Two Financial Center

kz1000ps

kz1000ps

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this article also mentions SST as being 49 stories

Boston Business Journal said:
After false start, Two Financial Center moves forward

Boston Business Journal - January 19, 2007
by Michelle Hillman - Journal Staff

Lincoln Property Co. is first in line to buy the rights to develop a building known as Two Financial Center.

The site has been eyed for both residential and office development by the current seller, Rose Associates Inc., which has owned the land for 30 years.

"We have the site under agreement," said John Miller, senior vice president at Lincoln.

The parcel, located in Boston's Leather District at 60 South St., was approved for a 12-story, 214,000-square-foot office building in April 2000.

The existing building was put on the sale block in October and is being marketed by Meredith & Grew Inc. Lisa Campoli of Meredith & Grew declined to comment on the pending sale.

In April 2005, the Boston Redevelopment Authority re-approved Two Financial Center to allow for 162 condominiums, 7,600 square feet of retail and a 250-space parking garage. According to a BRA press release, Rose Associates had planned to break ground on the residential building in late 2005 when the project was estimated to cost $110 million. Ultimately, Rose Associates missed the development wave for both the commercial office and residential markets.

The parcel is being marketed to both residential and commercial developers since it was approved for both uses, but Miller said he plans to build an office building.

Located between South Station and the Leather District and on the edge of the future Rose Kennedy Greenway, the site is in an area that includes both residential conversion projects and new office development.

David Perry, senior vice president of Hines Interests LP, said future development at Two Financial Center will not affect the nearby South Station mixed-use project his firm plans to break ground on at the end of this year. The South Station project includes a 49-story, 1 million-square-foot office tower, 200 hotel rooms, 150 residential units (likely condo, Perry said) and another 500,000 square-foot office building to be developed in a later phase.

"Anything that brings increased activity to the Leather District is great for South Station," Perry said. "I view it as a positive."

Michelle Hillman can be reached at mhillman@bizjournals.com.
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The parking lot:
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ADDED 1/21/08: And a rendering from the site's fence mesh

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This is next to South Station! There is no good reason to include a parking garage at all.
 
As long as this includes residential units, not having a garage is totally absurd, especially when these units are likely to be relatively expensive. Not everyone can get where they want to go on the red line or amtrak. Just because someone lives downtown does not mean they forfeit their privileges to have a car or should be put at undue inconvenience to store it. I for one enjoy keeping my gas guzzling suv on beacon hill and would be lost without it. Say these people want to go skiing, or have to be in another city such as New Bedford, what are they supposed to do, rent a car or hitch hike? Many people's lives do not revolve around the immediate vicinity of their home.
 
Rental cars and zipcars both serve that purpose. The developer could save money, or make the units less expensive, or build more units, by not including a garage. If zoning doesn't allow it, in this of all locations, it should.
 
Ron Newman said:
Rental cars and zipcars both serve that purpose. The developer could save money, or make the units less expensive, or build more units, by not including a garage. If zoning doesn't allow it, in this of all locations, it should.
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What if someone does not want to have to deal with a car that is not theirs? I like having my own car and would never want to be forced to use rentals.
 
No one is forcing anyone to buy a unit in the building. There are enough other people in the Boston area who enjoy life without a car to call their own.
 
All I'm saying is that zoning in such a location should allow a developer to build residential units without parking spaces. And that a developer might be able to make more money doing so, if allowed to.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
Where did you find that awesome satellite shot?
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The aerial function on Windows Local Live. I just cropped the image down to only the necessary stuff to save bandwidth and hard drive space.
 
Of all spots, the developers of this lot should have been allowed to build higher, especially if it were a residential/commercial mix. One Financial Center is directly across the street, South Station is a half-block away. I'm not saying a 50 story building would have been appropriate but something higher than 12 floors probably would have been built by now. Has a major building in this town been built during the last 20 years that there was not some opposition to it?
 
Ron Newman said:
All I'm saying is that zoning in such a location should allow a developer to build residential units without parking spaces. And that a developer might be able to make more money doing so, if allowed to.
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I certainly agree that developers should have that freedom, but when spaces go for $350/month, they'll pack some spaces in there.
 
I agree Ron ...

I agree with you, Ron, perhaps it should be up to the developer to decide. I think just about every developer would choose to include parking, because, in my experience, buyers who want to live in luxury high-rises (which I'm sure this will be) want direct access to their cars.

I don't know the city's rules on this, but it seems silly to me that developers are forced to build parking, if their development is small in size. I think the rule is, in some of the city, that if there are more than three units, then there has to be parking included.

That's ridiculous, especially if the new building is replacing an empty lot or a building of the same exact size.

(This is common in South Boston.)
 
atlantaden said:
Of all spots, the developers of this lot should have been allowed to build higher, especially if it were a residential/commercial mix. One Financial Center is directly across the street, South Station is a half-block away. I'm not saying a 50 story building would have been appropriate but something higher than 12 floors probably would have been built by now. Has a major building in this town been built during the last 20 years that there was not some opposition to it?
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The original proposal for this site were much taller. The neighborhood fought for and now all we have is a parking lot ........ I mean a future 12 story building. (about a decade after originally proposed)
 
Ron Newman said:
All I'm saying is that zoning in such a location should allow a developer to build residential units without parking spaces. And that a developer might be able to make more money doing so, if allowed to.
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I feel like this discussion has taken place before.

Sure it is a nice thought to think that you can build housing w/o parking spaces and all the buyers decide to give up their cars to live there. But in reality this is never going to happen. This is actually the one issue that the NIMBY's and Developers agree on.

Using Two Financial as the example. Does the 'Leather District' neighborhood want a new development w/o parking spaces bringing all those new residents in just to steal the precious few spots on the street? And does a developer want to try to market his new condo's against the competition that offers parking?

And if I had to pick which group wants to include parking more than the other ..... I would go with the NIMBY's.
 
And the rendering of the residential version, looking south

nozoning.gif
 
Looks nice....I like how it goes back after the first 8 stories, it prevents it from just being another box. I'd like to see it in color though, it looks like its brick, but I'd like to see what the lighter part of the building is going to be made out of.
 
Eh...too much brick i think. But then this is residential.
 
tmac9wr said:
Looks nice....I like how it goes back after the first 8 stories, it prevents it from just being another box. I'd like to see it in color though, it looks like its brick, but I'd like to see what the lighter part of the building is going to be made out of.
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I give it a 99% chance that they'll be made from the new Boston standard of pre-cast concrete panels.
 
Residential?

Is that rendering of the residential building, as originally proposed? An office building will be built, instead, most likely.

Hopefully, in glass & steel.
 
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