Waterside Place 1A | 505 Congress Street | Seaport

[TC]

Why aren't you running things? (Not a rhetorical question!)

LOL. I can only identify the problem, fixing it is something else.

This kind of change needs to come from the top and would really turn into a political battle. I think too many people like things the way they are.

 

[TheBostonBoy]

Ya great point TC.
Goddamn, we need to talk to those people at the top lol
But I've heard Patrick is pushing a lot of construction and stuff, so maybe he could answer our prayers, and get stuff done!

 

[bosman]

Deval Patrick pushing for projects won't really answer too many prayers. In the end, it is the governor's job to do what is right for the state, and if he upsets community groups and other NIMBY's in the process, he most likely won't follow through, especially on real estate projects.

As it has been stated before, the BRA and all of these community activist groups are the ones screwing up the entire development scene in Boston.

 

[kennedy]

so...that pro-development anti-nimby group?

 

[Mike]

Waterfront growth accelerates as city OKs South Boston complex
By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff | June 22, 2007


Development on the long-stalled South Boston Waterfront got a kick-start yesterday, as Waterside Place, a 1.1-million-square-foot urban shopping plaza, hotel, and residential complex, won unanimous approval from the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

Construction for the vast block of buildings, proposed for the land and air space between the World Trade Center and the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, is scheduled to begin early next year.

It would be the second major mixed-use project to get started on the waterfront, following an office building on Fan Pier set to break ground this fall.

The Big Dig's Interstate 90 extension through the Seaport district is complete, and residential buildings and a new hotel nearby are finished. Fan Pier developer Joseph F. Fallon and two other developers of large-scale projects are rapidly planning to get projects underway nearby, after years of empty promises and inaction on the waterfront.

"Things are popping," said Waterside developer John Drew, president of the Drew Co. His firm won the designation from the Massachusetts Port Authority in 2004 to redevelop what is known as the core block -- 10.3 acres between Summer and Congress streets, over I-90 (the Massachusetts Turnpike) and MBTA property. "A lot of the things we hoped for have already happened."

Fallon recently completed two residential buildings along Northern Avenue at D Street. Across the street from the Waterside Place site, the Marriott Renaissance Boston Hotel will open later this year. On a block in the other di rection, the city recently approved two hotels in a single slender building.

"Our years of planning for the South Boston Waterfront are coming to fruition," Mayor Thomas M. Menino said yesterday, after the vote on Waterside Place.

Drew's ownership and managing partner is Vornado Realty Trust, based in New York, joined by a group of private investors. Last year, Vornado replaced Urban Retail Properties Co. of Chicago, which with Drew rolled out an initial plan for Waterside Place in 2004.

The plan approved yesterday includes two large retail anchor stores and dozens of shops and restaurants on three levels, a 300-room luxury hotel, a 19-story residential condominium building with 200 units, a 2,350-space parking garage, and a visitors center offering exhibits and displays, aimed at convention travelers.

"I don't have any stores to announce," Drew said. But he described a 640,000-square-foot, three-level retail center surrounding a bright interior public atrium and pedestrian concourse.

Drew plans now include a previously dropped supermarket in a large building that would straddle Congress and Summer streets. Menino hailed the plan to include the supermarket, though it comes at the expense of a cinema complex that was part of an earlier configuration.

Waterside Place is bounded on the east by D Street, and by World Trade Center Avenue on the west. The developer also unveiled plans yesterday for a grand entrance to the development on World Trade Center Avenue, with a faux wood facade.

A new set of architects, Hillier of New York and TRO Jung Brannen of Boston, have replaced Kallman McKinnell & Wood Architects Inc. of Boston, which produced a 2004 design in which glass predominated.

A later phase of the project, located on the other side of D Street along Summer, could accommodate a second hotel, Drew said yesterday.

Drew and his partners have pursued big-name stores such as Target and Nordstrom to anchor the center, and a Bloomingdale's was considered. Now Vornado -- which specializes in retail projects and is also working with John B. Hynes III to redevelop the old Filene's building at Downtown Crossing -- is taking the lead in pursuing retail anchors.

Drew said Waterside Place would be a destination, and not just for the nearby residential market that is just beginning to materialize on the South Boston Waterfront.

"The area here is catchment area that goes downtown, to the North End, to the Leather District, and with the tunnels to East Boston," he said. "We've always seen that as our immediate area."

Over the next decade or more, modest-scale residential towers are expected to open on Fan Pier, and on the land next to Waterside Place, formerly owned by Frank H. McCourt Jr. and now owned by Hynes and the investment company Morgan Stanley.

A retail development specialist, Stephen R. Karp, has plans and permits to redevelop the restaurant Anthony's Pier 4.

Drew has plans for a third World Trade Center office tower.

Waterside Place parking will be in a garage along the D Street side of the property, but shielded from public view by other buildings in most places, Drew said.

In an earlier design, the parking was below ground, but that proved to be prohibitively expensive.

"Only drivers looking up from the Ted Williams Tunnel will notice it," Drew said.

And he is exploring the possibility of using modern lights and graphics on the side of the structure to further disguise it.


Link

 

[ablarc]

Drew plans now include a previously dropped supermarket in a large building that would straddle Congress and Summer streets. Menino hailed the plan to include the supermarket, though it comes at the expense of a cinema complex that was part of an earlier configuration.

Why not both?

