Waterside Place 1A | 505 Congress Street | Seaport

I went last night. It was a jazz singer and guitar player. Would it kill them to play some Foghat?!
 
i had this dream...some really super loaded guy came up to the bra and smacked them in the face and said fuck you fools and took his super huge amount of money and hired piano, calatrava, and a bunch of other cool architects to redevelop fort point and this sbw parking lot.
 
Re: Waterside Place

Waterside may be right Place, right time

The housing market collapse could hand John Drew an advantage as he competes with other developers to build out Boston?s waterfront and sign up tenants.

While other harborside builders have bet heavily on the residential market, Drew?s $600 million Waterside Place is mainly a retail, office and hotel project with some condos mixed in.

?Right now, in this market, it?s the right mix,? Drew said.

Drew is now hammering out letters of intent for leases with eight different stores, including unidentified anchor and grocery stores.

He?s pushing to begin construction next year on the long-planned 1.1 million square foot Waterside Place.

New York-based Vornado Realty Trust, a major retail developer, is Drew?s partner and Waterside Place is just Drew?s latest waterfront venture. The developer previously teamed up with Fidelity Investments to build out the World Trade Center complex.

Drew?s plan for an upscale shopping complex - along with offices, a hotel, and some condos - stands in direct contrast to most of the other major development plans for remaking Boston?s waterfront.

Next door to Drew?s proposed Waterside Place, developer John Hynes has proposed a new neigborhood of condos, offices and shops, one that could include as many as 2,000 housing units.

Fan Pier, another nearby project, also has an extensive residential component, though developer Joseph Fallon has chosen to start off with an office building.

Meanwhile, developers have proposed a number of new residential projects for East Boston?s waterfront, though actual construction has lagged.

While there are some concerns about retail overbuilding, that pales with the challenges developers face now financing new housing projects, industry executives say.

Waterside Place is seen as a contender for a new Target store, or even a Nordstrom?s, brokers say.

?Drew has the vision,? said Peter Montesanto, a broker at the Dartmouth Co., which specializes in retail real estate. ?He?s been down there for 25 years. He is well-connected with Fidelity. He has the claws. He is going to hang in there.?

http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1046160
 
Re: Waterside Place

I've worked on projects in the Seaport District, and it's extremely cold and windy for much of the year. I think the Fan Pier retail aspects are going to fail for this reason. There will be a CVS, some restaurants and lunch-style cafes, but otherwise, the wind just howls (and adding mid-rise skyscrapers won't help).

Drew knows this, he knows the area well, and he knows the only serious retail that is going to take off is going to need to be indoors.

Tha being said, I do wish there was a better relationship with the streetscape/outdoors - even Cambridgeside Galleria has done a far better job of incorporating itself into the surrounding neighborhood.
 
Re: Waterside Place

Welcome to the Forum Pelhamhall

You've instantly recognized a key aspect of Boston that a lot of the Forum members don't seem to realize and even some of the "name" outside architects.

Boston needs to have indoor spaces and connections to accommodate normal pedestrian-type activities for at least 3 months of nearly each year. Another nearly unique feature of our climate is that the specific three months may vary depending on the year:
some years it may be Dec, Jan, Feb; while others its Feb, Mar, Apr; or even Feb, Mar, May

There are even occasionally extreme years when May and even early June are cold, rainy and windy ? in such year there might be a need for indoors for five months {shades of Montreal or even Moscow}

Unless the planet warms well past the Medieval Optimum, during which the Vikings colonized Greenland and temporarily settled Vineland in North America {1000 ? 1300} -- we can expect this ?Inconvenient Truth? of our life to continue -- even if sporadically.

As a result -- anyone in the position to develop a significant part of Boston {and other core cities in the metro region} needs to seriously consider including underground, elevated or fully enclosed {Copley Place} retail / commercial spaces as well as the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and Greater Boston Convention and Visitor Bureau favorite sidewalk cafes and street performers.

I think technology is now here to permit openable {i.e. like an automobile convertible or the roof of a stadium} pedestrian-level street walls and perhaps even winter pedestrian travel tubing that could open or be retracted for the summer and such.

