South Station Tower | South Station Air Rights | Downtown

Pend978 said:
Personally remember first hearing about it in 2000 or so. Sure it goes back even further.
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1985? is when I 1st heard of this project
 
Justbuildit said:
What an absolutely depressing turd to just sit akimbo on top of one of the most important public buildings in the region. Praises we didn’t get that. 1700 parking spaces!!
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Yeah, what we're getting is clearly vastly superior. But this tower plus the next couple of planned phases will add 895 parking spaces. That's obviously less than 1700, but still a kind of absurd thing to build on top of our biggest transit hub.
 
ritchiew said:
Yeah, what we're getting is clearly vastly superior. But this tower plus the next couple of planned phases will add 895 parking spaces. That's obviously less than 1700, but still a kind of absurd thing to build on top of our biggest transit hub.
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900 parking spaces next to the busiest train and bus station in New England. This isn't a serious country.
 
Kinopio said:
900 parking spaces next to the busiest train and bus station in New England. This isn't a serious country.
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To be fair, they are building 166 high end residential units on top of the station. The kind of residences where even people who use the train also own 2 or more cars in the city.

People who live in Ritz Carlton Residences don't take the Peter Pan bus to Springfield.
 
Some amount of parking expansion was always going to be part of this project, what with there being three levels of it already on top of the existing Bus Station - it made sense to carry that across. The 2006 project originally only had 755 spaces - but it also only included 127 residential units. When they expanded Residential to the high rise, instead of just the midrise, they ended up with an additional 2 parking levels to end up with 895.

Keep in mind that all this "substructure" work - the expanded parking garage, Bus station etc, is intended to support two additional buildings. Looking at the ratios, it's 460 spots for the office portion, with the remaining 435 to be allocated to other uses. This project could, emphasis on could, include between 435 and 550 residential units, whenever Phase 2 gets underway - No one is likely to buy a multimillion dollar condo without a parking spot, on top of a Transportation hub or not - see any of the new build luxury towers, so the only scenario they presented where residential gets a parking ratio <1 is when the mid rise units are rentals. If Phase 2 turns out to be entirely a hotel... 116 commercial or visitor spaces is admittedly wholly excessive, and it's open to debate whether 460 is generally too many for the office portion, but that appears to have followed the BTD/ZBA's requirements as they existed back in 2016. (Post 2021 the max is 0.35/1000sqft)
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This building dominates the skyline from the south,as someone who arrived in Boston in the early 80’s I’ve watched the skyline almost double in size.To see buildings downtown taller than 100 Federal and One Financial pl is something I never thought I’d see! I hope I live long enough to see something eclipse the Hancock tower in the Back Bay 🌆
 
Boston02124 said:
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This building dominates the skyline from the south,as someone who arrived in Boston in the early 80’s I’ve watched the skyline almost double in size.To see buildings downtown taller than 100 Federal and One Financial pl is something I never thought I’d see! I hope I live long enough to see something eclipse the Hancock tower in the Back Bay 🌆
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Same for me! I arrived in the mid-80's. I like this project a lot, but I just hope care is taken to refresh the Main South Station Concourse into something spectacular. Currently, it's a bit dirty around the edges and not the great public space it should be. The outdoor concourse with the arches should be really nice, but I hope there is an additional project that kicks off to refresh and upgrade the interior concourse. As we've mentioned before, it will be MUCH darker now without the glass wall, and the ceiling is pretty grungy. The kiosks and waiting areas are not as nice as they used to be.
 
Not tower-specific (related to the previous post, though), but the last few times I've been there at night, in addition to the once-impressive uplighting of the headhouse being no more, the lit clock only has one small portion that remains illuminated -- you can see what I'm talking about in the second pic from post #4458. Really looks poorly maintained and in a state of considerable disrepair. I'd hope they address the aesthetic state of the station, itself, ASAP. The contrast between a gleaming, brand-new luxe high-rise and a busted, falling-apart iconic structure at base will be unsettling.
 
Anybody have an idea when the new section of the train platform will open?
 
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