Skanska Office Tower | 380 Stuart Street | Back Bay

In my ideal world this would be 100-200 feet taller and incorporate the existing buildings. I do wonder about the long term opportunity costs of Boston underbuilding (or at least not pushing the limits) in some of the last developable spots in it's premier business district.

But, this was a bit of a surprise anyways and it looks like this was designed to be a quick turn around project. So it should be nice to watch a 3-star project rise rather than watch a 5 star project get hung up in years of community meetings, lawsuits, financial dealings.
 
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I add my vote to going higher in this location. I second (well, third at this point) (ETA: jpdivola slipped into third, so make that fourth) the idea of the full Atlantic Wharf treatment. By full I mean not only on preserving the façade (which I grant isn't so awesome... but is nice enough), but also on setting the hopefully tower back a step from that façade. Give them more vertical to work with if they preserve the street scape.

Some ground floor retail in a preserved façade would be great in the abstract, but I will note that that block has been a pretty dead zone for a long time. Lots of blankness on both sides of the street despite the numerous decent facades. It's not surprising a day care is in there; I'm not confident that other retail would work. The day care doesn't need walk-by foot traffic, so it's not relevant for them, but I'd worry about opening any business that needs walk-by visibility. I used to work near there, but I can't remember if the day care's been there a long time.

Not much of a render to work with, but it looks like a decent first public draft, if it were squeezed back from the preserved old façade and also squeezed upwards. The curved corners, especially the one corner where the curve to flat interface angles back as it rises: that's pretty cool. Be even better if taller and thinner.
 
Something's not right here. The Globe article says the new building will be 380 feet tall, 44 feet more than The Clarendon, and 40 feet more than 500 Boylston, but the render doesn't seem to represent that accurately.
 
I like the height of this building, it fits nicely in the mix of buildings in this area. This being said The Clarendon will more than likely not be happy about its change of views... not to mention noise of construction.
 
Couldn't agree more with the height comments from the top of the post above. Boston's only got so many place where we build tall especially in the high spine. Under building is only going to lead to urban sprawl, a flat skyline, and higher pricing with less availability... That's not just a this building problem that's just a height in Boston problem. Build for the future not just for the now.
 
So it looks as though we will continue to have a John Hancock to point to even after the past few JH buildings are renamed for street addresses, etc.:
  • New John Hancock Tower aka the "Cobb's Tower" ===> 200 Clarendon St.
  • Old John Hancock Tower aka the "Weather Beacon" [circa 1947] ==> Berkeley Building & Back Bay Events Center
  • Even Older John Hancock aka the "Other John Hancock" [circa 1923]==> 197 Clarendon Street
  • Not Quite as Old as the Other John Hancock aka "Huh" [circa 1925] ==> 380 Stuart Street -- soon to vanish to make way for the Newest John Hancock

It is too bad that the stone facade of the bottom three floors along Stuart couldn't be preserved with the new glass tower set back a bit and somewhat taller -- if the architect wanted to be clever the glass could drop to the street along the edge of the mini-park
 
Where does the building's height and density stand in terms of the recent Stuart Street zoning (completed 2012 I believe)? Is this height within the current zoning as of right?

Also - did JH say they were hiring additional employees or consolidating offices outside the city (Westwood) and moving employees to Boston location? Manulife really seems bullish on Boston.
 
I'd much rather they swap this with a parcel in Seaport and build this there.
Would be much better fit.
 
I think the New New Hancock looks perfect as is. Balances itself perfectly with the Old Old Hancock, and with the surrounding structures. Something taller would knock everything off-kilter. The building formerly known as the New Hancock is still the big daddy casting his shadow over his babes.

Very excited to see this! What an addition to the view from the Public Garden!
 
jpdibenedetto said:
Couldn't agree more with the height comments from the top of the post above. Boston's only got so many place where we build tall especially in the high spine. Under building is only going to lead to urban sprawl, a flat skyline, and higher pricing with less availability... That's not just a this building problem that's just a height in Boston problem. Build for the future not just for the now.
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Jp -- perhaps you are new to the forum -- I will call your attention to the lack of urban sprawl of say Paris [la Ville de Paris pas La banlieue est le territoire qui entoure un centre-ville -- "les suburbs"] -- despite the near total lack of any buildings [other than churches] which could be called skyscrapers -- the historic City of Paris with its 2,265,886 people living on 105.4 sq km or 40.7 sq mi yielding a population density of 21,498/km^2 or [55,6732.2/mi*2

This is more than essentially four times as dense as the City of Boston with its 655,884 people [circa 2014 based on 2010 census] living on 48.43 sq mi or 125.41 sq km [not including water] for a density of 13,340/mi^2 or 5,151/km^2
 
Boston has a ton of empty space right now where we need to be be filling in and building taller for the future. Once those are gone older buildings like this may be more likely to be demolished. Until then we need to be filling in not tearing down. I cant believe they want to tear this building down with how much space they have to work right right next door and right around the corner. I think its time to bring back the pike air rights proposals. Either that or do an Atlantic Wharf esque development here.
 
