Shreve, Crump & Low Redevelopment | 334-364 Boylston Street | Back Bay

Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Druker is very tightly conected with Menino. I'd always heard from good sources that the competition for the Atelier 505 site was a fraud, Druker 'won'. The city's arts fund paid for sidewalks and street lights around this luxury project. How does that count as art?
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Because the Atelier project contains two theatres?
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

I think it benefited Druker more.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Preservation's final plea
Deadline today to comment on Arlington Building to be demolished
Kristin Pitts BostonNOW Correspondent

It's out with the old and in with the ... office building - maybe.

Today is the last day for the public to weigh in with the Boston Redevelopment Authority on plans to demolish the Arlington Building, a 103-year-old art deco structure at the corner of Arlington and Boylston streets. It is the former home of famed jeweler Shreve, Crump & Low.

Developer Ronald Druker plans to knock down the Arlington Building and two neighboring structures, to build a nine-story luxury office building, complete with restaurant, spa and fitness club. But not everyone welcomes Druker's vision. Some worry the city is trading in a piece of history for a posh skyscraper.

"It's important to us that what goes up complements what's around it," said Sarah Kelly, Executive Director of the Boston Preservation Alliance, which had petitioned the Boston Landmarks Commission to designate the Arlington Building a historic landmark. The commission disagreed, saying the building doesn't meet landmark standards.

Now, Kelly and other activists hope the new structure will fit the feel of the Back Bay neighborhood.

"We would love to keep (the Arlington Building)," Jackie Yessian of the Neighborhood Association of Back Bay, said "But [Druker] has followed all the steps, so he's doing what he's allowed to do."

"We look forward to working with the community and reviewing all the public comments as we move forward with the development review process," said Boston Redevelopment Authority spokeswoman Jessica Shumaker.

Calls to the Druker Company were not returned, yesterday.

To comment on plans for the Arlington Building site, contact BRA Project Manager Jay Rourke by 5 p.m. Friday at: jay.rourke.bra@cityofboston.gov

Correction: The first version of this story listed the incorrect e-mail address for Jay Rourke.
Published on January 31, 2008
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Ron Newman said:
Yeah, the Boston Preservation Alliance is a private non-profit with no official power whatsoever.
Click to expand...

True, but they have a huge amount of influence over the Boston Landmarks Commission since they are one of the few organizations that regularly attends BLC meetings.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

The above-quoted BostonNOW article says the Boston Preeservation Alliance did lobby for preserving the Arlington Building, but the Landmarks Commission turned them down.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

I don't see why they can't preserve the bottom portion of this building and build up 8-10 stories. If they want office space bad enough - with all this opposition, even from the usual supporters of development in Boston - why can't they just build up? Maybe if this were proposed it would make both parties happy. The current proposal as said prior is a mess. It looks like it belongs in Phoenix or some other sprawling expanse of crap. Revising the plan to accommodate the historical preservation of the site might make some more people happy. I definitely don't want it built as is and I would prefer if it were built up or just left alone. On another side not - something my dad was questioning - where do the developers plan on getting tenants for projects like this & the Prudential expansion if it is passed? It seems like there are so many office spaces going in while there are still quite a few offices that are vacant and for lease (primarily downtown.) Is building class A office space one of the big problems Boston is facing right now? Isn't that what attracts fortune 500 companies and influential Businesses into the area? Or is this classification generally arbitrary?
 
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Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

He's skimping corners on the architectural elements too; didn't he say they were going to use a pre-cast fake limestone on the facade?
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Remember that in downtown Boston and other r major city high-rent districts --that no-one intentionally builds a large-scale Class-B or lower class office project ? it just costs too much for the land and the big structure to get anything than top=dollar after the project is finished

All office projects are built as Class A -- they just become Class B or C over time and lack of being-redone

This different than building hotels {for every Ritz room there are few Westin rooms and for every Westin room there are several Residences by Marriot, etc}

Same thing is true with apartments and condos -- with the exception of subsidized housing ? In- General -- none can afford to build low end and big

Westy
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Thanks Westy. I really had no idea. I guess I should have added "large continuous class A office space" Welcome back by the way, haven't seen you in a while. Do you have an e-mail address that I can contact you at? I wanted to ask you a few questions
 
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Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

More uninspired schlock from Pelli.

