It's fine as is I guess, mostly because it will hopefully be blocked by something built over the pike parcel/"park" across the street. I want that parcel and the larger one next to it (across from Club Cafe/Mitchell Gold Bob Williams along with that parking lot) covered and built on almost as much as I want the ones by Hynes on Boylston covered. I really hope those happen in the next 10-15 years.
Stanhope Hotel | 39 Stanhope Street | Back Bay
- Thread starter Equilibria
- Start date
I bet they are on the lot line. Not great urbanism
The Brookline Bank building to the west on Clarendon is going nowhere. To the east is the Boston Living Center, which is dedicated to helping those with HIV/AIDS. I believe they own the building and I think it would take the irradication of AIDS to make them move.
The one guarantee is that a tall building will go over the pike. That, combined with the new tower on Stuart already approved, and well, good bye views. This building will end up in very much the same position as the new res building on Lagrange St. It's clearly worth it to build here, but big money spent on the facade is probably a liability.
The good: Facadectomy is 100x better than a demolition, and it shoehorns some extra residential density into the area.
The bad: Tough to tell from the quality of the renders but it doesn't look like a design to be particularly proud of.
The miscellaneous: The diagrams near the end show this to be 265' to the top.
The bad: Tough to tell from the quality of the renders but it doesn't look like a design to be particularly proud of.
The miscellaneous: The diagrams near the end show this to be 265' to the top.
stick n move
Superstar
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2009
- Messages
- 11,191
- Reaction score
- 15,367
The rendering is bad quality but nothing about the building seems egregious at all. Bonus points for keeping the two story building. This is a perfectly fine background building.
stick n move
Superstar
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2009
- Messages
- 11,191
- Reaction score
- 15,367
Same.
That's probably not likely to happen, but the next best thing would be if they closed Stanhope St. to traffic and turned it into something like Congress Square/Quaker Lane was supposed to be.
Whatever happened to that anyway? Anyone know if it's dead, or just waiting for a stable post-COVID environment to emerge?
Blackbird
Senior Member
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2014
- Messages
- 1,172
- Reaction score
- 1,679
Then those sides should definitely have some windows.
Well, "dead" in the sense that the 15-19 Congress St. proposal hasn't any activity on it in exactly three years? That would appear to be the necessary catalyst here in terms of changing Quaker Lane's disposition.
Otherwise, of course, the remainder of the redevelopment ringing Quaker Lane took place, with Hyatt Centric having opened on the western flank and 40 Water having been renovated on the southern flank...
bigpicture7
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 5, 2016
- Messages
- 3,762
- Reaction score
- 8,699
I know, I don't get why render artists don't just indulge in sprinkling in some exaggerated vibrancy in the facade materials, perfect mediterranean weather conditions, glorious sunset-hued lighting, wet glossy streets even though its sunny out, lots of lush green foliage growing out of every exterior crevice, streets filled with happy smiling avatars all vastly exceeding average stereotypical attractiveness, gorgeous you-know-it's-getting-VE'd exterior detailing, and a viewing angle only obtainable if one's eyes were 150-feet up and embedded in a (magically transparent) MBTA vent shaft.
THEN, no one on aB would complain about the render ; )
Last edited:
They should at least have put something together that showed the materials to be used instead of the generic MS paint grays and blues we have here.
bigpicture7
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 5, 2016
- Messages
- 3,762
- Reaction score
- 8,699
I'm fully with you. I was just mocking how, at the other end of the spectrum, many of the aesthetically gorgeous renders we see are equally useless in providing a realistic sense of what the building will actually look like once built.
By the way, Catherine Carlock is another really good twitter feed for Boston dev news.
Fucking Globe... this is anything but a "quiet corner". IDK why but that title is really rubbing me the wrong way. Between the Friendly Toast and Flour during the day, then the Red Lantern, Mistral, and Club Cafe, that area is hopping constantly. I literally logged back in just to complain about this
I'm glad they're preserving the facade, although a bit more of a setback would have been appreciated. Don't really care much about the tower materials, a background building here is fine with the Old Hancock and Liberty Mutual right nearby.
Like others have said, this one is more about the fabric of the area than just the individual building. There's a story to be told in these old stables and how they once supported the adjacent tony townhouses, and that story is lost if you look at every building in a vacuum.
Multiple realities exist simultaneously and we just have to learn to live with them...
On the one hand: everything you say re: the normally vibrant/bustling restaurant/club scene on Stanhope is 100% true.
On the other hand: imagine that someone set up six pedestrian traffic monitors at the following intersections
Stuart & Berkeley
Stuart & Clarendon
Columbus & Berkeley
Columbus & Clarendon
one outside Red Lantern (39 Stanhope)
one outside Walgreens (19 Stanhope)
Over the course of a year, I bet the first four pedestrian monitors would each log at least 10x the total pedestrian volume of the two Stanhope monitors. Which is to say: compared to the immediate vicinity, Stanhope is a "quiet corner," and there's nothing wrong with the Globe's assertion.
Equilibria
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 6, 2007
- Messages
- 7,000
- Reaction score
- 8,123
BCDC: https://bpda.app.box.com/s/23f57pfruoh7lbu2di0twoo90k1birv8
Proposing to pedestrianize Stanhope in front of the hotel.
Proposing to pedestrianize Stanhope in front of the hotel.