Seaport Neighborhood - Infill and Discussion

Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

^ The Rifleman may be extreme and prone to hyperbole, but the question of whether cities and other government entities should be offering tax breaks to rich corporations, and whether this actually results in more downstream benefits to the common people than would be realized without those breaks, is a legitimate one... people are a little quick to smell a radical conservative and write him off as a crackpot, but the spirit of much of what he says is quite true, I think. We should expect more from our elected representatives than we get, and we should root out sweetheart and inside deals that benefit the elite more than the people.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

^ I smell someone who is blatantly lying to me in an effort to manipulate. Why he is trying to manipulate strangers on the internet is mystifying to me but he's definitely doing it.

I totally agree with the larger point that we shouldnt give any tax breaks to corporations to come here.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Disagree on the no tax breaks mantra. You have to assess each deal on an individual basis and they always need to be tied to a staffing increase. I understood the Vertex deal. The neighborhood at that point needed an anchor and someone wrote earlier that they gave back some $$$ when they didn't reach targeted employment levels. That's how you set it up. If the net benefit in terms of total tax revenue (corp tax, income taxes, property taxes) is greater than the taxes you're foregoing, you'd have to be a total idiot to not make a deal like that.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Rover said:
Disagree on the no tax breaks mantra. You have to assess each deal on an individual basis and they always need to be tied to a staffing increase. I understood the Vertex deal. The neighborhood at that point needed an anchor and someone wrote earlier that they gave back some $$$ when they didn't reach targeted employment levels. That's how you set it up. If the net benefit in terms of total tax revenue (corp tax, income taxes, property taxes) is greater than the taxes you're foregoing, you'd have to be a total idiot to not make a deal like that.
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I can agree to tax break/incentive depending on each deal. And I would also agree with helping a developer if circumstances were all good intention and the outcome would have been really bad for the public.

The zoning restrictions for Downtown are very extreme and they need to lessen the restrictions in my opinion concerning height .

That being said you need to let Capitalism run its course.

Deals like:
Liberty Mutual 46 Million dollar tax break to build in the backbay was absurbed.

Vertex--I disagree with this. I would have rather see a different anchor drive the Seaport. Not a copycat of Cambridge Biotech sector. This is PRIME TIME PROPERTY. Fallon had no vision for the Seaport just an opportunist one of Menino's backers.

Filenes Tower--- We go from Vornado punctured a heart into the hole of downtown only to let it sit why arguing with Menino about a tax break. In the end Vordano sells stake to millennium only to issue a tax incentive to this group.

GE--- You would think Baker & Marty would know better. Should have said go Pound Sand on the Jersey shores. GE no matter what needed Boston than Boston needed GE. GE is a dying Dinosaur and needs innovated group of individuals.

I can go on and on--all the side deals--which have only driven up everyday costs for regular folks that work hard.

I could go on and on. Boston is a very vibrant city but at what cost. Its nothing more than a corporate shitshow now and has lost all its actual character. In 10 Years we won't even acknowledge what is really going on this country because we will be so caught up like LA and rest of California stupidity.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

I'm just excited that was once a sea of parking spots is now / going to continue to be an emerging, thriving place for people to live and work. Not many cities have that much flat open space, near downtown to develop.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

The Globe nimby's expect it was going to be another South End or Mission Hill (the loony squat parts).

They totally lost their minds.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

I get the point of some tax breaks are absurd and handed out willy nilly to favored corporations. Specific to the Seaport, which is the topic of this thread (so, no Liberty Mutual or downtown Boston considerations) I think the city did the best they could. I was here 20 years ago, and the discussion was how nothing was happening down there and the silver line stations were so underutilized that you could eat of the floor (from the Glob no less). Now the same people are writing how the place is too crowded and the silver line can't handle the volume!

