The Hub on Causeway (née TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

Justin7 · Aug 30, 2018

markhb said:
I still think of that arcade as the world's fanciest alley.

Is there something specifically wrong with Rapid7, or do you just not like the perpendicular office signage in general?

Just dislike the sign. Probably a quick photoshop. Not a big deal.

Not a big fan of the large 100 screen either while we're on the subject and nitpicking.

More importantly, Gensler still has the old office tower design (with the spire) on their site and the schedule I've seen doesn't have this opening until mid 2021. Their is still a decent change we're not stuck with the awful design from earlier this year, right?

datadyne007 · Aug 30, 2018

Justin7 said:
Just dislike the sign. Probably a quick photoshop. Not a big deal.

Not a big fan of the large 100 screen either while we're on the subject and nitpicking.

More importantly, Gensler still has the old office tower design (with the spire) on their site and the schedule I've seen doesn't have this opening until mid 2021. Their is still a decent change we're not stuck with the awful design from earlier this year, right?

If I were Gensler, I wouldn't put the final BCDC/BPDA approved version on my site either. And no, there's no "decent chance." What was approved was the disaster we discussed for pages and is what will get built.

Justin7 · Aug 30, 2018

datadyne007 said:
If I were Gensler, I wouldn't put the final BCDC/BPDA approved version on my site either. And no, there's no "decent chance." What was approved was the disaster we discussed for pages and is what will get built.

If they're looking at finishing 3 years from now, where does that put the start date? How long does it take just to build the tower portion? That seems like a lot of time for things to change, but you seem certain.

DZH22 · Aug 30, 2018

The timing sounds ridiculous. It takes 3 years to build 20 floors? They must have the same contractor on the office tower that is working on the Congress Street Garage project.

Way back in the day I used to work at Friendly's, and we had a horribly pathetic cook who would literally make 1 hamburger at a time while all the other orders would sit on hold. That's what Boston construction feels like for the major projects, 400'-500'+. There are a solid dozen in the pipeline but we only get about 1 per year, if that! What the hell is everybody waiting for?!

lapradetom · Aug 30, 2018

DZH22 said:
The timing sounds ridiculous. It takes 3 years to build 20 floors? They must have the same contractor on the office tower that is working on the Congress Street Garage project.

Way back in the day I used to work at Friendly's, and we had a horribly pathetic cook who would literally make 1 hamburger at a time while all the other orders would sit on hold. That's what Boston construction feels like for the major projects, 400'-500'+. There are a solid dozen in the pipeline but we only get about 1 per year, if that! What the hell is everybody waiting for?!

^I would bet that the shortage of construction workers may have something to do with it. A BBJ article on August 6th of this year stated that Massachusetts faces the worst construction worker shortage in the country.

datadyne007 · Aug 30, 2018

DZH22 said:
The timing sounds ridiculous. It takes 3 years to build 20 floors? They must have the same contractor on the office tower that is working on the Congress Street Garage project.

Way back in the day I used to work at Friendly's, and we had a horribly pathetic cook who would literally make 1 hamburger at a time while all the other orders would sit on hold. That's what Boston construction feels like for the major projects, 400'-500'+. There are a solid dozen in the pipeline but we only get about 1 per year, if that! What the hell is everybody waiting for?!

lapradetom said:
^I would bet that the shortage of construction workers may have something to do with it. A BBJ article on August 6th of this year stated that Massachusetts faces the worst construction worker shortage in the country.

Not just construction workers, but there's also a shortage of contractors with a large enough office staff to draft up the shop & coordination drawings. There's a lot of massive construction projects happening in Eastern MA right now and the contractors are maxed out with jobs. There's also material & equipment shortages like crane shortages & concrete truck shortages.

odurandina · Aug 30, 2018

DZH22 said:
It takes 3 years to build 20 floors? They must have the same contractor on the office tower that is working on the Congress Street Garage project.

Way back in the day I used to work at Friendly's, and we had a horribly pathetic cook who would literally make 1 hamburger at a time while all the other orders would sit on hold. That's what Boston construction feels like for the major projects, 400'-500'+. There are a solid dozen in the pipeline but we only get about 1 per year, if that! What the hell is THAT

Very 'Toshy' (eek)

but, it's not just the highrises. Virtually everything in the Midtown/Downtown realm (that will have the most impact); a good dozen projects are progressing at 20~30% of the appropriate rate.

