South Station Tower | South Station Air Rights | Downtown

Its been so long that the internet literally was not what it is today lol so I honestly have no idea where to find an article about it, or know if any exist.

Basically though since the early 90s there has been plans in one form or another to build a tower on top of South Station (the air rights were aquired in 1991.) Once the big dig went under construction there was a whole hell of a lot of construction going on all around South Station. Part of it included extending i90 under the tracks to Logan, the silver line tunneling at the other end of South Station, and they also connected the pike trench to the new CAT by the financial center. So they had a chance while this was going on to get this done for the future project.

Whenever the tower has changed it always keeps the same general shape due to the foundations. First it lost the spire, and this most recent version just got thinner at the top for condos instead of offices, but the general outline is always the same.
 
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Meanwhile, during the same time in NYC (well, over ~15 years or so), Hudson Yards was rezoned, property was sold / snatched up by eminent domain, a massive open train yard was decked over and 4 supertalls were built over over active tracks supporting the busiest train station in North America. The land and station are covered by the city, state and Port Authority agencies to boot.

This is ridiculous, Boston.
 
chrisbrat said:
no it's not. racing to do shit got us government center. if they take their time and get this right then that's fine by me. also, i'm sick of the NYC comparisions. this ain't new york. fuck new york.
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Who is racing? Iterations of this have been on the drawing board since the 1960's, and the current proposal has been something like 10 years and counting. This is probably the least appropriate project in the history of Boston to make that comment.
 
chrisbrat said:
also, i'm sick of the NYC comparisions. this ain't new york. fuck new york.
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Liked.

Anyways the post earlier got me thinking. Ive heard about it a million times, but I dont think Ive ever actually seen a document before that references the below grade foundations/piles.

Now there was not a whole lot of things going up on the internet during the big dig, so it makes sense that theres not a whole lot of information about this, but I cant find anything at all. I have a feeling if the information does exist its buried in some obscure documents that arent about the tower, because its foundation work that was tied into a separate project a long time ago. Does anyone have some legit no shit documentation about this? I looked on Bostonplans, but theres really not a whole lot on there besides the most recent iteration of the project. There is however some pictures showing the exact placement of the above ground portion of the foundation in regards to the station and platforms. Anyways if someone knows where to look Id be interested.
 
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So Hines has held these air rights for 40+ years with no return? How are air rights taxed? Im sorry, don’t yell at me if that’s a dumb question.
 
George_Apley said:
I don't think air rights can be separately assessed as real property for taxation purposes.
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I think this is right.

Mass. Const. art. XLIV: “Full power and authority are hereby given and granted to the general court to impose and levy a tax on income in the manner hereinafter provided. Such tax may be at different rates upon income derived from different classes of property, but shall be levied at a uniform rate throughout the commonwealth upon incomes derived from the same class of property.”

Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 59 § 2A outlines four property classifications: residential, commercial, industrial, open space. I don't think individual pieces of a classified parcel (e.g. the land, the structure, any air rights) can be taxed at different rates -- the parcel as a whole has to be taxed at a single rate.
 
So, as I'm interpreting it, the tower will be taxed once it's built, but the award of the rights to build in the space over the station are not taxed. Given that South Station is state property, I don't think there are any taxes paid on that land or the air above it.
 
IIRC, the foundation footings were constructed as part of the electrification of the NEC and the refurbishment of South Station itself. The tracks were rebuilt and the Federal Railroad Administration paid for much of the cost. This was about 20 years ago, and coincident with the Big Dig.

According to this MIT report from 2003, development of air rights over the platforms was part of the original scheme.

Again IIRC, the thinking was that if foundations were put in after electrification, this would be very disruptive for train travel into South Station.

Equilibria said:
www.bostonglobe.com

Work on long-delayed South Station tower may finally start - The Boston Globe

More than a decade after it was first proposed, construction of a 51-story tower atop South Station could soon start, now that its builders have lined up deep-pocketed new investors.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

Also implies that these investors are willing to build a billion-plus tower on-spec:
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I don't think its entirely on spec.

