Waterside Place 1A | 505 Congress Street | Seaport

Re: Waterside Place

Part of the older plan was a shopping mall, but its Congress St. portion was configured nearly identically to this new proposal--highrise at the corner connected to anchor retail. The major difference seems that this new iteration has been value-engineered to death, downgrading the exterior finishes and removing all aesthetic flourishes.

Every new project on the Seaport seems to get progressively worse than the last--stubbier, more poorly-scaled, cheaper, more boring, more cynical.
 
Re: Waterside Place

briv said:
Part of the older plan was a shopping mall, but its Congress St. portion was configured nearly identically to this new proposal--highrise at the corner connected to anchor retail. The major difference seems that this new iteration has been value-engineered to death, downgrading the exterior finishes and removing all aesthetic flourishes.

Every new project on the Seaport seems to get progressively worse than the last--stubbier, more poorly-scaled, cheaper, more boring, more cynical.
Click to expand...

Genesis 1:27 Boston Style:
So Menino created the Seaport in his own image
 
Re: Waterside Place

briv said:
Part of the older plan was a shopping mall, but its Congress St. portion was configured nearly identically to this new proposal--highrise at the corner connected to anchor retail. The major difference seems that this new iteration has been value-engineered to death, downgrading the exterior finishes and removing all aesthetic flourishes.

Every new project on the Seaport seems to get progressively worse than the last--stubbier, more poorly-scaled, cheaper, more boring, more cynical.
Click to expand...

I will just ask this for fun: Can everyone who posts here blasting each and every new development in this city as "cheap", "poorly-massed", or "boring" give me an example of what you would prefer they build here? It would help give me some context for this discussion.

As I see it, this is a convention center hotel located in a convention center district. The building is poorly-massed because the centerline of the runway less than a mile away keeps it (necessarily) under 200 feet. The words "cheap" and "boring" appear on this board to refer to anything not starchitect designed and ergo hyper-modernist experiments which generally do not age well and aren't cost-effective to build or operate (not cheap, rational). Alternatively, they can also mean designs which do not incorporate real brick or stone facades (I agree with the characterization in this case), but unfortunately urban buildings simply aren't sided this way anymore (I don't think Standard Oil-style marble cladding would happen these days).

I was down on SBW a month ago, and my major gripes (beyond all the empty parking lots) were the horrifically ugly backside of the ICA (which makes it look like a massive HVAC unit) and the grass lawn around the new Louis Boston store, which I hope will be filled with something in the Fan Pier buildout. The area needs a real transit line and some 365-day attractions, but the architecture isn't the biggest issue here.
 
Re: Waterside Place

Equilibria said:
I will just ask this for fun: Can everyone who posts here blasting each and every new development in this city as "cheap", "poorly-massed", or "boring" give me an example of what you would prefer they build here? It would help give me some context for this discussion.

As I see it, this is a convention center hotel located in a convention center district. The building is poorly-massed because the centerline of the runway less than a mile away keeps it (necessarily) under 200 feet. The words "cheap" and "boring" appear on this board to refer to anything not starchitect designed and ergo hyper-modernist experiments which generally do not age well and aren't cost-effective to build or operate (not cheap, rational). Alternatively, they can also mean designs which do not incorporate real brick or stone facades (I agree with the characterization in this case), but unfortunately urban buildings simply aren't sided this way anymore (I don't think Standard Oil-style marble cladding would happen these days).

I was down on SBW a month ago, and my major gripes (beyond all the empty parking lots) were the horrifically ugly backside of the ICA (which makes it look like a massive HVAC unit) and the grass lawn around the new Louis Boston store, which I hope will be filled with something in the Fan Pier buildout. The area needs a real transit line and some 365-day attractions, but the architecture isn't the biggest issue here.
Click to expand...

Sigh. Really? I agree with your last paragraph, but as for the rest of it... 1)Hight limits are no excuse. 2) You're establishing false extremes when you talk about either "boring" or "starchitect." 3) I will not go out of my way to find you examples of good contemporary buildings of this type. I'll just tell you that they're out there and it's your problem that you can't find them. 4.) Are your expectations of contemporary architecture really this low, or are you somehow involved in this project?
 
