Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

Those suburban street names are just awful. Doesn't the city have anyone who can oppose this and lobby for more urban names?

They should at least change harbor way to harborway- that would be a nod to our other "ways".
 
Those suburban street names are just awful. Doesn't the city have anyone who can oppose this and lobby for more urban names?

They should at least change harbor way to harborway- that would be a nod to our other "ways".

Thank you.

I don't know which is the worst: contrived-as-hell Autumn Lane (barf) or East Service Road (wtf)

Please take these street names back to Aventura or Scottsdale
 
The project phasing is really interesting:

On page 93, there is a nice graphic. To summarize the completion dates:

2018: L2
2019: M
2020: D, F, P
2021: L3-L6
2022:G, N

I wish they would swap doing G and P but I know it is not that simple
 
Really disappointing how much the residential component has been cut back on L3-L6. I think it was originally mean to be all residential, and now it's just one residential building out of four.
 
theyve increased the residential by almost 400K SF.
Yes, less on the L3-L6, but more on other blocks.
 
Money shot:

C4J5W_LWcAAq6z-.jpg:large


Digging the density of the L parcels. Disappointed that they are not residential towers anymore though. There will never be enough res.
 
that picture shows the great capping of the tunnels on Block P along Summer St and the street frontage that is created.
Hopefully the south side of Summer can do something similar some day.
 
Much needed relief from the bland blocky-ness of Fan Pier / some of Seaport Blvd.
 
Indeed, i think it looks great and the tunnel capping and street wall on Summer St are huge pluses.

However, like Van pointed out, there is no 'center of gravity' on the inland side of the pedestrian street here (which might be analagous to Placa de Catalunya for the Ramblas) - you just hit Summer St. and you feel like youre standing on the edge of the earth.

Hopefully smart planning in the future for USPS property south of Summer St. (no to be confused with the facility @ south station) can put something there worth walking too (like a soccer stadium?).

And if the Seaport is ever going to get the big greenspace to serve as its common / 'central park'...then let it be over the haul road right & pike ramps right outside the front door of the convention center (between summer st. and congress)...

But for now this seems to me like everything that has been missing in the seaport for all this time (at least from an urban design perspective).
 
that picture shows the great capping of the tunnels on Block P along Summer St and the street frontage that is created.
Hopefully the south side of Summer can do something similar some day.

I was thinking the same thing! Although I think we have the US Postal Service to contend with first.


This is a bit like Las Ramblas in Barcelona.

And this isn't quite the same as La Rambla in Barcelona - that has a tree lined pedestrian promenade with two lanes of traffic on either side, then sidewalks with retail/restaurants and residential.

Vienna (among other cities) has a pedestrian only zone that is in the middle of the city but I don't think the Seaport will ever see something to this scale. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mariahilfer+Str.,+Wien,+Austria/@48.1979408,16.3489685,3a,90y,59.09h,94.33t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-X4Stq8P5F_o%2FVAlreGGJskI%2FAAAAAAAAAFc%2FipgfcCvGt40qkzeSb4yqcfN9byIUs0BIgCJkC!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2F-X4Stq8P5F_o%2FVAlreGGJskI%2FAAAAAAAAAFc%2FipgfcCvGt40qkzeSb4yqcfN9byIUs0BIgCJkC%2Fw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya21.8883-ro-0-fo100%2F!7i8704!8i4352!4m5!3m4!1s0x476d07f5a36030d7:0xd7448a870b8123ad!8m2!3d48.1957327!4d16.3390333
 
^ or like a smaller, sans-palm trees version of Miami Beach's Lincoln Rd. Mall:

1.jpg
 
I prefer this new design. It is more of a pedestrian main street business district. You forget all about cars. While parks are great, the proposed park felt too much like a college quad, in a bad way. Like West Village Quad at Northeastern. It feels like wasted space surrounded by tall buildings. I'd much rather a waterfront park or a place you can "escape" to.
 
The biggest thing I like about this plan is that it gets rid of Congress St overpass.
While Seaport Hill might've been cool for the L block, I think it came at the expense of Congress and would've completely marginalized ground floors of P and O...
 
By contrast, the treatment of Seaport Blvd is a bit disappointing. It looks very Kendallish. There's more than enough room to have a pedestrianized Comm Ave-style median and still retain 4 traffic lanes.
 
Seaport Square is also deceptively close to South Station. It feels far because of the channel but in reality its like a 10 min walk. People were arguing that the park that was proposed before would be shaded and dark and really have no reason to be there. With this new proposal I don't see it as that I see this more of an outside dining/shopping plaza where people can get together in fairly large groups and there can be concerts, ice skating, street performers, venders...etc. People like being able to walk around outside with other people and this leading from this beautiful outdoor plaza straight to the waterfront in my opinion is a great design. Also just having a few dozen restaurants with outdoor seating is going to make it a fun place to be.

Im very excited for this and parcel M is also directly next door. As a final point, Ive said it a few times...but all of the places we love in Boston are not being bulldozed to make this. They're all still there so people are free to go to the north end...etc whenever they want, but then if you want to head over to the modern area of the city you are able to do that as well. I think this is going to be a huge success.
 
Also they could do another path down from summer st on the opposite side and take a turn continuing this corridor towards the planned one that goes past GE towards Fort Point. This could be a pretty cool little path leading from the harbor walk near GE and ending at the harbor walk at pier 4.
 
Does this mean that a grocery won't be coming to the Seaport until at least 2021 (not including however long it will take to build out the actual retail shell)?

The project phasing is really interesting:

On page 93, there is a nice graphic. To summarize the completion dates:

2018: L2
2019: M
2020: D, F, P
2021: L3-L6
2022:G, N

I wish they would swap doing G and P but I know it is not that simple
 

Back
Top