.

I'm not much of a socialist, but I do think that despite the right of rich people to spend their money and live in waterfront towers, a mix is good for any neighborhood and the city should seriously prioritize doing whatever has to be done to get some housing for families and moderate income earners, once the next wave of development starts filling in the lots west of Seaport Blvd. Luxury towers with 10-15% affordable units is getting pretty old.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

The problem is, they failed at step 1.

They began by playing Sim City: Pheonix edition, where you have streets that must intersect at 90 degrees, and the streets have to be 5 squares apart or the middle wont develop.

What they SHOULD have done is release 3 cows tagged with GPS. Bam, your roads. Just like the rest of Boston*.

Suddenly an organic and dynamic road system where instead of your views extending endlessly down 4 lanes of concrete, you get sweeping curves and mismatches of buildings.


*Dont argue this point, youre wasting your time.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

fattony said:
So the auto traffic is bad? The auto traffic is bad on Boylston and Mass Ave, that doesn't make the Back Bay an urban failure, does it?

Seaport Blvd is 4 lane plus lefts instead of 4 lanes, no left? Don't kid yourselves it was ever going to be 2 lanes. The Silver Line has rubber wheels instead of rails? Comm Ave is wider and the B-line painfully slow, does that make Allston a suburban wasteland?
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Nice comparison. The thing with bad traffic, is it usually happens in places where people either want to be, or that are the only path to where people want to be. In the case of the Seaport, it has to be the former, since those roads don't go anywhere else. Heavy traffic in this context is a good thing, both because it demonstrates an attractive destination, and because it will convince many to switch to other transportation modes. Nobody looks at traffic in Manhattan and sees that as evidence of urban failure.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

^ Comparing the failed infrastructure traffic issues of the Seaport with New York fucking City is ridiculous.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

SeamusMcFly said:
So is arguing it.
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So is commenting on the "argument"? Forgive me if I'm being a prick, but since when are internet forums exercises in ignoring comments you disagree with?
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

That wasn't the point of the comparison. The point is that traffic does not tell us whether or not urbanity failed. Indeed, it can be a marker of success. Do you disagree?
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

BussesAin'tTrains said:
So is commenting on the "argument"? Forgive me if I'm being a prick, but since when are internet forums exercises in ignoring comments you disagree with?
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Because in this instance I got sick of the NYC on a pedestal.
I'm actually usually quite good at the ignoring comments I don't care much about.

You were very much up in arms about anyone comparing a single aspect of the Seaport to NYC enough to comment on it. I followed suit.

Apparently I'm being a prick. Sorry aboot that.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

The one real question you have to ask yourself about Seaport development.

Did the BRA and our political leaders really live up to the potential of what the Seaport could have really become for the city of Boston?

Cambridge MA is passing Boston in Price Per Square in the rental market--
Boston had to use Tax incentives to relocate Cambridge Ma Tenants to build in the most desirable land in the city.
 
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