Hopefully, the new districts between the Cruise Pier and the Fort Point Channel can innovate in this area. There also needs to be a better level of integration to the T akin to the old DTX connections to Macy?s and Filenes

As an aside and an exercise for the student ? I challenge anyone on the Forum to navigate a legal route {i.e. not restricted to badge holders or employees}: without going outside from the Green Line platform at Park Street T to the downtown Hyatt lobby.

I did this last year twice {2006} and I believe that it is the longest distance that one can walk in downtown Boston out of reach of the weather.

If I?m wrong ? then I?d like to hear about any other contending indoor paths.

Westy
 
Re: Waterside Place

Start at the Clarendon Street entrance to Back Bay station, and end up at the Sheraton-Boston on Dalton Street. In the process, you walk through Copley Place, the Marriott hotel, and the Prudential Center mall. That's four city blocks indoors, maybe even four and a half, easily beating your example. (Also, unlike yours, my trip doesn't require paying a T fare at any point.)

If the first floor of the Hynes is someday turned into retail, as has been proposed, you might even be able to reach the corner of Dalton and Boylston.

Montreal and Toronto still have us beat in this department.
 
Re: Waterside Place

Ron,

I kneel at the feet of a true master

I'd forgotten about going through Back Bay Station

I had however considered the Westin to the Sheraton route via Copley and the Pru -- but I think my DTX route was longer -- or at least it felt that way -- as there were a whole lot more pedestrian tunnels without any diversions. Of course if you allow pathological routes ? then one could always create a route that featured a near infinite loop around the Pru South Garden, or one could perform some loops within and between Park Street, DTX, and the various escalators to the various floors in Macy?s, and the adjacent Lafayette Corporate Center {aka Lafayette Place}.

Outside of Boston in North America:
Washington DC {Crystal City} has quite an extensive series of hotels and malls and Metro stations that are interconnected. I once parked on the 2nd floor at Alewife in the later evening, got on the Red Line and didn?t go completely outside {I was at least under a shed roof on a rail platform} passing though South Station, taking the Accela overnight to Union Station then via the Metro to Crystal City Mall through the Mall to the Crystal City Marriot and then I retraced my path back home ?all inside? ? and all in less than 24 hours.

While I've experienced some of Montreal and Toronto -- I think that the masters at these kind of links in North America are Calgary and Minneapolis with their elevated Plus 15 {Minneapolis} or Plus 5 {Calgary} literally km of gerbil tubes that connect many downtown buildings.

In Europe a possible contender is Warsaw Poland. It has a lot of interconnected pedestrian underpasses that allow pedestrians to pass underneath the wide major streets in the center of the city {some of them are mini malls with dozens of kiosks selling pastries, batteries, magazines, etc.}, -- some of them connect to the city's subway stations, rail stations and also the major mall located underneath the Marriot Hotel, etc. -- I'm not sure how far you can go through that system end to end -- but the part that I navigated seemed fairly extensive.

I'm sure there are others in other cities, particularly in the northern latitudes -- where the weather some considerable period of the time can be unpleasant for pedestrians.

Westy
 
Re: Waterside Place

I've been to Crystal City. I never understood why such a complex was built in a place that doesn't really have winter.
 
Re: Waterside Place

Ron -- Re: "I've been to Crystal City. I never understood why such a complex was built in a place that doesn't really have winter."

Have you been there in the Summer perchance?

DC is one of the few places where if you walk a couple of blocks at a fast pace wearing a suit - you need to ring it out when you get to your destination

I think until the advent of lots of air conditioning -- foreign diplomats got the equivalent of hazardous duty or combat pay for staying in DC throughout the Summer.

Westy
 
Re: Waterside Place

The indoor Montreal shopping experience is incredibly dreary. While Montreal has many things worth emulating, that isn't one of them.
 
