Seaport Neighborhood - Infill and Discussion

Mike said:
With luck and a tweak or two, Fan Pier will become an enduring enhancement of the city.
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with luck? How about with some design vision and common sense?

:roll: :? :? :?: :roll:
 
Mike said:
The computer-enhanced image is a wonderful seagull's-eye view of the development...
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Anyone have this available to post?
 
jass said:
So the I.C.A. really will be boxed in? ...Also, I see no parking. Are they really going from too much parking to not enough?
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It's a city. Zero parking is enough parking.
 
i really dont understand comments like that that ablarc.

you would have a point if we had a subway that
1. was open 24 hrs,
2. was more passenger friendly, and
3. that was much, much faster. trying to take the B line all the way to the end takes fucking days. and the green line is annoying as hell to ride.

Parking is a good thing in my book. How do you get around the city? or do you?
 
My wife and I moved to Boston with our 7 year old son last summer. We sold one car before we moved and our other shortly after coming here. I couldn't imagine driving anywhere in the city. The condo we bought includes a parking spot which I rent out. I would consider buying a car in maybe 1-2 years as we have a child on the way, and it may be easier to drop off our son at his school and our new son at daycare (I currently take my son to school via subway), but mostly just for something to get away on the weekends. I rent a car about once a month now and take a cab maybe once a week.

Parking definitely should be limited, as it is typically more of a hassle than its worth, its just a "feel good" option for visitors who chose not to learn how to navigate transit. These people, and their lack of "driving in Boston" knowledge it what makes the city so unfriendly to drive in in the first place. You never know what stupid move they are planning to make.

All that said....the Silver Line is worthless, and I do sympathize with someone preferring to drive to the SBF.
 
Ron Newman said:
Bobby Digital said:
you would have a point if we had a subway that
1. was open 24 hrs
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The ICA closes well before the subway does.
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But the restaurants in the area dont. Anthonys, No Name, among others. Also, the late night cruise yacht departs from there. Not only do people dress in their most formal, but it probably comes back once the T is closed.

It is naive to think the city does not need parking.

Ive been in this part of Boston after the T has closed. And when the first red line train doesnt leave South Station until 6:15am on a Sunday, waiting is hardly an option if you go to this area on a Saturday night.
 
czsc wrote:
"That's an odd, if creative idea, nico. I'm not sure the harbor would keep its ambience were it packed with gargantuan floating parking platforms, though."

I couldn't be sure what it would look like, but what ambiance are you referring to? I'm not talking about packing the harbor with ships, or having a ship @ Rowes Warf...that would ruin the view of the airport.
Having one in Charlestown/North End wouldn't be that bad. And I don't think it would be at all out of place in the Navy Yard...a place where they used to build these things. The people who are into ambiance might actually like it if done right.
As it is now, there are huge tankers docked on a regular basis on the Mystic river side of Charlestown; an old, aircraft carrier customized for parking...a smaller one form the second world war perhaps, couldn't look worse. And I do think it could help the restaurant business in the N.E. by providing suburbanites a place to park.
 
It would be like driving past Fall River and seeing the top of the battleship from the rotting bridge. It reminds me of my childhood memories from when I slept over on the ship with my boyscout troop...

I think it would be really cool, even if its not realistic, to use an aircraft carrier for that purpose. If anything, it would add character.
 
The idea for using aircraft carriers for parking is more realistic than it seems. It's also a good one. Technically it may not even be "floating" parking either. Depending on the depth where they put it, it could even be "locked" to the river bed by concrete, or grounded. The Battleship in Fall River used to be (but it was removed when it was brought to Quincy a few years back for repairs) and a few of the other ships in Battleship Cove are locked into place . I can't imagine it would take too much work to turn an old carrier into a parking garage. It may be more costly than building a regular garage, but it would sure be a lot more aesthetically pleasing (Battleship Cove does an excellent job of taking the focus off of the slum that is Fall River when crossing that "rotting" bridge) and at the same time saving space.

I really like the idea and don't think it's unrealistic. Unlikely, however, is a different story.
 
The Globe said:
S. Boston developer plans a private school
Critics say idea caters to the rich

By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff | June 8, 2007

The 23 acres in South Boston's Seaport District have been barren for decades, home to nothing but parking lots. But in a few years, a 2,500-unit housing complex could spring up, along with a performing arts center, two health clubs, a public garden, and an unusual perk: a private school.

Developer John B. Hynes III said he hopes that the school, which will serve 1,500 children from kindergarten through high school, will help attract families and company executives to the area. Owners and renters of the mix of condos and apartments in the development would get first dibs on seats in the school, which would be open to outsiders if room is available, he said.