This is a rendering of a new building designed by Pelli for the northwest corner of Connecticut Ave and K Street NW in Washington, perhaps the most visually significant corner in the commercial area of downtown DC. The top floors of this building will be on a line-of-sight axis to Lafayette Park and a corner of the White House grounds. (The curvature is an illusion from the wavy banner. There are two on-line renderings but which seem to have been chosen so as not to show the corner view.)

P1030090.jpg


The developer is Vornado/Charles Smith. (Vornado is doing Filene's). Below is the current building, gutted prior to demolition. (The building to its left is also being demolished and replaced by the new building.) Nobody is lamenting the loss of these buildings, but Pei did a much better building directly across K Street and completed about two years ago.

P1030087.jpg
 
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Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Why don't they just re-do the existing buildings? The new one is no bigger.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Exactly what I was thinking. It looks more like a reclad then a new building.

Strange.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

ablarc said:
Why don't they just re-do the existing buildings? The new one is no bigger.
Click to expand...
They are putting in an underground parking garage, four levels with around 220 spaces if I recall correctly. I don't think they can excavate very much near the frame right side of the building because there is a Metro station very close to the property line.

They are recladding some downtown buildings in DC, but a 20-25 year old building that formerly housed the FDIC, with a pleasant if conventional polished granite and limestone facade, got taken all the way down last year, and there was already a garage underneath.

Useful life of a commercial building in DC = its depreciation life.

There are about 10 demolitions or recladdings of commercial buildings currently underway in DC. I picked on this one only because Pelli is also doing SC&L, and the visual significance/importance of that corner next to the Public Garden.

Added:
Here is the Washington Post's architecture critic's opinion of Pei's building at 1700 K St, across the street from the new Vornado project. (He liked it.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/19/AR2005081901812.html

A picture of 1700 K St, also built by Vornado/Charles Smith
1700_k_street.jpg
 
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Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

The last city's architecture Boston should ever consider erasing its past to emulate is DC's.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

As if anyone here needed any proof that old buildings can be adapted for modern uses, the country's first web site devoted to seriously covering international news will be based in Pilot House on Lewis Wharf, dating to 1839. That's about as old as they come (give or take 200 years) and as modern as they come. Eat me, Ronald "the Barbarian" Druker.

NECN founder starting news site
With $7m funding, Balboni aims to fill foreign coverage gap
By Jenn Abelson
Globe Staff / February 14, 2008

Veteran journalist Philip S. Balboni, who built New England Cable News into the nation's largest regional news network, is leaving the station next month to start the first US-based website devoted exclusively to international news.
more stories like this

The site is expected to launch early next year with correspondents in nearly 70 countries. The company, Global News Enterprises LLC, will have its headquarters on the historic Boston waterfront at the Pilot House on Lewis Wharf.

The business so far has raised more than $7 million from a group of local investors led by billionaire Amos B. Hostetter Jr., chairman of Pilot House Associates; a cofounder of Continental Cablevision, one of the nation's first cable companies; and chairman of AT&T Broadband. Benjamin Taylor, former publisher of The Boston Globe, and Paul Sagan, president of Akamai Technologies, are also among the investor group.

"There is a tremendous interest in what is happening in the world. The world in every respect is globalizing, and we're being swept up in it with the economy, our lives, our leisure times, our children's education," said Balboni, who turns 65 tomorrow. "And the American people are not being well-served by our media. The moment is right for this."

The launch of Global News comes amidst a decline in coverage and resources dedicated to international news in recent years, with the exception of coverage of Iraq, as traditional media have suffered drops in circulation and advertising revenue with the rise of the Internet. Over the past few years, The Baltimore Sun, the Globe, and a number of other major US newspapers have cut foreign bureaus, while many television networks now rely on one-person bureaus. According to a 2005 study of 16 US newspapers by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, front-page coverage of foreign affairs in 2004 was roughly half of what it was in 1987.

Global News will use wire services for breaking news and rely on correspondents living abroad to provide in-depth enterprise stories on social, political, and economic news, especially from countries that have historically been neglected by the American press, such as Indonesia and South Korea. The Global News website will feature free content supported by advertising as well as premium content sections available to users for a modest subscription fee. The site will also offer forums for discussion and in-depth special reports on major world issues.

"What this is going to demonstrate is that you can have serious news done by serious newspeople on the Web and make a commercial business out of it," said Alex S. Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.