Nobody predicted what would happen down there. Part of it is people, particularly but not limited to NIMBY's, are stuck in the 1970's mentality that the whole area is depopulating. If that's your view, then even the silver line is a waste of money, let alone running the green line to what was a series of vacant lots. But even the people who did think it would become a neighborhood never envisioned it taking off this quickly. Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20.

Finally in terms of architecture I'm not a world traveler but I've been to several of the so called "newer" cities in this country at least (Charlotte, Atlanta, Jacksonville, and Phoenix come to mind) as well as walked the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans as the rebuild was starting. None of these places have pulled off kick ass architecture on new buildings and neighborhoods. There is no equivalent of the Back Bay or the French Quarter anywhere to be found. I'm not sure why Boston is being held to a different standard and you can't use another city's downtown as a comparison due to the FAA restrictions in the Seaport forcing a more boxy design on developers in order to make a profit.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Rover said:
I get the point of some tax breaks are absurd and handed out willy nilly to favored corporations. Specific to the Seaport, which is the topic of this thread (so, no Liberty Mutual or downtown Boston considerations) I think the city did the best they could. I was here 20 years ago, and the discussion was how nothing was happening down there and the silver line stations were so underutilized that you could eat of the floor (from the Glob no less). Now the same people are writing how the place is too crowded and the silver line can't handle the volume!

Nobody predicted what would happen down there. Part of it is people, particularly but not limited to NIMBY's, are stuck in the 1970's mentality that the whole area is depopulating. If that's your view, then even the silver line is a waste of money, let alone running the green line to what was a series of vacant lots. But even the people who did think it would become a neighborhood never envisioned it taking off this quickly. Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20.

Finally in terms of architecture I'm not a world traveler but I've been to several of the so called "newer" cities in this country at least (Charlotte, Atlanta, Jacksonville, and Phoenix come to mind) as well as walked the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans as the rebuild was starting. None of these places have pulled off kick ass architecture on new buildings and neighborhoods. There is no equivalent of the Back Bay or the French Quarter anywhere to be found. I'm not sure why Boston is being held to a different standard and you can't use another city's downtown as a comparison due to the FAA restrictions in the Seaport forcing a more boxy design on developers in order to make a profit.
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I'm generally a fan of the Seaport now, with some reservations. That said, places like Melbourne and Rotterdam and Seattle have simply done a better job of building out new areas with modern architecture.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

sidewalks said:
I'm generally a fan of the Seaport now, with some reservations. That said, places like Melbourne and Rotterdam and Seattle have simply done a better job of building out new areas with modern architecture.
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I have a friend from Melbourne who is a transit planner (he would be all over this site if he was from here). He was in Boston a couple years ago and we walked around the Seaport and he was actually super impressed. Melbourne has their own Seaport ("Melbourne Docklands"): a former port area on the water directly next to the CBD that is being converted into a new mixed-use neighborhood. In my friend's opinion, Boston is doing a much better job with our Seaport of creating a dense, active, walkable, urban neighborhood integrated into the city than Melbourne is doing with their Docklands.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

TheRifleman said:
GE--- You would think Baker & Marty would know better. Should have said go Pound Sand on the Jersey shores. GE no matter what needed Boston than Boston needed GE. GE is a dying Dinosaur and needs innovated group of individuals.
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The Politico's and those who supported GE's move to Boston, and their supporters (myself included) get a mulligan imho.

The analysts who turned the stink eye on GE years ago for their absurd adventurism–represent the species well.

One of the dozens of 'What the hell happened?' articles....

http://fortune.com/longform/ge-decline-what-the-hell-happened/

Fortune said:
Former executives are dumbfounded. “It’s unfathomable,” says one. “You couldn’t possibly dream this up. It’s crazy.” After all, this is GE, a corporate aristocrat, an original Dow component, the world’s most celebrated management academy, now revealed as a financial quagmire with a deeply uncertain future. Its bonds, rated triple-A when Immelt became chief, are now rated five tiers lower at A2 and trade at prices more consistent with a Baa rating, one notch above junk.