Re: Waterside Place

This project convinces me the Seaport won't look like 1980s Communist gray PoMo East Berlin. It'll look like 1960s gray modernist East Berlin.

eastberlin1007.jpg
 
Re: Waterside Place

I think we've found the BRA's secret template for the Seaport. They've even got a proto-ICA in there! Uncanny.
 
Re: Waterside Place

BRA:

The four-lane highway in our plan has the total area of Central Park in NYC. And since it open space with kids playing games and singing in cars we can consider it parkspace similar to Fort Point Channel.

So, we are embarking on what we are calling our "Four Lane Highway Activation Plan."
 
Re: Waterside Place

briv said:
I think we've found the BRA's secret template for the Seaport. They've even got a proto-ICA in there! Uncanny.
Click to expand...
Slabs in a park: La Ville Radieuse.
 
Re: Waterside Place

The BRA would never allow that many trees near buildings.
 
Re: Waterside Place

As I see it, this is a convention center hotel located in a convention center district. The building is poorly-massed because the centerline of the runway less than a mile away keeps it (necessarily) under 200 feet. The words "cheap" and "boring" appear on this board to refer to anything not starchitect designed and ergo hyper-modernist experiments which generally do not age well and aren't cost-effective to build or operate (not cheap, rational). Alternatively, they can also mean designs which do not incorporate real brick or stone facades (I agree with the characterization in this case), but unfortunately urban buildings simply aren't sided this way anymore (I don't think Standard Oil-style marble cladding would happen these days).

I was down on SBW a month ago, and my major gripes (beyond all the empty parking lots) were the horrifically ugly backside of the ICA (which makes it look like a massive HVAC unit) and the grass lawn around the new Louis Boston store, which I hope will be filled with something in the Fan Pier buildout. The area needs a real transit line and some 365-day attractions, but the architecture isn't the biggest issue here.[/QUOTE]




-everyone else is afraid to say it but amen to that u hit the nail on the head
 
Re: Waterside Place

dbhstockton said:
Sigh. Really? I agree with your last paragraph, but as for the rest of it... 1)Hight limits are no excuse. 2) You're establishing false extremes when you talk about either "boring" or "starchitect." 3) I will not go out of my way to find you examples of good contemporary buildings of this type. I'll just tell you that they're out there and it's your problem that you can't find them. 4.) Are your expectations of contemporary architecture really this low, or are you somehow involved in this project?
Click to expand...

First, I can promise you that I am not involved in this project, and that no, I don't hate all contemporary architecture. I was with those who liked the Cambridge library expansion, for instance, and I think the Congress St. Garage designs are beautiful, if only they would ever be built.

As to your numbered points:

1) Height limits are indeed no excuse to design an ugly low-rise building, but they are an excuse not to build tall. I think a lot of people on this board (which I have been following for many years) see a dichotomy between "tall" and "boring", at least when we're talking about a site this close to downtown. In the interest of full disclosure, I *have* worked for the FAA, spoken at length with the guy who declares these height limits, and found him to be a reasonable person with reasonable arguments, regardless of how much we may all be frustrated by them sometimes.

2) Again, there is some modernist architecture I like: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okhta_Center). I don't care for most starchitects, and I think that the very nature of "experimental" is that some things succeed and some things fail. When you're designing the symbol of a neighborhood or city (or university, see Center, Stata) for a hundred years, you really should be confident that your design will work.

3) I can find plenty of examples of buildings that work, and I've given a couple here. I just think that it's trendy on this site to post pictures like that East Berlin shot on the prev. page and fill these posts with hyperbole. Obviously, people have different tastes, and I'm not trying to be holier-than-thou, but I think that ranting about how boring everything is is just as unproductive as the BRA killing projects which haven't paid the piper.
 
Re: Waterside Place

As I see it, this is a convention center hotel located in a convention center district.
Click to expand...

The fact that this is seen as a "convention center district" is precisely the problem. This comment is a perfect illustration of how expectations get defined downwards in this city. The Seaport was supposed to be (and, some people, it seems, still aspire for it to be) the "new Back Bay" (which, by the way, managed to be an infinitely more successful example of urban planning and development while also catering to a convention center). Now, the convention center is taken as its raison d'etre, rather than the opposite.

