Seaport Square (Formerly McCourt Seaport Parcels)

Dumb person question: Is Seaport sq. the South Boston waterfront? And then does it abute fort Point Chanel?
 
GW2500 said:
Dumb person question: Is Seaport sq. the South Boston waterfront? And then does it abute fort Point Chanel?
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As Hynes wants the Barking Crab to move, and the Barking Crab is partly on piers in the Channel, you could say Seaport abuts the Channel.
 
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Thanks for all the info and pictures. I would love to see this built by 2015.
 
I tend to use "South Boston Waterfront" as shorthand for the area that contains Fan Pier, Fort Point and Seaport Sq.

Other possible terms include 'Phoenix by the Bay' and 'Atlanta North'.
 
Kyros, the BRA guy, said that the developer will be asking for spaces from the "bank".

They did not discuss extra entrances from the Courthouse or other Silver Line stops.
 
The success of this district...or at least what we can hope to salvage from the poorly conceived plan...will rely upon the groundfloor retail uses. If the BRA allows the retail outlets to have more than say 20 to forty feet of frontage- ie if superblock retail development prevails- this will be a very bland, unappealing area.
 
Thanks for the information JimboJones.

I would rather see the street continue through the project in lieu of Seaport Hill Park creating more street frontage. The park seems to be akin to a private courtyard and there is already or will be much open space in the area.
 
Are the buildings in the model final designs or just massing studies? I kinda like how all the buildings have a similar style, gives the area an identity. I also like how they have the brown tinge to them linking them to the adjacent fort point warehouses. I wish the street plan was a little more interesting and not a simple grid. The most successful squares exist at the intersections of multiple streets. But overall I kinda dig it.
 
Someone just left me this comment. Any opinions on this?

On the table right now for approvals are three buildings, only shown in 1 of your 10 photos. The rest of the photos you show are the Disneyland that will never get built, that Hynes (or his successor) will have re-planned based on market conditions at that time. All that crap about 2,500 residential units, and all that greenspace are just the pretty pictures Hynes shows to get people (like you) on board.

The three buildings that Hines is actually seeking to build, architected by The Lego Company, are office space and hotels. There may be somewhere around 100 residential units. Doesn?t sound like a neighborhood to me.

You may want this project to steam forward, but at least be clear, its an extension of the Financial District. No problem if that?s your vision for the Waterfront, but it?s not mine or anyone I talk to. And, I suspect, it?s not Vivien Li?s. She has been fighting for world class planning and architecture for years, and losing the battle because of the ?Build Anything Anywhere? folks who don?t care if the outcome looks like Boston or Houston or Hoboken.
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And, I suspect, it?s not Vivien Li?s. She has been fighting for world class planning and architecture for years,
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failboatlg0.jpg
 
^ It hit a sandbar that was too high for the waterfront. Vivien Li to the rescue!
 
JimboJones said:
Someone just left me this comment. Any opinions on this?
.............
And, I suspect, it?s not Vivien Li?s. She has been fighting for world class planning and architecture for years, and losing the battle because of the ?Build Anything Anywhere? folks who don?t care if the outcome looks like Boston or Houston or Hoboken.
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Has Vivien Li defined what she means by world class planning and architecture? Or is her definition likely to be something like Potter Stewart's, 'I know it [porn] when I see it.'

Or for example, does she point to Canary Wharf in London as an example of 'world class'?

It is terribly difficult to get world class architecture on the South Boston waterfront given the constraints and limits of the various planning documents, regulations, and laws that govern what's built in the area and how. You might have a shot if you had a single corporation develop and build on the site as its headquarters, where cost and return on investment was secondary. Maybe if Larry Ellison's Oracle was headquartered in Boston, he might be the type of person who would do it.

And then you have to please the neighbors, who have their own view of what should be built and what it should look like. (I'm about to post a thread on the Harvard Allston topic on North Allston's latest view on what Harvard should do there. To paraphrase Lincoln, you can NEVER please all of the people all of the time.
 
there?s a article about this development in banker and tradesman. anyone care to post it?
 
Banker & Tradesman - April 21, 2008
Waterfront Project Developer Pledges Housing for Seaport
By Thomas Grillo
Reporter

SeaportSquarerendering.jpg

Rendering courtesy James Piatt/ADD Inc.
This artist?s rendering depicts the entertainment district
in the proposed Seaport Square in South Boston.

The developer of a planned $3 billion waterfront community has assured Boston?s Seaport District residents that they won?t have to wait decades for housing.

?We?re building a neighborhood,? said John B. Hynes III, managing partner of Gale International, the Boston-based company that has proposed Seaport Square, a 6.5 million-square-foot mixed-use development to be built on 23 acres of South Boston parking lots. ?The new district won?t work if it?s all office or all residential [space]. We will build this out through several real estate cycles while trying to protect our downside by creating enough critical mass to attract users regardless of where the cycle is.?