In response to this debacle, GE has repudiated its previous leadership with a zeal unprecedented in a company of its size and stature. Gone in the past 10 months are the CEO, the CFO (who was also a vice chair), two of the three other vice chairs, the head of the largest business, various other executives—and half the board of directors. The radical board shake-up “could be one of the most seminal events in the history of U.S. corporate governance,” says a longtime vendor and close student of GE.
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Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

sidewalks said:
I'm generally a fan of the Seaport now, with some reservations. That said, places like Melbourne and Rotterdam and Seattle have simply done a better job of building out new areas with modern architecture.
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Re: Seattle - just because new buildings are 400-450' does not make them any better or interesting than Boston's perpetual 270-300' stumps. It's the same soulless chrome and glass superblock you can find being built in ANY city around the world. SLU, Amazonia, and every 5+1 plywood palace sprouting like weeds... snoozeroo...and with even less public transport and amenities.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Except that 400-450' is gorgeous a/r creating a delightful variance of mixed height.

We should have Vancouverized at least a few dozen parcels.

Boston provincialism is nauseating.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

I'd speculate that market forces and investor risk levels have about a hundred times more of an impact on building heights in Boston than "provincialism".
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

I think HafenCity Hamburg is a good example of a city that has done the planning and redevelopment of a port area better. Better open spaces, better mixture of design, defined districts in the masterplan for different uses.

They also extended the U4 subway line through the district (not stupid BRT). And they raised the buildout and road areas to 8-9m above sea level to plan for sea level rise. Construction is mid rise, like the Seaport (or even shorter in some districts).

https://www.hafencity.com/en/overview/hafencity-hamburg-state-of-development.html
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

kmp1284 said:
I'd speculate that market forces and investor risk levels have about a hundred times more of an impact on building heights in Boston than "provincialism".
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Logan Airport has more impact than any of these forces.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

odurandina said:
Except that 400-450' is gorgeous a/r creating a delightful variance of mixed height.

We should have Vancouverized at least a few dozen parcels.

Boston provincialism is nauseating.
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Sorry, nope, almost everything in the Seattle pipeline is 420-450' - or shorter. There are a few exceptions within the central core, but everything along Westlake up to Denny Way is zoned for max of 450'. They have to protect those views of the Space Needle and all... And again, the architecture is same you'd currently find anywhere else in the world.

You may find Boston 'provincialism' nauseating, and it can be at times. The more you look around though, you'll find different cities fighting the same issues.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

My freewheelin' use of 'Vancouverize' was pointing to the Seattle heights you quote.

i don't see how that gets a 'nope.' i'll bet there are a good 2 (if not 3) dozen buildings in Boston, if the Building Authority had been open to 400-450', you'd have seen many more projects pushing up toward 400' or higher.

On the New York Streets and Harrison/Albany corridor, you'd be down to 310-350' range. But those heights would be excellent for the area, imo.

When they build even a 12~14 story building, the economics here being what they are make it challenging to replace with 29-35 stories some time later.

Back to the Innovation District. i give it a 8.8/10 for the quality of the buildings.

0.6/10 for the transit planning.

For the tax break stimulus that started the ball rolling 8.5/10. Menino got a bit generous in the beginning, and some unsavory swaps resulted in a few people walking away with $ Millions. That's life. The future tax revenue dwarfs everything.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

Bos77 said:
You may find Boston 'provincialism' nauseating, and it can be at times. The more you look around though, you'll find different cities fighting the same issues.
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Not to mention, he is completely WRONG. How does any notion of provincialism apply to a whole area of the city that has built up as high as it can with respect to FAA limits? His misguided disgust strikes again.
 
Re: Innovation Dist. / South Boston Seaport

^^wtf?

odurandina said:
Back to the Innovation District. i give it a 8.8/10 for the quality of the buildings.

0.6/10 for the transit planning.

For the tax break stimulus that started the ball rolling 8.5/10.....
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