South Station Tower | South Station Air Rights | Downtown

[RandomWalk]

Re: South Station Tower

I am probably in the minority on this board, but this is one development I wish would die. The tower, in all its various incarnations, relegates South Station to a chair rail. The rest of the buildings do nothing to fix the surly beast of a bus terminal.

Instead, I would rather see the whole thing re-envisioned along with the USPS redevelopment. Demolish the Fidelity (nee Stone & Webster) building along with the USPS facility. Re-extend South Station down Summer St to Fort Point Channel, but not necessarily with a cheap clone of what used to be there. Push the commercial development closer to Fort Point Channel, and enclose the tracks in a glass train shed (a la St Pancras or King's Cross). With the rise of alternative intercity bus terminal points in the Boston area (e.g. Alewife) it might even be possible to justify getting rid of the bus terminal.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

Re: South Station Tower

I am probably in the minority on this board, but this is one development I wish would die. The tower, in all its various incarnations, relegates South Station to a chair rail. The rest of the buildings do nothing to fix the surly beast of a bus terminal.

I agree with you on everything except the bus terminal. While it ain't pretty it is in the prefect spot for the most part. They need to rethink South Station now that it is in need of expanding and building a tower on top would do more harm than good.

Being able to enter the city via train and SEE the city as you walk down the platform is a joy that has been lost in most American cities. Remove the Post Office and you have the opportunity to build an expanded bus terminal, a tower, and keep the train shed idea.

I would hesitate to suggest that the tower be built over the main building because it would only end up looking like the Hearst Tower on 8th Ave in NYC and I truly hate that building (the old base with new tower is something that is all too often fucked up).

 

[PaulC]

Re: South Station Tower

This won't be built until there is a lease for a large percentage of the building. There are few large corporations located in Boston needing that much space compared to the past when most of our high-rises were built as corporate headquarters. I would much rather see the buildings at South Station and North Station be hotel instead of office and residences. It's nice to get off a train or bus and walk to your hotel room.

 

[Spectorsky]

Re: South Station Tower

I am probably in the minority on this board, but this is one development I wish would die. The tower, in all its various incarnations, relegates South Station to a chair rail. *** Demolish the Fidelity (nee Stone & Webster) building along with the USPS facility. Re-extend South Station down Summer St to Fort Point Channel, but not necessarily with a cheap clone of what used to be there.

Actually, the classical South Station facade that once extended all the way along Summer St. to Dorchester Ave. was, itself, a cheap clone of the original facade, which went only about 2/3 of the way down (i.e., the remaining original section plus an equivalent length now missing) with a one-story utilitarian section covering the rest of the present Fidelity frontage. Eventually the upper stories of the station headhouse were extended all the way along Summer St., but the resulting composition was irrational and also resulted in imbalance with the Atlantic Avenue facade. Thus, a restoration of "what used to be there" - originally - would extend the existing multistory facade across the present gap and only a short distance onto the Fidelity frontage, but would also require a similar extension along Atlantic, where the current (1990s reconstructed) wing was designed to be symmetrical with the present, by-then truncated Summer St. facade.

As you probably know, RandomWalk, South Station originally also featured a huge glass and steel trainshed like what you admire at St. Pancras etc., but corrosive salt air eventually took its toll and it became unsafe and was demolished in the late 1920s.

I'm with you, RandomWalk, in your "this is one development I wish would die" sentiment. Your "chair rail" image sums up a concept for South Station that is little or no better than some of the early '60s schemes for Grand Central Terminal that would have done the same. The appropriation of the shells of historic buildings as podiums for tower developments seems to have its fetish admirers of similar bent to the "whoa, cool, the skyline needs this"-level of commentary sometimes appearing in this forum.

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

Re: South Station Tower

This won't be built until there is a lease for a large percentage of the building. There are few large corporations located in Boston needing that much space compared to the past when most of our high-rises were built as corporate headquarters. I would much rather see the buildings at South Station and North Station be hotel instead of office and residences. It's nice to get off a train or bus and walk to your hotel room.

Q4 2014 marked the first time in a year and a half that the downtown submarkets outperformed the suburbs, as the downtown vacancy rate fell by 10 bps to 12.2% and the suburban vacancy rate remained unchanged at 16.3%. A majority of markets continued to see their vacancy rates fall during the quarter, with rates falling in 34 of the 63 U.S. office markets tracked, rising in 24 and unchanged in five. Consistent with recent quarters, smaller markets were among the best performers; vacancy rates in Baltimore, San Antonio and Stamford fell by 130 bps, 130 bps and 120 bps to 13.2%, 17.4% and 16.6% respectively.

Overall Downtown Boston Office Space:
76,732,186 Total SF
16.2% Availability
8.1% Vacancy
1.2% Sublease
1,275,508 YTD Absorption (SF)
$47.26 Avg Asking Rent ($/SF)

South Station Office Space:
1,464,525 Total SF
13.6% Availability
2.7% Vacancy
0.0% Sublease
82,865 YTD Absorption (SF)
$40.63 Avg Asking Rent ($/SF)

Someone else can come in here and tell me if I'm reading those numbers wrong but office space in downtown Boston appears to be outperforming the national market and that 2.7% vacancy at South Station would appear to make new office construction a pretty safe bet even without pre-leasing large sections of the building and with rent $/SF lower than the city average.