What about that long building with the cutout (parcel 12 or 13)? What about 55 India, Haymarket Hotel, 104 Canal, Boutique Hotel in Valenti, The 348' tower in Chinatown & ALL the Kenmore Sq projects should already be approved and u/c. If it were Cambridge, they'd be u/c or completed.

Some of these are already getting ancient/stale-ish.

chmeeee · Aug 30, 2018

I bet some of these speed up next summer when Wynn wraps up.

Czervik.Construction · Aug 30, 2018

I think you need to cool it with the "woe is me, Boston" stuff. In NYC, lots of projects are taking a long time to get finished. In Hudson Yards, where I live, the buildings around me are going 6 days a week 7am-midnight and seem to be way behind schedule.

DZH22 · Aug 30, 2018

Czervik.Construction said:
I think you need to cool it with the "woe is me, Boston" stuff. In NYC, lots of projects are taking a long time to get finished. In Hudson Yards, where I live, the buildings around me are going 6 days a week 7am-midnight and seem to be way behind schedule.

There is a difference between taking a long time to get finished and not getting started at all. Boston suffers from copious amounts of both.

Here are the 14 tallest buildings currently under construction in NYC, all topping 900' without the aid of spires. 5 of them are topped out, and 3 more are over 75% of the way up. "Woe is you" indeed.

Capture by David Z, on Flickr

odurandina · Aug 30, 2018

^^i don't like buildings much taller than 950' but, if you chop off 35' off the one at the extreme right end, it'll prolly fit at 65 Martha Rd #more in the core.

i think a few of us are more easily frustrated with Boston's recurring anti-building stasis. i'm at the extreme end of the scale. i see Boston as nice infill with a few hobby highrises--as if somebody was trying to make a point of stunted growth in the core neighborhoods.

stefal · Aug 30, 2018

odurandina said:
65 Martha Rd

drink.

Rhino · Aug 30, 2018

DZH22 said:
There is a difference between taking a long time to get finished and not getting started at all. Boston suffers from copious amounts of both.

Here are the 14 tallest buildings currently under construction in NYC, all topping 900' without the aid of spires. 5 of them are topped out, and 3 more are over 75% of the way up. "Woe is you" indeed.

Capture by David Z, on Flickr

Construction delays and long permitting/approval processes are not confined to just Boston. Almost every project I've been involved with in the NYC market the past few years has experienced construction delays, sometimes as much as 1-1.5 years. Usually the delays occurred during the excavation phase, but there can also be extensive delays due to winter weather, issuance of permits, and signoffs on in-progress work. Receiving the certificate of occupancy is also a long and arduous process (much more difficult in the NYC area in my experience, at least for residential) so even when your project is "complete" you're still not open for business.

In regards to the permitting/approval process, I agree that Boston is not efficient in that area; however, that is something shared by almost all US cities. The image above doesn't outline when the predevelopment/planning process started on those projects so it seems to be more of a reflection of the market volume/demand in NYC rather than the efficiency of the permitting process. With that said, I might not be as well versed in the intricacies of the permitting process in various cities as you. If you're aware of specific strategies/methods that other cities have utilized to streamline their permitting process (and which Boston or other large cities could easily adopt) I'd love to hear more about it as I find that topic very interesting - although I would recommend we move that to another thread so we don't get off topic too much here.

Czervik.Construction · Aug 31, 2018

I don't think height makes a difference to this discussion.

There is part of a Hudson Yards project that has a completion date sign with a date that has already passed and the steel is just going up now.

The shopping center with the Neiman Marcus has been ~75% done for months and they only recently restarted work and all the restaurants aren't opening until next year.

The Whole Foods was supposed to open in June, but they are just building out the space now.

2 Manhattan West is on hold until they find a tenant (1 and 2 Manhattan West are a symphony of curved glass, BTW).

My point is that even in awesome, high profile projects like Hudson Yards, not everything runs on / ahead of schedule, so if things are "slow" in Boston, I don't think that means the world is ending. The number of projects actually underway in Boston is amazing.