armpitsOFmight
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^I haven't walked around Channel Center for about three years. Did it finally fill up? I remember there being a very large building with no tenants.
Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)
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With respect, the scale of the so-called "Innovation District" matters. It's larger than 5 downtown Boston districts combined.
To characterize a 1 x 1 mile swath of land in downtown Boston as a single district is immature, and does a disservice to Boston in terms of recognizing land value vis-a-vis public investment.
There is so much potential squandered because the entire area is simply called "Innovation District." Office and hotel projects get rubber stamped, portrayed as if they share some mysterious synergy with each other. Few questions are asked regarding a healthy mix of residential, ground floor activation and civic facility planning.
BTW The list of companies that you posted includes jobs at Atlantic Wharf and One Financial. Those jobs were necessary in the stats because the BRA inflated published job totals arriving in IDBoston between 2010 and 2013.
I've asked the BRA to publish a list of startups signing market rate leases each year in the Innovation District since 2010. That would be a useful statistic to support the "innovation" narrative.
ParkerChris
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The question that I cannot help but ask is, do those details matter? Does it matter that the numbers are inflated due to Atlantic Warf? Does it matter that the entire land area is currently marketed as one district? I would say no if the efforts were supporting positive economic growth for the city of Boston. As I mentioned earlier, labeling a vast under-developed area something trendy and appealing like "Innovation District" is an attempt to trigger economic growth for the city - and it's working. Its nothing more, and nothing less. Rents are soaring as an affect of the successful marking efforts, which are lowering rents in other parts of the city. Those lower rents will bring in other businesses which couldn't afford them when that particular part of the city was the economic driver. The cycle goes on and on. I think we often get too stuck up on the details.
Cliff Clavin
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Any idea why the boundarys of the Innovation Dist were extended as far south as 2nd St? I thought the Seaport only extended south to 1 St.
FortPointGuy
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+1
The effect of all the new (expensive) office space will and already is resulting in lower rents in DTX and the Fin District. 125 High will be a ghost town after PwC vacates and Int'l Place has many empty floors from Ropes & Gray's exit a few years back. PayPal has moved into 1IP for pete's sake.
When companies move from Kendall or DTX or wherever to, e.g., Seaport, it is not at all a zero sum game. Kendall is jam packed and the rents are outrageous. I know of several additional VC firms that are looking very closely at the Seaport to save rent. And speaking of Kendall, there is no shortage of willing tenants. Look at Amazon for a recent example.
I get some of the gripes on the Seaport but for pete's sake you have the full focus of private developers, the city and the state trying to turn the area into a 24-hour mixed use zone and a new highlight for Boston. They are clearly doing a better job than the West End / Gov't Center redevelopment.
If someone can give me something beyond a gripe (e.g., waterside place is ugly, the silver line is a bus) I'd like to hear it. Because a commercial/residential/entertainment district anchored by a convention center seems an awful lot like the back bay playbook to me and there isn't a back bay sucks thread on this forum...
armpitsOFmight
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Nobody is planning for this area to be 24/7. Where did you hear this?
It matters because this isn't downtown Houston. It's downtown Boston, and the Seaport is the beneficiary of $8B public investment.
So yes, people can be ecstatic about the quality and quantity of development that we're getting.
Or we can recognize that the land is being undervalued relative to public investment and raise the stakes, calling for an upgrade in architecture and land use to meet the land's true potential.
One look at the Seaport tells the story. Developers are capitalizing on value generated by public investment -- just land value. They are not reaching a high bar as Boston deserves.
Shepard
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Just because developers, businesses, retailers and restaurants are showing an interest in the area - which yes, I agree is something to be happy about - doesn't mean there aren't major planning failures here. The arterial streets are Houston wide, very needlessly. There are parks next to parks next to parks next to parks.. why? Preference for massive lots assigned to single developers resulting in buildings with dead walls and bland form a la Burlington (or, maybe more fairly, downtown DC). The fact that so much of the planning is focused on creating a convention zone that most cities by now have realized is just a race to the bottom. The fact that residential is consistently stymied, with the BRA's approval.
No doubt from a business perspective things are happening, but you can't look at really world class waterfronts and be truly happy to any degree with what we're getting here.
No doubt from a business perspective things are happening, but you can't look at really world class waterfronts and be truly happy to any degree with what we're getting here.
ParkerChris
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I agree with these points more than I do that the use of the term "innovation district" for the entire area is necessarily a bad thing. Could they have planned better, absolutely. But that said, I believe once Fan Pier, Pier 4 and Pier 8 is built out a lot of opinions are going to change.
But I do think that public investment (of some degree) is warranted IF it is an economic driver.. which there is little to debate based on the public construction that is happening in the ID combined with the affect it is having on rents in other areas of the city.
I'd suggest that property values and rents would be higher citywide if the waterfront reflected a higher standard. Standards for architecture and planning in the Seaport District should reflect the highest standards in the USA, or even worldwide. This is Boston's jewel.
FortPointGuy
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Which cities should we be looking at for inspiration?
There is a lot of residential in the West End, and I'd argue most of that redevelopment was very poorly executed as a result. Balancing the residential with office space doesn't seem like the end of the world to me, though I get the frustration (sausage parcel).