But the plans, submitted yesterday to the Boston Redevelopment Authority, are not sitting well with city and Boston public school officials. To them, Hynes, the grandson of former Boston mayor John B. Hynes , is implying that the city's public schools aren't good enough and signal ing that he plans to cater to the upper class.

Hynes, who is modeling the Seaport development after a project in South Korea, said he will strive to have a socioeconomic mix in the new residences and the school. "This isn't a class warfare issue," said Hynes, CEO and president of Gale International. "We're bringing in more families, and there's a component out there that's looking for this type of educational platform."

Hynes, who also built the State Street Financial Center in 2003, said he expects the city and state approval process, which can occur in phases, to take up to 18 months. Construction for the entire project would take three to four years. The school, which would probably open in 2012 and is tentatively called the Seaport International School, will focus on foreign languages, science, and technology. A board of Harvard professors and educators from prominent prep schools including Milton and Concord academies will help design the 3,000 square foot school and develop its curriculum.

Hynes estimated that high school tuition would be between $25,000 and $30,000; fees would be lower for elementary and middle grades. He plans to set aside 5 percent to 10 percent of seats for low-income Boston children, who would be admitted on full scholarship based on an entrance exam.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino called Hynes's school proposal a "hare-brained idea," saying not enough families live in the Seaport area now or in the near future to warrant building a new public or private school.

"We're not going to build schools for political purposes," Menino said. "We put them where they're needed."

While upper middle-class families on Beacon Hill and the Back Bay have clamored for a neighborhood public school for years, the mayor has put new schools in the more diverse neighborhoods of Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury, which have seen booms in school-aged children.

South Boston's developing waterfront only has about 100 families with children under 18, according to the Boston Redevelopment Authority. The authority predicts that by 2040, there will be about 3,100 families with children .

Boston schools superintendent Michael G. Contompasis said the school system's five South Boston elementary schools, none of which are near the waterfront, could accommodate population growth at Seaport. He said he does not see the need for the private school.

"He's catering to the upper end," Contompasis said. "This guy's just coming out and saying they don't want anything to do with the public schools and will build their little enclave. What's he going to do? Put a big gate around the place? He should know better. Wasn't he the grandson of a former mayor?"

Vivien Li, executive director of the Boston Harbor Association and a supporter of Hynes's plans, said the developer decided it would be politically easier to build a private school than to convince the school system to locate a new public school in the neighborhood.

"He felt it was too much of an uphill battle," Li said.

Hynes said his development, called Seaport Square, would not solely cater to the rich. The residential project, located between Congress and Seaport Boulevard, would be a mix of apartments and condos that would cost between $500 and $1,000 per square foot if the units were selling today. The price will match market prices in the area. Affordable housing would make up between 10 percent and 15 percent of the units.

Private schools geared toward residents in new housing is an unusual but increasingly popular amenity, especially in areas where public schools have earned a bad reputation, according to the National Association of Independent Schools, in Washington, D.C.

"For some developers, a private school is the new must-have, equivalent to granite countertops, great rooms, or garages," said Myra McGovern, the association's spokeswoman.

Still, many developers who initially talk about starting a private school drop the plans, she said, when they have trouble finding educators to run the school. By statute, private schools are also supposed to be approved by the local public school committee.

Patrick F. Bassett, president of the independent schools association, said Hynes's idea is smart. The city has intense competition for private schools.

"They want young, prosperous families, of course, and young, prosperous families want neighborhood schools they can count on and they're increasingly worried that can't be a public school," Bassett said.

Private schools have sprung up in similar high-end developments in Missouri, California, and New Jersey, according to the national private schools group.

Hynes said he hopes the Seaport development will be as popular as New Songdo City in South Korea, a 1,500-acre high-rise urban development he is overseeing. The project includes two international schools developed by the same Harvard advisory group that will work on the Seaport school.

The South Korean schools have been the primary draw for thousands of prospective residents, Hynes said. The development drew 65,000 applicants for 2,500 units, he said. The development, which includes office space, also drew corporations seeking to relocate their headquarters and executives, something Hynes hopes will happen in South Boston.

Some residents said they hoped the new school would entice their neighbors to stay in the city to raise their children instead of fleeing to the suburbs.

"All this stuff should have been in the works a long time ago," said Steve Hollinger, co founder of the Seaport Alliance for a Neighborhood Design. "It's obvious by the number of kids [now there] that you need to plan for schools. It's pretty much A, B, C."

Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com.
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The Globe said:
STEVE BAILEY
Curse, continued

By Steve Bailey, Globe columnist | June 8, 2007

It is one of those maddening "only in Boston" moments we know all too well: A developer wants to build a school to make his megaproject more appealing, and the mayor turns it into class warfare.

This is a school we're talking about, and Tom Menino is not happy -- again. This is not just any school that John Hynes, president of Gale International, is talking about, but a private international school that could be a lure for the kind of global companies and executives that Hynes hopes his South Boston development will attract.