The Boston Redevelopment Authority is holding public hearings on the project that would offer 2,500 units of housing in three buildings, 1.25 million square feet of retail, three 18-story office towers, an 800-room hotel, a school, cultural center and open space. But some residents are skeptical because a decade after the city called for as many as 8,000 condominiums and apartments in the area near the World Trade Center and the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, few units have been built or are in the pipeline.

Hynes said the first phase of Seaport Square would include 82 condominiums that could be under construction as early as next spring. ?We want to get these units done first because they serve as gateway sites into the Financial District,? he said. ?A second phase could be under way by 2011 and would include about 2,000 units.?

Still, some residents remain doubtful that a critical mass of housing will be built. The city?s 100-acre master plan for the district issued in 1999 to guide development promised ?a vibrant 24-hour, mixed-use neighborhood anchored by 11 acres of new open space and 6 million square feet of development, with at least one-third as housing.?

Since 2003, however, fewer than 700 units have been approved in the Fort Point neighborhood, including 597 at the Channel Center. Meanwhile, another 97 condos are under construction at FP3, a luxury project adjacent to the Children?s Museum. About 1,200 units have been built if the adjacent South Boston neighborhood is included in the tally, according to the BRA.

The BRA has insisted that it never promised housing would be built first. The long-term goal is at least 33 percent residential and 33 percent commercial space, city officials said. But the developer and the BRA say much depends on the demands and financial realities of the market. Residents, however, say the places to build housing are limited.

?A Constant Fluidity?

Hynes acknowledged that real estate is cyclical and that much will depend upon what?s happening in the market.

?What product type is hot one day may be cold another, so there?s a constant fluidity in the marketplace,? he said. ?But we don?t have 6 million square feet of office because we don?t want lobbies on the street where there should be a cityscape.?

The Seaport Square housing plan calls for about 600 units of affordable and workforce housing. Hynes said he expects about 500 units to be purchased by empty nesters, while singles and couples will seek the remainder.

The parcel was once owned by businessman Frank H. McCourt Jr., who sold it to Hynes and Morgan Stanley Real Estate for $204 million. The proposed project site is within walking distance of the John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse and the MBTA?s Silver Line.

Meanwhile, residents of the nearby Fort Point area have raised objections to Lincoln Property Co.?s plan to convert a pair of warehouses into office space. The Boston-based developer is seeking BRA approval to transform the vacant property at 316-322 Summer St. into 140,000 square feet of office space with ground-floor retail, a rooftop addition and artist gallery/work space.

But neighbors protested the office component, saying the city appears to be retreating on a promise of more housing. In response, Mayor Thomas M. Menino and BRA Director John Palmieri have asked the developer to come up with a plan that includes some residential units. So far, the parties are at an impasse.

A BRA spokeswoman said officials are still negotiating with Lincoln for a mix of residential and office space at the property or somewhere in the neighborhood.

John Cappellano, Lincoln?s senior vice president, recently floated the trial balloon to allow Studio Soto, an artists? gallery, to take about 3,500 square feet of space at the Summer Street property for $1 per square foot. The gallery was displaced when Archon/Goldman purchased the building they rented on Melcher Street.

Valerie Burns, a longtime Fort Point resident, said she supports space for Studio Soto but believes it will not solve the district?s need for more housing.

?It would be great to have Studio Soto here; they?ve been a part of the arts community for many years,? she said. ?But providing gallery space fails to live up to the city?s promise to create more housing in our neighborhood.?
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I hope these aren't too big for you.

Nothing new, but a neat way of seeing what is being proposed by Mr Hynes & Co. (Check out the size of that parking lot! Over 6,500 spots, on three floors, all underground.)

seaport11.jpg


seaport21.jpg


seaport31.jpg
 
JimboJones said:
Nothing new, but a neat way of seeing what is being proposed by Mr Hynes & Co. (Check out the size of that parking lot! Over 6,500 spots, on three floors, all underground.)
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What do you expect? While other cities are trying to break their dependence on cars, Boston is trying to increase theirs.
 
Is there even a slight rise in elevation near "Seaport Hill"?
 
Arborway said:
What do you expect? While other cities are trying to break their dependence on cars, Boston is trying to increase theirs.
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weeeelll... yes and no. as someone who takes the subway to work every day and has no intention to buy a car soon, i wish that were the case. but what cities are really putting forth an effort to break dependences on cars? mayor bloomberg is trying, but the demagogic/corrupt boss tweed figure of sheldon silver thwarts him. chicago is hoping to introduce more buses, but that seems like small peanuts. LA wants to beef up light rail... over the next who-knows-how-many years.

despite market forces pushing the US toward a decreased dependence on oil, and despite some enlightened political and business leaders and people, the political imagination and testicular fortitude for bold initiatives is sadly lacking and the vast majority of people are happy to drive, albeit a more-compact car. and neither hillary clinton nor especially john mccain is looking to use their limelight to help the situation, either...
 
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