FortPointGuy
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You should look up the Seaport Square master plan. WS Development is handling the 10K's sq ft of retail. They previously did Legacy Place. Their is a convention center the size of which is rumored to be doubled with a commiserate increase in hotels.
There is an outdoor music venue. There are a lot of restaurants there and planned to be there.
The city only permits LCD screens there and in certain parts of downtown.
Stand at the corner of Congress and A Street on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night. Or do the same on Seaport Boulevard and include all of Saturday and Sunday.
Captain Obvious hasn't issued a press release, but I don't think that's really necessary when you observe all the pieces together.
http://www.innovationdistrict.org/the-strategy/
"........DEVELOP A 24-HOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
Provide amentities for flexible lifestyles
– Innovation housing, like the apartments found at Factory 63, provide a live-work spaces for innovators to collaborate
– The City of Boston is working to introduce more of housing options to fit the range of lifestyles and needs of the innovation workforce
– The Innovation District is filled with world-class restaurants, an active nightlife, and cultural institutions
– Transit options are readily available, as the Innovation District has easy access to South Station, Logan Airport, and the MBTA Red and Silver lines"
FortPointGuy
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It matters because this isn't downtown Houston. It's downtown Boston, and the Seaport is the beneficiary of $8B public investment.
So yes, people can be ecstatic about the quality and quantity of development that we're getting.
Or we can recognize that the land is being undervalued relative to public investment and raise the stakes, calling for an upgrade in architecture and land use to meet the land's true potential.
One look at the Seaport tells the story. Developers are capitalizing on value generated by public investment -- just land value. They are not reaching a high bar as Boston deserves.
Is the insinuation that developers are reaping a windfall due to the investment? In any event, how can they capitalize on this value?
Joe Fallon had a museum on Fan Pier first. And he has been building out a marina (that just had a huge addition added a few weeks back). He is bankrolling a substantial upgrade to the harborwalk in front of Louis and the yet-to-be-built condo building. He built a park next to 1MP.
Seaport Square installed Q Park and has several other substantial parks planned. And the Inno. Center is for public use.
Pier 4 is going to level Anthony's and leave a park in its wake.
What else should they be doing?
TheRifleman
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The Seaport Development is not even close to being considered to a Backbay Playbook? Its more like a Route128 Box Building commercial/residential/entertainment condo complex on the water near the city.
Backbay history is priceless with rows of Victorian Brownstones, Located off the Orange Line along with the Green Line Trolly running through Commonwealth Ave.
Seaport will evolve into something but I believe that the Backbay it will not. That's like comparing Oranges to a Pineapple.
The Backbay was built in a different time setting when Architecture was brilliant and the cost of materials & labor were cheap which helped build very strong structures.
ParkerChris
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Exactly. There probably wasn't a global financial crisis, either. We are lucky that Boston is in the building boom that it is. Cheap materials are what we are going to get, but there absolutely could be better design standards, though.
Let's start with facts.
Fallon didn't put a museum on Fan Pier. The Pritzker family, prior owners of Fan Pier, provided land for ICA as a component of State Chapter 91 obligations for filled tidelands, once Boston Harbor and now private property. I'd guess the current owner of Fan Pier (not Fallon as far as I know) paid for the land at a price that already factored the ICA land. The ICA was negotiated as a component of the large project, not in lieu of other components.
And no, I don't agree that the elements you mentioned in terms of parks, etc. come close to meeting the standard this 21-acre parcel merits considering area public investment.
Same goes for Seaport Square. The Innovation Center is a 10-year lease for the BRA, negotiated in the context of a 23-acre approval. Again, any waterfront worth its salt would consider long-term elements including civic spaces (interior and exterior) as well as a host of land uses necessary for activation of the USA's finest waterfront.
I'll add that the burden is not on Fallon (or Fan Pier owner) or Seaport Square owner to explain what gets approved and why. It is a responsibility of our planning department to recognize the value of Boston land and set the standard accordingly.
FortPointGuy
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The similarities are uncanny! They are both anchored by a convention center (though the Hynes is of less importance now). They both have a component (of albeit very different in style as you rightfully point out) old architecture that fell into disrepair and was repurposed into a substantial amount of residential dwellings. They both had large swathes of undeveloped wastelands from a prior era (railroads and surface parking lots). They both benefited from public investment (the convention centers, the leasing of air rights over the pike for Back Bay and the big dig improvements to the SBID).
I'm not implying that someone is going to rebuild Commonwealth Ave on Congress Street. But I do think the development of the Seaport is very clearly and purposely being patterned after the mixed-use development strategy that was employed in the Back Bay over the second half of the 20th century.
JohnAKeith
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My work here is done.
FortPointGuy
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(1) Stand corrected on Pritzker/Fallon but the point is that the obligated developer obliged and we ended up with the ICA. Fallon is developing Fan Pier. He may have limited partners, but Fallon is in control.
(2) If you look at the SS master plan, the IC was always slated to be a park. The city required the IC.
(3) If waterfront parks, the ICA, a marina, an outdoor music venue, the BSA, the very many dock slips that are in FPC and on the Waterfront that weren't 3 years ago are not sufficient or appropriate public land uses (never mind the plethora of places to eat and have a drink) for an area that is going to become incredibly dense when finished (Fan Pier alone has 5 buildings to go), what kind of civic spaces have the BRA and the developers neglected and in whose footsteps Boston should Boston be following?