I'll tentatively agree with some of the other sentiments here that the overall plan needs to be rethought, but I won't go so far as to say dumping the office component is the right play. I think I'd prefer to see a better mix of office-retail-hotel, and I think that this is the wrong spot for a heavy residential component when there are other sections of the city which desperately need a huge influx of new mid-range residential units to depress prices (especially South Boston and Allston/Brighton, I'd also say Government Center if I didn't know that there was zero chance of anything in the mid-range actually being built there), but I remain cautiously optimistic about the prospect of construction here.

Of course, the fact that this whole thing is tied into South Station Expansion is problematic for other reasons, but that's a topic for a different thread.

 

[Max Power]

Re: South Station Tower

I'd say the best use here from a regional standpoint has to be office and then probably hotel. Being directly above a transit hub incentivizes use of public transport as opposed to other modes, lessening the impact of traffic on the city when compared to building in other areas (say the seaport). I'd like to see a large office component for the back bay/north station proposals for that same reason.

There's plenty of office demand in the city, and lots being built/been built in the past few years. However, it's been in the form of mid rise, and mostly outside of the core. PWC, goodwin procter, liberty mutual, 888 boylston, partners in assembly, channel center, there's others I'm missing, but the point still stands. Office nowadays is the realm of midrise projects rather than the ego towers of the past, for better or worse. This is somewhat to the detriment to the city as it spreads employment centers rather than concentrating them. It's more efficient to have people going straight to south station via red/commuter rather than having them switch to silver/having most say screw taking a bus and drive in instead, choking our roadways further.

 

[RandomWalk]

Re: South Station Tower

I was aware of the old train shed, but I expect that material science has advanced to the point where the corrosive effect of the sea air could be mitigated. I was also envisioning something a bit lighter and more transparent than what was there. Perhaps Berlin Hauptbahnhof would be a better example.

The whole concept reminds me of the Pan Am/Metlife building at Grand Central. In that case, I recall that it was the result of a compromise after the destruction of Penn Station led to the creation of a Landmarks Commission in NYC. The original plan was going to be much closer to what is proposed at South Station.

I would want to see a combination of uses at the site, but move them out toward the edges and let the shed be a centerpiece public room for the city. That's partially why I want to see the bus terminal moved. I agree that it's a near ideal location for the use, but the implementation could use a lot of help. Perhaps move the terminal toward the USPS parcel and extend the train shed glass over some of the ramps to the terminal.

 

[davem]

Re: South Station Tower

I agree the tower should go along the fort point, with a train shed reconstructed above the tracks. I'd also like to see that park along Atlantic Ave between the train and bus terminals developed as a midrise, with an actual concourse to connect the two instead of narrow track 1's platform.

Historic photo dump time! (click the links for full resolution)
Track and floor plan:

Transverse Section, Fort Point side:

Transverse Section, Atlantic Ave side:

Longitudinal Section, Tower 1 side:

Longitudinal Section, Summer St side:

Construction Series, taken from "The Wentworth": (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Fun fact: the three main entrances facing Dewey Square were built for carriages to drive through.

Train Shed undergoing demolition:

About where the bus terminal is now:

Inside the shed: (one of my favorite pics ever)

The waiting room (part reused as today's ticket office):

Postcard, from before the extension down Summer St: (no high res)

And finally, South Station at it's absolute worst: (no high res)

IIRC, the train shed's demise was the mixture of the sea air with corrosive soot from the engines, along with lack of maintenance. Personally, I'd love to see the shed reconstructed using galvanized steel and low-e glass. It would be beyond gorgeous. I've yet to do it, but I've been tossing around the idea of virtually rebuilding it according to those plans. I also wish they would restore the awning that used to run along Summer and Atlantic. They were integral to the structure and there from day one, and would provide a great waiting area for buses and taxis. Not to mention some awesome signage could be placed on top.

 

[fattony]

Re: South Station Tower

I'd say the best use here from a regional standpoint has to be office and then probably hotel. Being directly above a transit hub incentivizes use of public transport as opposed to other modes, lessening the impact of traffic on the city when compared to building in other areas (say the seaport). I'd like to see a large office component for the back bay/north station proposals for that same reason.

There's plenty of office demand in the city, and lots being built/been built in the past few years. However, it's been in the form of mid rise, and mostly outside of the core. PWC, goodwin procter, liberty mutual, 888 boylston, partners in assembly, channel center, there's others I'm missing, but the point still stands. Office nowadays is the realm of midrise projects rather than the ego towers of the past, for better or worse. This is somewhat to the detriment to the city as it spreads employment centers rather than concentrating them. It's more efficient to have people going straight to south station via red/commuter rather than having them switch to silver/having most say screw taking a bus and drive in instead, choking our roadways further.