"A number of efforts so far have been based on philanthropic models and they are always subject to the whims and tastes of funders," said Jones, who also sits on Global News' editorial advisory board.

Correspondents for the website will not be full time or receive benefits, but Global News will offer ownership shares to correspondents and other key employees in an effort to get journalists more deeply invested in charting the future of their profession, Balboni said. He expects to attract reporters living abroad from newspapers, magazines, radio, and television to write for the site.

"We're in a major metamorphosis in how news and information is delivered," said Hostetter, the lead investor. "Some of the more established media are having trouble finding their way and a great deal of content and readers are migrating to the Internet. Phil saw the impact and is now moving on to the next generation. He's one of the most principled individuals I know and I'd back him in almost any endeavor."

Balboni, the former Channel 5 executive who in the early 1980s created the TV magazine show "Chronicle," left the station to found NECN 16 years ago. The network is described by some media observers as the last bastion of serious local television news in Boston. NECN reaches about 3.7 million homes in New England and last summer finally made its entry into Rhode Island. The network is trying to negotiate with satellite services EchoStar Communications Corp. and DirecTV Group Inc. to distribute NECN to some 750,000 New England homes.

"Phil's a very talented guy with a proven track record and all the right instincts of journalism," said Taylor. "There's a need, a hunger for information about the world."

Before breaking into broadcast television in the early 1970s, Balboni worked as a reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, an editor and correspondent for United Press International, and served as editor in chief of International Correspondents Report. Charles J. Kravetz, NECN's vice president of news and station manager, will take over Balboni's post. Kravetz, who has directed NECN's news coverage since its inception, and Balboni are the longest running management team in local TV news.

"A lot of what we are doing from a product perspective is going to remain intact," Kravetz said. "Hopefully in my new position I can find ways to help our product grow, to get better and more refined, and create more opportunities to put resources into NECN."
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Druker aims for towering rents at his next building

Boston Business Journal - by Michelle Hillman
Friday, February 15, 2008

Ronald Druker isn't building the next John Hancock Tower. All the same, he hopes to charge as much for rent as the owners of one of Boston's best-known skyscrapers do.

While Druker is building a decidedly smaller building than the 60-story, 1.6 million-square-foot Hancock Tower, what his building lacks in stature it will make up for in location. The nine-story, 221,000-square-foot office building will sit on the corner of Boylston and Arlington streets diagonally across from the Public Garden and steps away from the Four Seasons Hotel.

Druker hopes his tower, designed by Argentine architect Cesar Pelli, will make a strong statement for years to come. The limestone and glass building still needs to be approved by the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Druker also needs to satisfy the notoriously outspoken neighborhood groups.

While Druker's structure won't have the height of the Hancock, he plans to add a few extras that are sure to get tenants' attention. A few of the perks include a private health club for tenants only, valet parking, a doorman, a dog walker, concierge services, catering services, state-of-the-art security and 150 parking spaces.

Sound familiar? Many of the same tenant services are offered at Druker's award-winning residential, office and retail project Heritage on the Garden. He said the 15,000 square feet of ground floor retail will be designed like its sister property.

Druker said there's nothing like the type of full-service, boutique office building he plans on constructing in Boston -- at least not as new.

He hopes to break ground next summer and open sometime in 2011.

Druker said he's already received calls from interested tenants, but he won't start marketing the building for lease for at least another year.

"I'm not smart enough to know where things are going to be 18 months from now when we'll be doing our leasing," Druker said. "The dynamics of the office market in the Back Bay at this time and forecasting out into the future into 2011 are extremely solid."

And Druker is setting his sights on tenants that don't consider price an issue: star hedge fund advisers, private foundations and financial institutions.

So how much will it cost for boutique office space in the Back Bay?

Asked if his tenants would pay $100 per square foot, Druker replied, "I hope so."

"I have no idea whether that's a realistic expectation or not," he said. "The only thing I can say is our rents will be the highest in the city."

Link
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

kz1000ps said:
A few of the perks include a private health club for tenants only, valet parking, a doorman, a dog walker...
Click to expand...
Dog walker, huh? For all those folks who bring their dogs with them to work?
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

This qualifies as a 'tower'?

ShreveCrumpLowrendering.jpg


Shouldn't a tower be, at a minimum, taller than it is wide?
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

^ Not when it soars. We have it on high authority that this one soars.
 
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