The Boulevard (née The Times/Littlest Bar) | 110 Broad St | Downtown

[bigpicture7]

^Whigh, no one forced them to start demolishing the Bulfinch building before they had secured the air rights. They could have waited what turned out to be only a few weeks.

 

[whighlander]

^Whigh, no one forced them to start demolishing the Bulfinch building before they had secured the air rights. They could have waited what turned out to be only a few weeks.

BigPicture -- This is nothing like the Vornado Filene's debacle

The key point in this situation was that the developer apparently had in place enough short-term financing to hire Derenzo to take down the other non-historic structure and to stabilize the key walls of the Bulfinch Building

So why not get the project underway while the longer term and larger scale financing was being finalized

 

[Suffolk 83]

Whigh, not sure why youre arguing for the developer here, I echo bigpictures sentiment that theres absolutely no reason to demolish buildings before financing is secured, permitting is secured, all necessary agreements are made etc etc. There should be zero loopholes regardless of the situation. It took them a week to knock the building down and maybe another week to clear the site. Not that it matters.

Vornado had enough short term financing to knock down the Filene's building, what good did that do the city and its residents?!? Your argument doesn't really hold water for me

 

[whighlander]

Whigh, not sure why youre arguing for the developer here, I echo bigpictures sentiment that theres absolutely no reason to demolish buildings before financing is secured, permitting is secured, all necessary agreements are made etc etc. There should be zero loopholes regardless of the situation. It took them a week to knock the building down and maybe another week to clear the site. Not that it matters.

Vornado had enough short term financing to knock down the Filene's building, what good did that do the city and its residents?!? Your argument doesn't really hold water for me

Suffolk -- Vornado was not really planning to do much of anything at least not until the pain grew unbearable -- the bastard admitted it in an interview -- neither here nor in NYC

These folks have a realistic plan that the city has agreed to in all manner [missing only the technical issue of air rights]

Other than some perverse attraction by some to the Times Bar -- this is a win for everyone concerned.

The best of the facade of the historic but clearly in poor condition Bulfinch Building [and not really a significant building -- essential Federal Perior "Infill"] is being preserved and incorporated into modern residences opening right onto the Greenway

A fasciectomy -- Yes -- but almost a graft of a Federal facade onto a modern building

 

[Suffolk 83]

I disagree with everything you just wrote but to each theyre own.

So we're just supposed use judgement about who is authentic and who's not?

 

[Boston02124]

Today

 

[AmericanFolkLegend]

Why rush to demo this building if your not remotely prepared to start construction?
Seems like a rush to spend money without improving the schedule.

 

[odurandina]

An earlier render had seemed so much nicer.

i was warming to it.....

I havent payed attention to this until like 2 days ago but this actually looks good and meshes with the surrounding area. I went through the entire thread these have not been shown here, although very similar renders have. This is the design we currently stand with at the moment. Not bad if I do say so myself. I agree with other posters on here let the Custom house tower be shown. 99.9% chance whatever would have been built here if they went tall would not have been better. Anybody can have a skinny glass tower in 2016, nobody else can have a Custom House tower.

good cheer all around.....

I'm liking these renderings. Apparently sanity prevailed.

Depending on what that bronze portion of the facade is made of if they keep this it looks amazing.

I REALLY love seeing contrast like this when I walk around cities. I also just noticed the band of granite/concrete and cladding just above the ground floor that wraps around the entire building and is a design nod to the older building.

I'm really curious about that bronze/metal map at eye level on the Broad Street side...

Personally, I love the shrunken BMW Z8 parked out front.

i never really knew anything about Z8's until this stunner, simply badged, 'Alpina' was parked one early evening out in front of Malibu Yogart. (i'm a Harm Lagaay lifer), but that thing was a sight to behold. Especially after the kind gentleman started that car.


in any event, life was good.

But this is Boston. Where snatching defeat from the jaws of victory can and does happen......


Next thing you know, somebody's posting this....

i don't know how a developer is allowed to erect questionable-even-for-Roxbury level garbage.

It is just another cheap looking building similar to One Canal in the Bullfinch Triangle.

Here it is in all its squat ugliness:

Absolutely fucking brutal. And people around here bitch to no end about the height of towers as if a 100 foot differential really affects them and then lets utter shit shit like this get built in high profile locations.

The Littlest Bar died for this? :-(

What exactly does the Boston Civic Design Commission do? Clearly NOT critique bad architecture or improper building placement.

then, the latest recent horrors with the demo.

what a blow.

 

[citylover94]

Your reversing the release order of those renderings I believe. The red brick and glass was an earlier version and the other was newer or at least thats what I thought.

 

[Bubbybu]

Yea the architects have the non-shit version on their webpage so I think we're in the clear.
http://faainc.com/projects/110-broad-street-boston/

Can't imagine the city letting that other glob of festering awfulness get approved in that location

 

[odurandina]

oh, shit,

thank Christ.

should i leave that up in any case.

