Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

itchy, I don't recall you ever responding to my comment I made about active ground floors. Post 1273 in this thread.

Based on that streetview you posted, it appears the Seaport has the edge on active ground floor use.
 
Itchy,

The Seaport, Innovation District, South Boston has a limited amount of truly vacant land.

Here is the second thread on Orestad, the largest of the new developments outside of Copenhagen, link starting at p. 264, the last page.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=365571&page=264

IMO, the development that one ought examine in the context of the area east of the Boston Wharf buildings, and west of the Reserve Channel is probably Potsdamer Platz, and its younger sibling Leipziger Platz.

http://www.fondazionerenzopiano.org/project/94/potsdamer-platz/genesis/

http://www.leipzigerplatzquartier.de/uploads/media/dasneueherzderstadt.html?&L=1

potsdamer_platz.jpg


Aerial of the new Potsdamer platz showing the outline of the former Berlin wall. View is looking west.

We won't get into the residential architecture of the Tergit Promenade that runs off Potsdamer Platz.
 
datadyne007 said:
itchy, I don't recall you ever responding to my comment I made about active ground floors. Post 1273 in this thread.

Based on that streetview you posted, it appears the Seaport has the edge on active ground floor use.
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That's because I didn't. Apologies but I can't spend significant time finding the perfect Streetview pics of Copenhagen. I didn't walk around the Copenhagen periphery too much; I drove by and saw some great-looking buildings.

My main point is that the architecture is leaps and bounds better than what we've been seeing in the Seaport. (The whole city seems to have good groundfloor uses, and there were plenty of people walking around in the new, peripheral neighborhoods, so I assume there is good groundfloor use there as well, but this was secondary to the quality of architecture.)

That Copenhagen - smaller population than Boston, less internationally important, smaller economic area - should be able to consistently build high-quality structures while we get Park Lane, Waterside Place, etc., is a damn shame and should be redressed (primarily with smaller lot sizes and some design standards). That's all I'm saying.
 
itchy said:
...had the city zoned for/sold smaller lots in the Seaport the people purchasing those lots would be building very different - and probably better -structures today. (continues)
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As I recall this is PRECISELY what was recommended by the waterfront urban planning teams --public and private, involved in the Seaport public realm planning process in the two years prior to the BRA's publication of the Public Realm Plan.

These firms included:

Coopers & Robertson Partners (for the City of Boston)
Urban Strategies of Toronto (for Pritzker)
BSA Seaport Focus Team
and some involvement of Thompson Design

The Pritzker's hired team from Urban Strategies, represented by renown waterfront planner Ken Greenberg, went so far as to suggest that Fan Pier would not only have a finer grid, the grid would include "angled alleys" to reference the railyard that once existed on Fan Pier.

All of the planning teams involved called on the BRA to zone accordingly. Contrary to the plans recommended by these teams, the BRA imposed the large block sizes in its Public Realm Plan. I dare say none of the teams would claim responsibility for what existed thereafter. Not even the BSA.
 
^ That's basically been the core of my argument for the last five years. Tighter street grid and smaller parcels.
 
My Gawd, this is awesome. I can't believe it's starting already. My friend at PWC said that they are pretty excited about moving to the Seaport out of 125 High St.
 
A friend at PwC said they are currently debating over Dunkin or Starbucks in the lobby. That's good news either way, but I'm praying they go with Sbux because it is underrepresented in the Seaport. The only real one in the Seaport is in the John Hancock/Manulife building. There is one in the Westin/BCEC, but the prices are legit double ($10.75 for a grande drink and a sandwich) and the service is horrendous.
 
^ By "in the lobby" do they mean street-facing? Or do we literally mean "in the lobby?"

And, why are they narrowly choosing among the two most homogenizing front runners? Why not a Pete's? Boston Common Coffee? Aroma?

To me the choice of Dunks or SBux is a failure of imagination as great the choice between beige or gray precast.
 
Shepard said:
^ By "in the lobby" do they mean street-facing? Or do we literally mean "in the lobby?"

And, why are they narrowly choosing among the two most homogenizing front runners? Why not a Pete's? Boston Common Coffee? Aroma?
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Forget about those, they should open another location of Thinking Cup
 
Shepard said:
^ By "in the lobby" do they mean street-facing? Or do we literally mean "in the lobby?"

And, why are they narrowly choosing among the two most homogenizing front runners? Why not a Pete's? Boston Common Coffee? Aroma?

To me the choice of Dunks or SBux is a failure of imagination as great the choice between beige or gray precast.
Click to expand...

Because they have one of the two in the lobby of their current building and they think people have frequent buyer cards? Though you're probably right...
 
reminds me of Upstate New York's cities: like Syracuse, Rochester, Utica, Rome, etc..
 
armpitsOFmight said:
reminds me of Upstate New York's cities: like Syracuse, Rochester, Utica, Rome, etc..
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Sadly enough, just about every one of those cruddy cities would kill for anything remotely modern and glassy like that. And even more sad, this looks like something worthy of them, not Boston.
 
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