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

FK4 said:
I disagree with that. He's not bumping a dead thread with no updates by asking about updates; he's responding to a conversation about an active issue, but the conversation simply died on its own a few months ago. The travesty that is this site and the related local governmental decisions deserves ongoing debate.

Read upthread and you'll see that someone in February DID bump the thread asking for an update, was chided for this, but nonetheless it generated further conversation for another page.
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Right on. Also if someone really wanted to they could probably get the mayoral candidates on record about this project.

I'm still miffed how this one slipped through the various Back Bay neighborhood groups...
 
393b40 said:
Right on. Also if someone really wanted to they could probably get the mayoral candidates on record about this project.

I'm still miffed how this one slipped through the various Back Bay neighborhood groups...
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It would be a great question to spring on them at a town hall. Boston is a small enough town that you'd have a good shot at getting that question asked in some public venue before the election.
 
Druker has applied for a construction permit, and in July, BPDA wrote to the permit issuing agency saying it is okay to award the permit. Druker must have signed a tenant for the office space.

https://bpda.app.box.com/s/0lr1ca30blpuet5hhsxjudsnrkhjua98

I found this after going to the website for the Boston Preservation Alliance which met with the design team in October, 2019.

https://www.bostonpreservation.org/advocacy-project/350-boylston-street

And Arlington St. church gets $200,000+ from Druker.
 
This is going to totally transform the character of this corner of the Public Garden and Boylston St. I can't believe the city is allowing this to happen.

It's been 15 years since the last landmark hearing. Maybe it's worth another shot.
 
I don't believe Mr. Druker understands how this will diminish whatever legacy he believes he has in this city.

I hope the new Mayor intervenes, if possible.

Another chapter in Brian Golden's legacy - the blandification of Boston.
 
This is what is up for 350 Boylston st on Robert AM Stern Architects website.
https://www.ramsa.com/projects/project/350-boylston-street
Is this still what the project looks like?
2020_04_24_Druker_350_Boylston_Hero_Final_v2.jpg


It looks extremely similar to this building one block west in massing and color.
A7E3CDAB-3C0A-4727-AEBE-1041C242CB09.jpeg


Replacing these 3 buildings.
A5779A4B-9B69-43AB-8CD8-294469077D7D.jpeg
 
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Stern is now the architect, replacing Pelli. So this ^^^ would be the current iteration. Materials are limestone and granite.
 
The “Drucker legacy”? That’s rich. Four words for you: Tremont on the Common.
NB even the tenants in the rendering look like they are getting ready to jump
 
stellarfun said:
Stern is now the architect, replacing Pelli. So this ^^^ would be the current iteration. Materials are limestone and granite.
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If this does go through it would be good to at least see it get some type of high quality stone facade like limestone so this is good to hear, much better than steel. Id rather see the block stay as it is, but getting a limestone facade is a good consolation vs getting another kenmore north esque clunker in a high profile location.

Commonwealth ave still has multiple empty lots in the area around the new bu tower, I much rather would have liked to have seen them fill in a lot there or over the pike or in any other of the many empty lots scattered around the city vs demolishing these buildings here. I wish they would put in a moratorium on demolishing buildings until the empty lots are filled in.
 
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I fear the only way to preserve the Shreve Crump & Low facade would be to repeat the Little building.

There were economies taken when the SC&L building was originally built, as exemplified by the Providence St. facade, the south facade. At a hundred years old, assuming the building opened in the 1920s, the stone and brickwork (but not the granite) has likely deteriorated beyond simple repair.
 
It feels like it should be easy to reach a palatable compromise for both the city and the developer. Save the Shreve Crump & Low facade and give the developer a couple more floors mid-block for going to the trouble.

Screen Shot 2021-10-03 at 4.36.12 PM.jpg


EDIT: Whoops, @stellarfun beat me to it.
 
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The Providence St. facade. I do not know why the fire escape runs full building width on each floor.

https://goo.gl/maps/uzg4GLyo9xah5kcUA

As shown in streetview ^^^ the back of the buildings that are west of SC&L on Boylston suggest their Boylston frontage is in the mode of a Potemkin village.
 
tobyjug said:
The “Drucker legacy”? That’s rich. Four words for you: Tremont on the Common.
NB even the tenants in the rendering look like they are getting ready to jump
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Agree. But based on Druker's PR over the years - charitable contributions front and center - a legacy is important to him.
 
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tobyjug said:
The “Drucker legacy”? That’s rich. Four words for you: Tremont on the Common.
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So now the sins of the father are being visited on the son? Sounds . . . downright un-American, if you ask me.