It's hard to imagine how Boston, which contains some of the country's most beautiful urban neighborhoods, began to think of urban design in such a lowest-common-denominator, utilitarian fashion. Perhaps it's because Boston has been resting on its laurels for far too long. The consistency between the planning that's produced the Seaport and the NIMBYism that's choked the city since the 1960s appears to be that nothing ever built in Boston will match or surpass what's left of the 19th century city - and therefore, it's not worth bothering. Hence the preference for open space over building on the Greenway, or the Seaport's Wal Mart quality architecture (because if nothing will ever be good enough, why bother at all?)

But that's precisely why we, on this forum, keep the pressure on the city, rather than celebrating mediocre architecture and urbanism for making extremely limited concessions to the most basic tenets of good urban design. We don't have the power of the BRA or developers, so there's no need to be considerate or compromising. The hope is to hold Boston to the highest standards it can and should meet - and, given the heights it's reached in the past, it's ironic that those standards, to which it often falls so short, are its own. An occasional work still manages to meet these, and the forum chorus may be overwhelmingly negative, but isn't completely so.
 
Re: Waterside Place

So any guesses what HYM actually stands for? Since it's apparently something his daughter used to say, I'll guess "How's your milk?"
Of course, because we're talking about big real estate, it's more likely "Here's Your Money"
 
Re: Waterside Place

When I think of big real estate I quickly think of "Hide Your Money."
 
Re: Waterside Place

This project was also on the 11/17/11 BRA agenda:

Request authorization to issue a Determination waiving further
review pursuant to Section 80A-6.2 of the Zoning Code in
connection with the Notice of Project Change for the Waterside
Place project; to issue a Certification of Compliance upon
successful completion of the Article 80 review process; and, to
execute all necessary documents in connection with the Article
80 approvals.
Click to expand...

http://bostonredevelopmentauthority...Board Meeting Agenda for 11-17-11 (draft).pdf
 
Re: Waterside Place

This passed.

What it turned out to be about is that the developer (Drew) is splitting Phase I into Phase IA and Phase IB. Phase I was supposed to be two buildings, from what I could tell; now, it's going to be Phase IA, apartments, and Phase IB, I don't know.

Not saying that the BRA has no clue what's going on sometimes, but from the question that was asked by one board member, it has no clue what's going on and just rubber stamps things.
 
Re: Waterside Place

To be sure, I don't think any single one of the projects on the map has actually broken ground or even has proposed a construction start date.

Some require demolitions, which as far as I know, have not been scheduled or permitted.

Some are going through a new round of approvals.

The Seaport is a virtual chessboard regarding announcements. I've tried to make the point that one shouldn't mistake a rendering for a project going forward.

BTW, it's worth mentioning that Waterside Place is on Massport property, not subject to BRA or other City intervention. Nothing stands in the way of development except (just guessing) financing.
 
Re: Waterside Place

Sicilian said:
To be sure, I don't think any single one of the projects on the map has actually broken ground or even has proposed a construction start date.

Some require demolitions, which as far as I know, have not been scheduled or permitted.

Some are going through a new round of approvals.

The Seaport is a virtual chessboard regarding announcements. I've tried to make the point that one shouldn't mistake a rendering for a project going forward.

BTW, it's worth mentioning that Waterside Place is on Massport property, not subject to BRA or other City intervention. Nothing stands in the way of development except (just guessing) financing.
Click to expand...


If you look at this post below.

stellarfun said:
Graphic from today's Globe.

globegiftastic__1325740860_5421.gif


Although a new thread has been started, much of the Globe article is relevant in this thread.

http://www.boston.com/realestate/ne...il_to_bostons_seaport_district/?p1=News_links

The Globe article omits the Fan Pier residential, on the harbor-side of Vertex, which I understood was to start construction in 2012.

Re: the residential at Fan Pier:
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/mass_roundup/2011/06/fallon-eyes-condos-for-fan-pier.html
Click to expand...

The planning is all over the place by the city or the BRA whoever is running the show. Lets throw a 400ft building here, a 350ft over there, whoever breaks ground first receives a free park paid by the city.
This is a disaster in the making.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top