Hynes, the charismatic, sometimes tone-deaf grandson of a former mayor of Boston, will be at City Hall today, pitching his plans to transform 23 acres of mostly parking lots into a $2.5 billion project with 6.5 million square feet of offices, housing, hotels, and interesting public spaces. With no real waterfront of his own, Hynes, like Frank McCourt before him, is talking about building a new Back Bay.

But it is the private school that has Menino's goat.

"It will be only for the rich. I have real concern for that," the mayor says. "Let him build a public school."

In an effort to attract companies and families to his Seaport Square, Hynes wants to finance and build a private school, kindergarten through 12th grade, for 1,500 kids that will focus on language and science. Buy a condo, or rent an apartment, in his 2,500-unit project and have priority for a spot in the school -- if you can pay the tuition.

The companies that call Seaport Square home will also have priority for their employees. The concept is modeled on the two schools Gale is building as part of New Songdo City in South Korea, a $25 billion project grandly billed as "the Hong Kong of the 21st century."

But Hynes got himself in trouble, as he is sometimes apt to do, when he stated the obvious last week in a downtown meeting of the real estate community. He had the audacity to say that people sometimes move to the suburbs for the schools.

"Unfortunately, 200 to 300 young families leave the city annually because they don't want to send their kids to private school, can't get into the public school of choice, or don't want their 7-year-old spending two hours traveling to a private school, so they move to the suburbs," Banker & Tradesman reporter Thomas Grillo quoted Hynes saying.

The mayor, of course, sees that as dissing the public schools. "He has never been in a Boston public school," Menino told me yesterday.

Hynes, who lives in the Back Bay, replies that he will make about 10 percent of the school's spots available free to Boston students. He calls the international school a "great differentiator" for his project and for Boston itself. "We think it is going to be highly sought after," he says.

And so it goes. Boston is a big city, or at least is supposed to be. Good schools, public and private, are essential to a community's quality of life. If we are going to attract global companies to Boston, amenities like an international school are just what those families will want. And plenty of Boston area families will be interested, too. Build it, and they will come. Or so we hope.

This is cursed land, this barren McCourt property. Will the curse never end?

Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at bailey@globe.com or at 617-929-2902.
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for the love of god shoot me now.

We really do live in a planned economy.
 
I don't really see the issue here. Unless I am grossly mistakes, these new mega-developments (Fan Pier and Seaport Square) are trying to be geared towards a more upper-class demographic. Is it unfortunate that private schools are so expensive and exclusive, yes. However, if the mayor and his staff really want to make the education system fair for everyone in the city, they should probably focus on improving the Boston Public School system instead of crying about how someone wants to build a Private school in the city.
 
His honor the mayor went to parochial school. The high school he attended, Thomas Aquinas, closed in 1975, as did, in 1970, the junior college from which he received an associates degree (Chamberlayne Junior College).
 
It is unfortunate, but this is the reality......

Many families are now having kids in the city, but leave when they are old enough for school. I'm going to be facing the same decision myself in a few years. My only certainty at this point is that I know I won't be sending my child to Boston public schools. And I'm not the only one. Where I live in the South End you see parents with Strollers all the time, but I rarely see parents with children of school age.

The mayor's comments above prove he has lost touch with reality. Hynes model can work and instead of dismissing it he should have used it as an opportunity.

What the mayor should have done is work with Hynes to create a semi-private school where residents of the area can attend as a public, but parents outside the seaport could still pay to send their children there.

Boston currently is still busing students and parents have to apply to get into different schools. (I still can't figure out what the selection criteria is) The fact that uncertainty exists in the school a child goes to is why I'll be leaving. In my personal situation if I knew my child could get a quality education by moving to the seaport, I would seriously consider moving there. Without the school, I won't even consider it.
 
stellarfun said:
His honor the mayor went to parochial school. The high school he attended, Thomas Aquinas, closed in 1975, as did, in 1970, the junior college from which he received an associates degree (Chamberlayne Junior College).
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Anyone know where the Mayor received his lobotomy?
 
People shouldn't hate on the BPS without taking a closer look. Anyone else on this board besides me spend K1-12th in the BPS and think he got a way better education than some tony private school would have afforded?

That being said, Hynes can do whatever he wants. Of course a private school caters to the rich - so does the rest of his and all the other private developments in Boston. We've been over this before - the land is expensive, the process is mega-expensive, so the product will be expensive.
 
I sent my son to BPS this year (1st grade), and we are NOT sending him back next year. We luckily were accepted into a private school, otherwise we probably would have moved out of the city. It is a shame the city doesn't understand this facts. If they want to keep families in the city, they need to either completely overhaul the school system, or encourage the creation of more pprivate schools.
 
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