I agreed with your assessment that office and hotel in a SS tower is the right move precisely because it is the city's biggest transit hub. However, you lost me in the bolded sentence. Isn't decentralizing within an urban context generally a good thing? Interspersing employment with retail and residential is the essence of mixed-use. A downtown concentrated employment center increases peak time commuting, even if it is by transit, which is wasteful of transportation infrastructure. We don't want density to drop (becoming suburban), but we should strive for diversity of use within that density.

Boston's multiple employment centers are a strength in my book, not a weakness. Some manner of urban ring that links the 2 secondary employment centers (Kendall and LMA) to each other and beyond while bypassing the core (BB and Downtown) will be a boon to those centers as well as the core itself. The hub and spoke model is a weak network architecture that breaks down with increasing scale. If we keep growing like we are, we are going to push that breaking point within a decade or so.

I, for one, would love to see the USPS site get a huge dose of housing and retail along the channel. It will be expensive luxury housing, for sure, but with Seaport getting much less housing than it should I'd like to see the last major parcel of downtown waterfront go to housing instead of offices. Those are homes for people who don't need to use any more infrastructure than the sidewalks for their daily commute to FiDi, Seaport, or Fort Point.

 

[617]

Re: South Station Tower

I agree with this assessment but two things I want to add. 1. USPS appears to be planted where they are with no plans to move. 2. There seem to be many other parcels of land in and around the seaport that are currently used as surface lots...directly next to 315 on A is a random parking lot (I think it's usps employee parking, so again more land wasted by one entity) plus numerous other lots near necco st and Gillette that could support thousand of housing units IMO. Boston needs to start building more aggressively.

 

[kz1000ps]

Re: South Station Tower

Davem, thanks for all those pics, they're great. But I have a question: what is the lower loop level used for today? Everything I've been able to find simply says they put in parking for a while but nothing about what it became after the big renovation.

 

[stellarfun]

Re: South Station Tower

Davem, thanks for all those pics, they're great. But I have a question: what is the lower loop level used for today? Everything I've been able to find simply says they put in parking for a while but nothing about what it became after the big renovation.

I have a very fuzzy recollection that some of the loop was sacrificed when AMTRAK put in the footings for the tower, or when the Red Line / Silver Line connection was built, or when the Big Dig excavated under Atlantic Ave, or a combination of the three,
_________________________

The Post Office is supposed to relocate from Fort Point to a site near the Fargo building.

 

[Max Power]

Re: South Station Tower

I agreed with your assessment that office and hotel in a SS tower is the right move precisely because it is the city's biggest transit hub. However, you lost me in the bolded sentence. Isn't decentralizing within an urban context generally a good thing? Interspersing employment with retail and residential is the essence of mixed-use. A downtown concentrated employment center increases peak time commuting, even if it is by transit, which is wasteful of transportation infrastructure. We don't want density to drop (becoming suburban), but we should strive for diversity of use within that density.

Boston's multiple employment centers are a strength in my book, not a weakness. Some manner of urban ring that links the 2 secondary employment centers (Kendall and LMA) to each other and beyond while bypassing the core (BB and Downtown) will be a boon to those centers as well as the core itself. The hub and spoke model is a weak network architecture that breaks down with increasing scale. If we keep growing like we are, we are going to push that breaking point within a decade or so.

I, for one, would love to see the USPS site get a huge dose of housing and retail along the channel. It will be expensive luxury housing, for sure, but with Seaport getting much less housing than it should I'd like to see the last major parcel of downtown waterfront go to housing instead of offices. Those are homes for people who don't need to use any more infrastructure than the sidewalks for their daily commute to FiDi, Seaport, or Fort Point.

Yeah probably didn't word it as best as I could. I don't disagree with you regarding mixed use. Guess what I'm trying to say is that there should be incentives to get office space in the best spots for mass transit, rather than in harder to access areas.

 

[underground]

Re: South Station Tower

USPS appears to be planted where they are with no plans to move

There's already land down in the Seaport that's penciled in for their move. I believe it's still VERY up in the air, but there's definitely the starting of a plan at least.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

Re: South Station Tower

IIRC the loops were only used a couple of times as the engines were still coal powered and they never designed a proper ventilation system. From what I remember they were ripped out in the renovation.

 

[davem]

Re: South Station Tower

I fucking hate having a souxh screen instead of my droid 3, can't type for shit. Anyway, iirc the loop is basically gone. It was a bowling alley and parking for a while, and the most recent renovation destroyed all of it. I think some might have been used for silver line stuff.

 

[type001]

Re: South Station Tower

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that you will see something rise out of Winthrop Sq before anything happens at South Station.

 

[bobthebuilder]

Re: South Station Tower

I heard of expanding the bus terminal as being part of the south station expansion/tower project, but hadn't really seen any information on it. Just stumbled across this on an architect's site and figured it was worth sharing. Probably old, but interesting, I think.

http://www.bi-arch.com/portfolio/south-station-bus-terminal-expansion/

 

[George_Apley]

Re: South Station Tower

Yeah, I heard the BT expansion would be a mirror of the south side terminal, doubling capacity.

 

[type001]

Re: South Station Tower

A positive update... Hines updated the description on their website. Construction is expected to begin in early 2017. There is also a new higher resolution version of the rendering.

https://www.hines.com/properties/south-station-boston