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stick n move said:
Boston has a ton of empty space right now where we need to be be filling in and building taller for the future. Once those are gone older buildings like this may be more likely to be demolished. Until then we need to be filling in not tearing down. I cant believe they want to tear this building down with how much space they have to work right right next door and right around the corner. I think its time to bring back the pike air rights proposals. Either that or do an Atlantic Wharf esque development here.
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Stick -- sometimes the owner / developer may want to do the project without having to negotiate anything -- in this case JH/ Manulife owns the existing building is using it fully and wants to re-expand their Back Bay footprint -- its probably the easiest for them to take their own property and rebuild -- But they should have gone a bit taller to come close to the top of the Weather Beacon -- of order 400 ft.
 
I realize that I just think its not in the cities best interest to be tearing down the fabric of the city when theres plenty of open spaces.
 
stick n move said:
I realize that I just think its not in the cities best interest to be tearing down the fabric of the city when theres plenty of open spaces.
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stick -- but its also not in the city's best interest to make life more difficult for one of your largest and longest standing businesses

hence the similar bowing to the will of Liberty Mutual when a truly iconic taller tower was crying to be built on the triangle block of Stuart Berkley and Columbus to extend the edge of the Uber developed area further south and west
 
Has anyone figured out why the stated height and the rendering don't seem to match? I hadn't noticed that when I read the article.
 
To echo what everyone else is saying this proposal is far too small and "Boston" for the parcel and should be 3x as tall. There is precedent for height here and there is no lacking for demand for residential on high floors. They'd make an absolute killing.

This stretch has this very unique vernacular. It's this 30s-50s gray, stone vibe that isn't really replicated anywhere else in the city. You can just picture the hats and briefcases smoking musty cigs.

The new Liberty Mutual building hit the square right on its head. Perfect design for that space. Looks like it's always been there...only that someone chopped down the tree right in the middle. That parcel also called for a building 2x as tall.

What's proposed would be welcomed in the seaport... but it just doesn't tie this room together. Disappointing
 
^ agree 100%, we look back at the west end now and say damn they really screwed that up and erased a huge piece of history from the city. I dont want 50 years from now people thinking the same about this period in time that we demolished a bunch of history for some generic glass 30 story buildings. Where we are right now we still have a lot of history left and have mostly been filling gaps leftover from whatever time period. It needs to stay that way Boston is not some generic middle America city, there is huge potential to preserve the past but build smartly for the future

What im getting at is were doing it perfect right now. Knock down the eye sores to make space like govt ctr garage, hopefully city hall one day, etc.. Rehab older buildings like millennium tower, atlantic wharf, new converse headquarters, and fill in blank parcels like christian science, copley, north station, pretty much the entire seaport. This is working perfectly right now and theres plenty more opportunity to keep on this trend.
 
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Stuart Street is the most boring and insipid of Back Bay streets. And this project just trades one insipid concrete building for another taller and shinier insipid one. I'm neither excited nor outraged.
 
Boston Mag nails it:

Another Boring Glass Building to Rise in Boston
Yawn.

By Garrett Quinn | Boston Daily | August 5, 2015, 4:47 p.m.

Another nondescript glass building is on deck to rise into the rapidly changing Boston skyline.

John Hancock has submitted a letter of intent with the Boston Redevelopment Authority to build a $350 million, 26 story building at 380 Stuart Street. Unfortunately, the proposed structure looks like most things we’ve seen going up around Boston during the building boom: dull.

The planned 280 foot tower has some curves but it lacks characteristics that make it exciting or interesting. At first glance it resembles the largely forgettable glass office building at 33 Arch Street in Downtown Crossing that is most notable for the fact you can drive through it.

...

The proposed 380 Stuart Street building is not in line with its iconic John Hancock predecessors, now known as the Berekeley Building and 200 Clarendon, respectively. Both buildings won the Boston Society of Architects’ Harleston Parker Award for best new building at the time of their construction.

...

Full article: http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2015/08/05/boring-john-hancock-building/
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Is it really Manulife's fault that a bunch of losers decided to pass a law not to cast new shadows on the common? Blame the city, not the owners or developers.
 
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