[And it's not as if there aren't a sufficiency of conspicous, large-scale redevelopments in the downtown core, for which the non-expired Druker is responsible, that we can critique...]
 
https://www.bostonpreservation.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/350-Boylston-Street_PNF.pdf

^^^ Cover has a rendering of Pelli's 2007 design. There are additional renderings i n Appendix A. (The elevations look more restrained than the renderings.)

The PNF narrates the history of the Shreve Crump and Low building, i.e., the Arlington Building. As originally built in 1904, the Arlington St. facade was not a facade, but a brick party wall, as Arlington St. ended at Boylston. When Arlington St. was extended, the Arlington St. facade was created, copying the Boylston St. facade. However, this appears to be a veneer treatment (which can be seen at the Arlington St. / Providence St. corner). As the Arlington Building was originally a commercial row building, and not a corner building, this would explain the full building-width fire escapes for all upper floors on Providence St. The Salem-based architect for the Arlington Building was named Rantoul, whose practice centered on building fine homes and mansions on the North Shore.

In 1930, the Boylston St facade was modified to introduce an Art Deco motif.

If one concedes that, for the several reasons stated in the PNF, the core of the Arlington Building must be demolished, then retention of the Arlington and Boylston facades becomes a facadectomy. And I suspect neither facade could survive such a treatment, which leaves the option of replicating what was done with the Little Building.

The Boston Preservation Alliance met with Stern in October 2019, and it appears, following that meeting, that no serious objection was raised by the Alliance to the project going forward.
 
stellarfun said:
https://www.bostonpreservation.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/350-Boylston-Street_PNF.pdf

^^^ Cover has a rendering of Pelli's 2007 design. There are additional renderings i n Appendix A. (The elevations look more restrained than the renderings.)

The PNF narrates the history of the Shreve Crump and Low building, i.e., the Arlington Building. As originally built in 1904, the Arlington St. facade was not a facade, but a brick party wall, as Arlington St. ended at Boylston. When Arlington St. was extended, the Arlington St. facade was created, copying the Boylston St. facade. However, this appears to be a veneer treatment (which can be seen at the Arlington St. / Providence St. corner). As the Arlington Building was originally a commercial row building, and not a corner building, this would explain the full building-width fire escapes for all upper floors on Providence St. The Salem-based architect for the Arlington Building was named Rantoul, whose practice centered on building fine homes and mansions on the North Shore.

In 1930, the Boylston St facade was modified to introduce an Art Deco motif.

If one concedes that, for the several reasons stated in the PNF, the core of the Arlington Building must be demolished, then retention of the Arlington and Boylston facades becomes a facadectomy. And I suspect neither facade could survive such a treatment, which leaves the option of replicating what was done with the Little Building.

The Boston Preservation Alliance met with Stern in October 2019, and it appears, following that meeting, that no serious objection was raised by the Alliance to the project going forward.
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To be honest, I don't really care if this facade is historic, I care that it enhances the streetscape and that the proposed replacement is a huge downgrade.

If the building proposed here had the quality of Lovejoy Wharf, The Beacon, or Parcels N/P, I might be more willing to hear your argument.
 
Equilibria said:
To be honest, I don't really care if this facade is historic, I care that it enhances the streetscape and that the proposed replacement is a huge downgrade.
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I think you would need to take a different line of attack here, while I think we would both agree the facade material and appearance on this SC&L building is superior to what is being proposed by the developer, their lawyers, and the city would probably argue that the new project has better streetscape level interaction.

The challenge is figuring out how to argue that the current facade is superior to the proposed one in a way that can tangibly demonstrate the new one causes harm compared to the old one. Tall task.
 
According to the 2007 PNF, one alternative examined was preserving the east and north facades of the Arlington Building. The three other adjacent buildings on Boylston that are part of the proposed development were/are to be demolished. These other three buildings comprise the major portion of the site. Regrettably, the PNF does not discuss why this alternative was discarded.

AFAIK, after Shreve, Crump & Low moved out in 2005, the two story ground floor retail space occupied by that business, has remained vacant. A 17-year empty storefront on a prominent corner does not create a vibrant street presence.

Yvonne Abraham takes up equilibria's cause (in 2008)

....That inexplicably moribund block of Boylston Street, between Arlington and Berkeley, definitely needs developing. And Druker has done some nice buildings in Boston - Atelier 505 at Tremont and Berkeley, for example. But the Cesar Pelli design he is planning for this site isn't shaping up to be one of them.

Blocky and dense, the renowned architect's proposal is singularly unspectacular. Like so many buildings constructed in the last two decades, it gestures awkwardly toward the city's history instead of moving in a new direction, its enormous bay windows and its segmented façade echoing a row of brownstones. It's incredibly tame, unlike Pelli's other models.

If you're going to break people's hearts by erasing a beloved building rather than incorporating it into a new development, then for heaven's sake, propose something truly spectacular in its place.
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http://archive.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/11/26/smashing_a_jewel/
 
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