Waterside Place 1A | 505 Congress Street | Seaport

Re: Waterside Place

czsz said:
Only from two angles. Otherwise it's fat as hell.
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One minute you are calling for density and an urban experience/"canyons" and the next you are decrying a building that supports these. It's the edge of a city block that is being filled in. The building in its entirety (pedestal and tower) is actually at the sidewalk for goodness sakes. They could have taken the whole damn site and designed a tower in a park, but they didn't. It's also not like the ground floor has huge blank walls because of its length either. It's covered in retail for the whole stretch.
 
Re: Waterside Place

datadyne007 said:
One minute you are calling for density and an urban experience/"canyons" and the next you are decrying a building that supports these. It's the edge of a city block that is being filled in. The building in its entirety (pedestal and tower) is actually at the sidewalk for goodness sakes. They could have taken the whole damn site and designed a tower in a park, but they didn't. It's also not like the ground floor has huge blank walls because of its length either. It's covered in retail for the whole stretch.
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Height aside, the Seaport would have benefitted from towers with smaller footprints, no plazas, narrower main streets.

Period.

What's more, the BRA trumpeted that it was going to be requiring civic and cultural spaces at water's edge, making use of "facilities of public accommodation" requirements under State tidelands regs to create a world-class waterfront.

Without any substantive public discussion, the BRA proceeded to negotiate "innovation spaces" across the Waterfront largely for the benefit of a select number of startups and potential investors in those startups. In Waterside Place, for example, the BRA negotiated a "14,000 square-foot Innovation Center that will provide office/flex/IT rack space for small entrepreneurial and developing companies."

I wouldn't care about these private negotiations, but they are pre-empting significant opportunities to activate the street with a mix of retail along with cultural (theater, music, arts, dance, etc.) and civic (school, hospital, police, fire, community center). The Seaport District lacks the strong civic / cultural plan necessary for its healthy evolution. Worse, the Seaport lacks the broad engagement of civic and cultural organizations citywide in the planning dialog.
 
Re: Waterside Place

czsz said:
Only from two angles. Otherwise it's fat as hell.
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the same could be said of the Hancock.


if you are only focusing on one part of a design, you loose the rest of it.
 
Re: Waterside Place

The BRA seems to have a "specimen" approach to good architecture: save a bit here, or build a bit there, otherwise nothing should stand out.

Taking the long view, maybe this will be all redone in a hundred years when these buildings are worn out.
 
Re: Waterside Place

found5dollar said:
the same could be said of the Hancock.
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Hard to compare the Hancock to a building that is wider than it is tall.

Low height limit = low expectations. If this was being build right in downtown I would be pissed, but it's not. I'll take the added density to this developing neighborhood, and keep my fingers crossed for better height and design in other parts of the city.
 
Re: Waterside Place

found5dollar said:
the same could be said of the Hancock.


if you are only focusing on one part of a design, you loose the rest of it.
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To be fair, the Hancock does catch some flack from time to time here for being too fat.
 
Re: Waterside Place

Urban form and aesthetics are two different issues. I'm happy to see that there will be retail at "eye-level" as part of this project. This does not exonerate the BRA or the developer for the cheap-looking finishes and dull-as-Wonder-Bread design. The rendering shows a kinship with the Seaport Westin that can be seen in the background; when we get to a point where new construction parrots the anodyne efforts of the recent past, I think it's time for a reevaluation of aesthetics.
 
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Re: Waterside Place

pardon me .............. but this belongs in vegas.
 
Re: Waterside Place

The seaport is the perfect place for the casino...
 
Re: Waterside Place

And don't forget the stadium!!
 
Re: Waterside Place

I want Good Times Emporium to be resurrected there.
 
Re: Waterside Place

GW2500 said:
I want Good Times Emporium to be resurrected there.
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Yes! The place may have been sketchy and a dump to boot, but it was a very versatile dump and I had a lot of good times there watching games, playing pool, getting cheap food and pitchers of beer, and of course spending some quarters in the arcade. There is an unfilled void since Good Times closed its doors.
 
Re: Waterside Place

Isn't D&B's basically the newer cleaner good times? Does it fit in the area of the supposed 24/7 work/live/play neighborhood, and isn't it somewhat less of an eyesore and corporate billboard than the ESPNzone a number of people here have been in support of?
 
Re: Waterside Place

Where is the D&B proposed for? I may have missed some news here.
 
Re: Waterside Place

I think he's alluding to the Dave & Buster's that opened at South Shore Plaza. I haven't heard of any plans for D&B to come into Boston (although I think it would make an excellent tenant in the vacated Best Buy space at Newbury & Mass. Ave).
 
Re: Waterside Place

SeamusMcFly said:
Isn't D&B's basically the newer cleaner good times?
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It's smaller, more expensive, and doesn't have the pool/ping-pong/batting cages/laser tag/carnival rides/projection tv's aspect to it. D&B just doesn't cover all the bases that made Good Times a regular meeting spot for watching football/basketball and being inexpensively entertained.
 
Re: Waterside Place

DZH22 said:
It's smaller, more expensive, and doesn't have the pool/ping-pong/batting cages/laser tag/carnival rides/projection tv's aspect to it. D&B just doesn't cover all the bases that made Good Times a regular meeting spot for watching football/basketball and being inexpensively entertained.
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D&B does have a pool and tabletop shuffleboard hall, but none of the other amenities you listed.
 
Re: Waterside Place

A while back, I had contemplated whether D&B might be a good fit for Downtown Crossing. i.e. old Borders/ B&N buildings, or perhaps the the retail portion of Filene's.

There are probably a fair number of arguments for and against it being in that neighborhood.
 
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