Looking at Salesforce's office in Boston currently, they occupy 30,000 sq ft at 500 Boylston, and a floor or two in a building on Mass Ave in Cambridge.

When one goes to Salesforce office locations, Boston is listed, but nothing further is provided.. Click on Atlanta, this description link opens.
www.salesforce.com

Home

New tips, trends, and insights from the world's leading enterprise cloud ecosystem.
www.salesforce.com www.salesforce.com

Note the employee ramp-up pace.

Salesforce has about 130 open positions in Boston, but a fair percentage of Salesforce's employees apparently work remotely.

As for the four year construction schedule at South Station, as was done at North Station, a low-level office podium was ready for occupancy, while a tower is built above it.
 
Czervik.Construction said:
Meanwhile, during the same time in NYC (well, over ~15 years or so), Hudson Yards was rezoned, property was sold / snatched up by eminent domain, a massive open train yard was decked over and 4 supertalls were built over over active tracks supporting the busiest train station in North America. The land and station are covered by the city, state and Port Authority agencies to boot.

This is ridiculous, Boston.
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You gotta stop comparing everything to NYC. Its really obnoxious and I'm very tired of it. Everything you mention somehow relates back to NY. STOP. If I wanted to hear about NY and it's development (which I do sometimes) I go to NY specific forums.
 
stick n move said:
Yea, but the point is that the foundations were already done a long time ago, so theyre not starting from scratch and dont have that 1-2 years of foundation work before it starts to rise like other towers.
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It's great that some foundation elements are already in place. That doesn't necessarily mean that there is no work to be done. There is probably also some significant complexity to building the platform above the tracks that will then support the rest of the building while continuing to operate one of the busiest rail terminals in the country. You can't discount these added layers and write them off just from the existing prep work.
 
Relax, homey. It was a comment on how this is taking ridiculously long and the complexity of it is not an excuse for this to be not done yet. I am sorry that you cannot see through that.

I've gone through this at length before, my comparisons to NYC are never "In New York [everything one could compare to Boston] it is better". I lived in Boston a long time ago and love to see the progress of the city (this project notwithstanding). Boston is a special city. I have lived in NYC for a long time and compare local projects and developments to support or refute an argument as evidence for my point because it is what I know and what I see each day.

I am sure your heart is in the right place, but your comments make us out of towners feel less welcome on ArchBoston.


Suffolk 83 said:
You gotta stop comparing everything to NYC. Its really obnoxious and I'm very tired of it. Everything you mention somehow relates back to NY. STOP. If I wanted to hear about NY and it's development (which I do sometimes) I go to NY specific forums.
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Suffolk 83 said:
You gotta stop comparing everything to NYC. Its really obnoxious and I'm very tired of it. Everything you mention somehow relates back to NY. STOP. If I wanted to hear about NY and it's development (which I do sometimes) I go to NY specific forums.
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I could agree with you on this sometimes, but this was a pretty apples-to-apples comparison. One city has built a mind-bogglingly large complex of buildings, while our city hasn't emerged from the starting gate.
 
Suffolk 83 said:
You gotta stop comparing everything to NYC. Its really obnoxious and I'm very tired of it. Everything you mention somehow relates back to NY. STOP. If I wanted to hear about NY and it's development (which I do sometimes) I go to NY specific forums.
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It's fine sometimes.
Not great too many times.
And definitely not good every time.
 
DZH22 said:
I could agree with you on this sometimes, but this was a pretty apples-to-apples comparison. One city has built a mind-bogglingly large complex of buildings, while our city hasn't emerged from the starting gate.
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What "starting gate"??? A "mind-bogglingly large" amount of projects have gone up in the past decade and/or are still under construction. Boston is booming. Everyone who has an NYC inferiority complex should fucking move there if they love it so much.
 
Equilibria said:
You understand that efforts to develop Hudson Yards go back to, like, 1950, right?
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This. I also don’t really get the comparison. The holdup on SST isn’t because of permitting. It’s because of financing. It’s the same challenges of every air rights project in this city. New York has more investors willing to put $Bs on the line. Boston doesn’t. It’s that simple.
 
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