Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

From Bloomberg news,

Skanska USA, the American division of Stockholm-based construction and engineering firm Skanska AB (SKAB), in December acquired a parcel of land in the Seaport district from Morgan Stanley (MS) for $33 million and is planning an office building to accommodate spill-over demand from low-vacancy areas like East Cambridge, said Shawn Hurley, executive vice president. The company would build even without having a tenant signed first, known as speculative construction.
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http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/20...as-workers-say-no-to-suburbs-real-estate.html
 
They already build one speculative office building on Second street in Cambridge which sits empty. Not sure why would they start another one.
 
Norwich Partners To Build $50M Marriott In Seaport Square

http://www.bankerandtradesman.com/news154405.html

Norwich Partners will start construction on a new $50 million Marriott hotel in Boston's Seaport Square sometime in the coming months, according to John Hynes, CEO of Boston Global Investors, whose firm jointly controls swaths of the real estate in the city's burgeoning Seaport District along with Morgan Stanley.
Morgan Stanley sold the Sleeper Street parcel to an affiliate of Norwich for nearly $9 million. Norwich is also converting 386 Congress St. in the city's adjacent Fort Point neighborhood into a 120-room Marriott hotel scheduled to open in May 2013.
Hynes told Banker & Tradesman the Sleeper Street project will start in the second quarter and open in about two years. After that, he said the firm is focused on two other major Seaport projects - a 500,000-square-foot office building on one of two parcels, L1 or L2 near the corner of Seaport Boulevard and Boston Wharf Road.
Additionally, the firm is still in the process of deciding who will develop a twin residential tower project on parcels B and C in Seaport Square. Combined, the hotel, residential towers and new office building will total about 1.5 million square feet of new commercial space, Hynes said to a crowd gathered to hear the state of the local commercial real estate industry at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel this morning. That kind of development and the other construction happening along Boston's Waterfront is thanks in large part to Mayor Thomas Menino, who last night announced he would not run for another term in office, Hynes said.
"What we're all experiencing right now [in the Seaport] is somewhat historic," because Hynes had never, in 32 years of real estate work, received phone calls from companies in the suburbs or Cambridge looking to move into Boston, he told the crowd.
"What is taking place in the entire Seaport Innovation District right now is pretty radical, and our outgoing mayor deserves a lot of credit ... for all those seeds he planted over the last 20 years," Hynes added.
A major portion of the vision for Seaport Square has yet to be built. That's the retail destination promised by WS Development, which created retail hotspot Legacy Place in Dedham. WS Development representative Dick Marks said the firm plans to create something similar to Legacy Place, with bigger retailers mixed in with smaller ones since the floor plates in the planned properties are so large.
While the prospect of any retail amenities is exciting for a district that has virtually none besides restaurants, it will be important for the developer to retain something of "the character of the neighborhood," said Young Park, head of Berkeley Investments, another Seaport real estate owner.
"They have to create their own character, which is hard to do because it's expensive to do," Park told Banker & Tradesman. "You have to build a bathtub for parking because the ground it's built on is muck, you have to have 100 percent union workers, and it's just so expensive to build in Boston."
Hynes expects construction on both the residential towers and the office building will start in 2014 and be finished by 2017.
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Wait, this hotel is being built without tax abatements? Then what the F are we doing paying other developers?
 
You get a Marriott! You get a Marriott! You get a Marriott! Everyone gets a Marriott!!!
 
W/S will start this summer on Phase 1 of its 1.2M SF of Seaport retail, and Dick says the market has several drivers: It boasts office, housing, hotel, retail, cultural developments, plus the waterfront and Boston's busy downtown nearby. Today's low interest rates make it possible to build, borrowing $300M or more. However, W/S was once able to finance 100% of the cost; Dick says that's no longer possible.
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http://www.bisnow.com/commercial-real-estate/boston/why-the-world-loves-the-seaport/
 
Nothing says innovation like a pergola sticking out of the top of a building while being taller than the building itself is.
 
So many cliches thrown together like it ain't no thang!
 
Could they possibly salvage this thing by putting something flashy like a giant lit-up rotating globe on the top that shoots out laser beams? I'd be down with that.
 
That looks like it could be support framing for a giant LED screen or something.
 
Curious if anyone knows why Q Park at Seaport Square is a fairly large, grassy lawn that is sloped at a few degrees, rendering it useless for a picnic and impossible for throwing a ball or frisbee.

What is the purpose of this slope? Just to keep the lawn attractive while warding off active uses? It's a green lawn, so the gentle slope seems really bizarre.
 
Sicilian said:
Curious if anyone knows why Q Park at Seaport Square is a fairly large, grassy lawn that is sloped at a few degrees, rendering it useless for a picnic and impossible for throwing a ball or frisbee.

What is the purpose of this slope? Just to keep the lawn attractive while warding off active uses? It's a green lawn, so the gentle slope seems really bizarre.
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You wouldnt want anyone to actually use the public space.

See: Reaction to OWS
 
Sicilian said:
Curious if anyone knows why Q Park at Seaport Square is a fairly large, grassy lawn that is sloped at a few degrees, rendering it useless for a picnic and impossible for throwing a ball or frisbee.

What is the purpose of this slope? Just to keep the lawn attractive while warding off active uses? It's a green lawn, so the gentle slope seems really bizarre.
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Maybe drainage. That's why football fields have a slight crown, slight being 18 to 24 inches above the sideline.
 
stellarfun said:
Maybe drainage. That's why football fields have a slight crown, slight being 18 to 24 inches above the sideline.
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Don't think so, Stellar. The slope is far greater than for drainage. It's actually not easy to run across the field. At 50 feet, the drop looks like 3 feet.
 
Sicilian said:
Curious if anyone knows why Q Park at Seaport Square is a fairly large, grassy lawn that is sloped at a few degrees, rendering it useless for a picnic and impossible for throwing a ball or frisbee.

What is the purpose of this slope? Just to keep the lawn attractive while warding off active uses? It's a green lawn, so the gentle slope seems really bizarre.
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Iirc, that "park" near the ICA/Fan Pier was stepped in order to discourage public use like people tossing around a football.
 
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