 

[stellarfun]

But only the exterior of the building was declared a landmark; the interior had been altered over time and was not in the same original condition. Its last incarnation was as a tavern — The Littlest Bar. All that’s left are two walls that measure a scant 12 inches at their thickest, and in one fragile spot are a mere 8 inches wide. The walls are so prone to falling they need to be propped up and stabilized by steel beams.
....
Even with all the precautions, demolition crews were forced to remove one upper corner after discovering a crack in the masonry that threatened to topple a part of the wall, said project architect Jim Alexander of Finegold Alexander Architects.

“Every time I go by, I worry. I look over to make sure I don’t see anything new [happening to the facade],” Alexander said. “It’s the worry and reward of working with something like this. . . . Keeping this little piece is a big commitment.”
.....
Crews will have to dig underneath the facade to shore up the foundation to meet current codes, Alexander said. Construction is expected to take about two years.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...ndo-project/Idf3UL7XWOW5JuqiGJlAUN/story.html

 

[Randomgear]

I tend to think that the real reason for demoing the building while financing was still in progress was to hope for a good strong wind to blow the thing down. Then they might be able to build what they want on the site. Not unlike what happened with the one building at the corner of Hawley and Franklin on the Millennium site - it didn't fall down , but apparently was too damaged to keep.

 

[statler]

I thought I heard that the 1905 Building at the Filene's site just didn't fit Millennium's plans so they petitioned to raze it. And since people wanted the hole filled no matter what, it was granted? I don't remember hearing that it was damaged.

 

[Equilibria]

I tend to think that the real reason for demoing the building while financing was still in progress was to hope for a good strong wind to blow the thing down. Then they might be able to build what they want on the site. Not unlike what happened with the one building at the corner of Hawley and Franklin on the Millennium site - it didn't fall down , but apparently was too damaged to keep.

Okay, but that's wildly inconsistent with everything they say in the Globe article.

 

[bigpicture7]

Okay, but that's wildly inconsistent with everything they say in the Globe article.

The Globe article is a feel-good story, conveying that clearly the architect wants to save it. Also, the article highlights the complexity of the project and code compliance. But the article does not speak to the decision-making and financial choices behind the preservation process. As we've discussed many times on this thread, the bracing job absolutely could have been done more robustly...I don't blame the architect for this. But someone did it on the cheap relative to how it could have been done.
Take-away: there's multiple interests involve here, some clearly and legitimately concerned with preservation...others perhaps less so.

 

[dirtywater]

I thought I heard that the 1905 Building at the Filene's site just didn't fit Millennium's plans so they petitioned to raze it. And since people wanted the hole filled no matter what, it was granted? I don't remember hearing that it was damaged.

Correct. It had nothing to do with safety. And given the failure of the previous development scheme and the hole that Millenium was prepared to fill in, Millenium had great leverage to get the City to permit the demolition.

 

[Equilibria]

The Globe article is a feel-good story, conveying that clearly the architect wants to save it. Also, the article highlights the complexity of the project and code compliance. But the article does not speak to the decision-making and financial choices behind the preservation process. As we've discussed many times on this thread, the bracing job absolutely could have been done more robustly...I don't blame the architect for this. But someone did it on the cheap relative to how it could have been done.
Take-away: there's multiple interests involve here, some clearly and legitimately concerned with preservation...others perhaps less so.

You don't know what the Globe story was or wasn't, because no one on this thread worked on the project or knows the motives of the actors, and everyone here is blinded by their fury over the loss of a dive bar they liked.

I don't think the architect or developer would cooperate with or encourage a profile on how they're saving the facade if they were setting up to rip it down. That would make no sense.

 

[dirtywater]

Blame It On Rio: Olympics Slow Construction Of Greenway Condo Tower:

After a flurry of demolition work during the spring, activity at the corner parcel at 102-110 Broad St. hit a lull this month. The upcoming foundation work requires the relocation of a major Comcast transmission line, according to one of the project architects. And the cable giant asked developers to hold off until after the closing ceremonies on Aug. 21.

 

[bigpicture7]

You don't know what the Globe story was or wasn't, because no one on this thread worked on the project or knows the motives of the actors, and everyone here is blinded by their fury over the loss of a dive bar they liked.

I don't think the architect or developer would cooperate with or encourage a profile on how they're saving the facade if they were setting up to rip it down. That would make no sense.

These are good and fair points (though I'll stand by my assertion it was a feel-good fluff piece...hehe). You are spot on that we don't know the real attitudes of the architect or developer; only those passed through the PR filter.

However, you are also generalizing ("everyone here is blinded by their fury over the loss of a dive bar they liked"). That's not what prompts my (and I would guess some others') ongoing fascination with this project. I'm legit interested in the design and cost tradeoffs of preservation methods in general; as I said, I know it's possible to spend more to reduce the risk of damage than they did. I do not know why they didn't do better - it could have been conscientious budgeting and risk appetite, it could have been ignorance, or it could have been malicious as some people theorize. For those of us interested in preservation, it's simply an interesting case study: can they damage something to this extent and stitch it back together convincingly? Some of us are just very interested to find out; maybe this is honestly more cost effective than more steelwork...but with the amount of hand work that's going to be required, I doubt it.