Waterside Place is bounded on the east by D Street, and by World Trade Center Avenue on the west. The developer also unveiled plans yesterday for a grand entrance to the development on World Trade Center Avenue, with a faux wood facade.

Woodgrain vinyl?

A new set of architects, Hillier of New York and TRO Jung Brannen of Boston, have replaced Kallman McKinnell & Wood Architects Inc. of Boston...

Very bad news. Jung Brannen are hacks.

 

[Ron Newman]

Boston could certainly use another cinema, preferably run by Landmark or Sundance or some other chain specializing in independent and foreign films. It's disappointing not to have one in this development.

 

[LeTaureau]

Boston could certainly use another cinema, preferably run by Landmark or Sundance or some other chain specializing in independent and foreign films. It's disappointing not to have one in this development.

I would have liked to see a cinema complex at the Filenes development, although this location would be good too.

 

[BosDevelop]

I would have liked to see a cinema complex at the Filenes development, although this location would be good too.

way too close to the Loews Boston Common. Someone will eventually put in movie theatres on the S. Boston waterfront. I am hoping for some live music venues as well once things get going.

 

[Ron Newman]

[Filene's] way too close to the Loews Boston Common.

Traditionally, competing movie theatres have clustered together. Also, the smart way to program a competing theatre is to show totally different films than Loews/AMC, like Landmark does.

 

[briv]

This is a shopping mall, and its fundamentally anti-urban. No matter how much cheap "architecture" they tack on its facades, they cant hide the fact that this is just another low-slung, big box.

If this were a Walmart, there would be an uproar. Well, this is the same animal...only bigger. But a few slick renderings and a supermarket later...

I still think my idea for a vast rooftop park could somewhat redeem this abortion. It'll never happen though.

 

[stellarfun]

This is Hillier's design for a 1.3 million sq ft midtown Manhattan project. From the looks of it, I think it might be the Madison Square Garden Penn Station parcel.

I can see similarities.

 

[palindrome]

I think the wood has the potential to look outdated real fast.

 

[Ron Newman]

This is a shopping mall, and its fundamentally anti-urban.

Are you saying it's anti-urban because it is a shopping mall? I don't think the Prudential mall or Providence Place are anti-urban.

 

[briv]

Are you saying it's anti-urban because it is a shopping mall? I don't think the Prudential mall or Providence Place are anti-urban.

Yes, that's exactly what Im saying. I cant speak speak for the Providence mall, but have you ever walked the lower stretch of Huntington or Ring Rd?

 

[czsz]

This approval (unanimous!?) speaks volumes about how desperate the city is to show progress on the SBW. The BRA people should know better to allow this gargantuan white elephant. The planning mistakes of the convention center are repeated all over again, except that now, lots of potential retail-fueled streetlife is driven indoors.

Not even an attempt to make this mall an extension of the street (although that's the consequence of not cultivating a street culture to begin with). At least the Pru mall feels somewhat like an urban arcade.

And yeah, the design will feel revoltingly dated within two decades. Like a 70s "rec room" finished with vertical wood slots.

 

[singbat]

Are you saying it's anti-urban because it is a shopping mall? I don't think the Prudential mall or Providence Place are anti-urban.

Yes, that's exactly what Im saying. I cant speak speak for the Providence mall, but have you ever walked the lower stretch of Huntington or Ring Rd?

seems an order of magnitude worse than what we have today at the Pru. Pru complex is reasonably well integrated with the city on the outside and is a somewhat public space with full public access from numerous directions -- virtually all of which sport a street wall with some kind of externally facing retail presence. moreover, the mix of office, retail, housing, and public sector facilities within the arcade connected buildings is pretty good.

Ring rd. is basically a utility alley and those are going to happen -- there is a back wall to anything. lower huntington is better than it was, though the pike and hotel walls don't help.

so point taken, but waterside seems significantly different, and bad, and deserves to not be grouped with the Pru, imho.

 

[Merper]

...

... lets not forget that it took the pru decades to be what it is today. Thats the best i can hope for Waterside place....that it will somehow be improved upon 30 years down the road.

 

[NIMBOB]

This is a shopping mall, and its fundamentally anti-urban. No matter how much cheap "architecture" they tack on its facades, they cant hide the fact that this is just another low-slung, big box.

If this were a Walmart, there would be an uproar. Well, this is the same animal...only bigger. But a few slick renderings and a supermarket later...

I still think my idea for a vast rooftop park could somewhat redeem this abortion. It'll never happen though.

The scale of this model seems totally out of proportion to the surrounding buildings. I drive past this lot every morning and I can't figure how a building of this size is going to fit. The lot isn't nearly as big as this model would indicate. The article says 10.3 acres. I have a hard time visualizing how big that is, but something seems off.

Even the hotel and residential portions of the building appear puny compared to the low-rise portion.

 

[TheBostonBoy]

The mall at the Pru does not feel like a mall at all to me. It is definitely urbanized compared to other malls and I definitely can tell since I have been to many malls in the suburbs. With Waterside Place, I don't know how it is going to be, but it seems like a regular mall you would encounter, just not in it's usual surroundings like a suburb. It's hard to imagine such a huge mall like that on the SBW, but in some ways it is exciting, but in others it seems like a waste of space for buildings of more importance. I think I am gonna have to wait until this is actually built before I really have an opinion on how well it fits there and if it actually was worth building.

Also in that picture, what is the green building in the background??