Two Congress | Bulfinch Crossing East Parcel | West End

real_EthanHunt said:
This figure is all you need to know on why there is a single building on this site. Is lab money enticing? Sure. But they can't even take down the building without numerous delays since it's over the tunnels. It was hard enough just to move the buses temporarily. You want them to try to BUILD over the tunnels now?
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But they knew the tunnels were there when they got the master plan approved. This is a total bait and switch.
 
RandomWalk said:
They could have elevated the building on pilotis, in effect replicating a structure similar to the garage.
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According to the current plans, a good quarter or so of the building already is designed to be raised on columns.

AmericanFolkLegend said:
But they knew the tunnels were there when they got the master plan approved. This is a total bait and switch.
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It doesn't seem like a bait and switch to me, it seems like they were working with a different set of givens for the early design, namely that they could build over the tracks and station. These givens changed as engineering and discussions with the T moved forward, and because of that they had to find a different way to shoehorn a building on the plot that could still make them money.

While yes, this isn't the most beautiful building in the world, I cant think of many other reasonable ways to get them the FAR they need to break even that would be more elegant than this.
 
RandomWalk said:
Less exotically, I wonder if there was some way to re-align Merrimac St to shift the buildings away from the T station.
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Merrimac (under the garage) is being realigned and pulled away from the east. the median being taken out gives some flexibility, but there are 2 fixed points at each end and 2 wildy different approach angles (not to mention New Chardon angle isnt exactly perpendicular to anything either--or even parallel with itself for that matter).
 
found5dollar said:
While yes, this isn't the most beautiful building in the world, I cant think of many other reasonable ways to get them the FAR they need to break even that would be more elegant than this.
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I can, and so can they because they already created something more elegant. If this is the massing were going to get, fine, but at least use a decent facade that isnt that layer cake of ass. The star of the show is the towers, the nub out front just needs to play its part and blend in, not stick out trying to steal the show with 50 gimmicks. Less is more here.
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If the program was anything other than lab, they could get away with slicing up the floor plates. That’s the biggest frustration with this lump.
 
Go 30% thinner and 50% taller to open up more site lines to the towers while maintaining the necessary profitability for the building. This is Exhibit A, front and center, for why width needs to be considered Boston's true boogeyman.
 
Droopy Bikini is the name for the band composed of the Boston development folks. Discordant synth-pop is their genre.
 
found5dollar said:
It doesn't seem like a bait and switch to me, it seems like they were working with a different set of givens for the early design, namely that they could build over the tracks and station. These givens changed as engineering and discussions with the T moved forward, and because of that they had to find a different way to shoehorn a building on the plot that could still make them money.
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In a world where buildings can be built on top of I-90, I feel like it shouldn’t be too hard to build over Haymarket Station..
 
Blackbird said:
In a world where buildings can be built on top of I-90, I feel like it shouldn’t be too hard to build over Haymarket Station..
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Then we should be complaining abut the MBTA's late-in-the-game decision against building over it, not claiming the developers pulled a "bait-and-switch."
 
found5dollar said:
Then we should be complaining abut the MBTA's late-in-the-game decision against building over it, not claiming the developers pulled a "bait-and-switch."
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Do we know if it is the MBTA that jumped in and said no? And is it really the MBTA's fault for simply having a station built 114 years ago here? Looking at the diagram below, I can't find it easy to build what they initially had over Haymarket. It's very likely the developer/design team were not aware of the size and complexity of Haymarket underneath when they sketched out the placeholders from before.

If the developer wanted to build what they originally had (though finding lending for their original proposal would have been a miracle in the COVID market), they wouldn't have been able to do it without significantly renovating/rebuilding Haymarket. For the returns they'd get on botique office and hotel, it's not worth it.

Equilibria said:
BCDC: https://bpda.app.box.com/s/jk8tt790ohsof33z8vg9onsapyjc9yxh

Cool part here is the subsurface diagram.
View attachment 17681
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I can't blame the developer for wanting to avoid all of that. For me, it's just that the building design and plaza design are half-polished.
 
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