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^I have to agree with tobyjug here. I was surprised at how dismal it was to walk around underground for what seemed like miles only to find repetitious retail and food court fare and long stretches of blank corridors. I would not like to see underground retail. That said, I kind of like the glass "tubes" connecting the Pru retail and the opportunity to stay indoors in dismal, or for that matter, hot and humid, weather, while I make my treks through Boston. The people-watching is fun. And what makes the experience at least tolerable? 1. "Streets" that are limited in width and lined on both sides with shops, 2. Cleanliness, 3. Varied store-fronts, 4. Availability of decent snacking and restuarants, 5. Freedom from street clutter (i.e. unkempt free newspaper boxes on the corners), 6. Safe paving for walking (anyone else notice the degrading of the Copley Sq. paving blocks and the stretches of Boylston St. that are hazardous, except me?). I'm sure many here could come up with more reasons for indoor streetscapes; but isn't it interesting that the above cited elements are what we need to make our downtown city streets places of destination and delight (e.g., Newbury St., Hanover St., Quincy Mkt., etc.)
Philosphically I don't like being isolated from the rest of the city, but in the case of the Seaport, I agree with those who believe we will find an inhospitable walking experience along those California-style boulevards filled with traffic and lined with single-facade large buildings, when the district is finally built up.
 
Re: Waterside Place

Padre,

Well said about dismal underground rat holes versus airy well lit gerbil tubes

However, with modern fiberoptic technology we can put sunlight and even real sky views deep underground without requiring the old air shaft-type disruption of the surface. And now of course, with organic LED {TV displayed on thin, flexible and conformal to the substrate sheet of plastic} we now have the ability to have real or synthetic, live, or canned video displayed on the walls, ceilings and even floors.

So I think there is the potential for a renaissance of both aerial gerbil tubes and underground rat holes for pedestrians to travel protected from the weather.

I'd like to see someone propose some gerbil tubes, that have a glass roof {possibly with automated shading for sun control} and openable window-walls to permit the pedestrians in the tubes to better interact with the surroundings -- weather permitting.

Seaport Square, Fan Pier, Waterside Place and the rest of the proposed Southy developments would be a good test ground for such ?pedestrian-friendly? technologies.

Westy
 
Re: Waterside Place

Freedom from street clutter (i.e. unkempt free newspaper boxes on the corners)
Click to expand...

I never understood why people take such offense at these. The Municipal Art Society in New York even sponsored a photo contest for the worst newspaper box collection.

Some of the proposed repacements are hideously bland. From what I remember, there were free speech lawsuits involved in prohibiting newspaper boxes as well.
 
Re: Waterside Place

There is one local case, Gannett Satellite Information Network, Inc v. Town of Norwood, 579 F. Supp. 108 (D. Mass. 1984). On page 114 the court said that a municipality could impose reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on the location of boxes, but only "by narrowly drawn regulations designed to serve those interests without unnecessarily interfering with First Amendment freedoms." Bottom line: you can restrict their placement, but better be prepared to prove that you have a good public safety reason for doing so (for example, preventing obstruction of lines of sight at dangerous intersections).
 
Re: Waterside Place

The only valid reasons I see for restricting these boxes is preventing litter, and making sure that they are actively restocked by their owners. I wish free boxes could dispense papers one at a time, instead of encouraging people to grab (and often miss, leaving a mess on the sidewalk).
 
Re: Waterside Place

What a lonely place. If they build it, I hope they provide shelter over the sidewalk. It was very wet today.

Also, for some reason it took that silver line bus longer to get into the station than it took me.

IMG_2554.jpg
 
Re: Waterside Place

they were talking about this on weei yesterday... if Mass. wasn't so damn cheap, and gave the Pats a little money, there'd be a stadium right here. And all that Patriot Place woulda been added but hopefully alot more urban and dense. This with the convention center would have made the seaport a destination. Of course every other city did the same thing, but I can't think of anything better here. another missed opportunity. Boston>>>>> Foxboro. Mass. the only state with 3 fully privately financed stadiums.... of course Fenway is a little cheap but you get the point. We coulda afforded partial funding years ago when the economy was booming.
 
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football = tailgating = huge parking lots = bad for inner cites. Baseball is different because there isn't a tailgating culture. Also, the stadium would only get used a few times a year. I am glad they stayed in Foxborough.
 
Re: Waterside Place

palindrome said:
football = tailgating = huge parking lots = bad for inner cites. Baseball is different because there isn't a tailgating culture. Also, the stadium would only get used a few times a year. I am glad they stayed in Foxborough.
Click to expand...

The Revs use Gilette around 20 times a year.

This site could have been nice for a revs stadium, they want to move into the city, and last we ehard from them, were looking at Somerville.
 
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