"Why doesn't Boston have taller buildings?" on SSP

S

shawn

Active Member
Joined
May 26, 2006
Messages
355
Reaction score
439
I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this thread, or if it's even appropriate to post in the first place, but what the heck . . .

There's a lively thread on SSP right now discussing why Boston has such a short skyline, given its prominence among the American city hierarchy. We don't have a lot of Bostonians on SSP, and most of the Boston members are like me: living somewhere else far away. It would be great to hear from some locals who are actually on the ground.

I thought I'd share this with everyone here, just to switch things up a bit (always fun to hear other people's opinions about our fair city), and also wanted to throw out that if you want to sign up to SSP but are having technical issues, I'll fix those for you as an admin. Just PM me.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=218559
 
You guys they're gossiping about us and analyzing our insular behavior. This is strange.
 
Actually impressed by the dialogue in that thread. Honestly, I went in there expecting a rage-filled skyscraper circle jerk and was pleasantly surprised when people started speaking up about what makes Boston great and that our lack of crazy tall skyscrapers doesn't impact that.
 
I think we don't have supertalls bc the soil isn't great, mostly filled land/have to go very deep to hit bedrock and Logan/FAA.
 
datadyne007 said:
Actually impressed by the dialogue in that thread. Honestly, I went in there expecting a rage-filled skyscraper circle jerk and was pleasantly surprised when people started speaking up about what makes Boston great and that our lack of crazy tall skyscrapers doesn't impact that.
Click to expand...

Same expectation and same pleasant surprise.
 
617 said:
I think we don't have supertalls bc the soil isn't great, mostly filled land/have to go very deep to hit bedrock and Logan/FAA.
Click to expand...
Are supertalls a good investment? I thought, generally, they end up happening where (A) theres already a lot of froth and (B) some investor backs a supertall for non-economic reasons.

We don't have a world's largest anything who wish to build a large building ('cept Fidelity, which I'll get to) and our richest (Harvard, MIT, etc) like to play down their piles of money.

I think our mix of industries and an ethos embodied by Ned Johnson at Fidelity has a lot to do with it too. We don't have global oligarchs demanding supertall living. We don't have big State industries (Petronas or PANYNJ) building signature buildings.

We also have a historic downtown where the super-rich live in short, human-scaled townhouses, kind of like big stretches of DC, London and Paris and upper east/west NYC.
 
I don't really buy into the idea that we're running out of space. The Seaport and Allston rail yards are barely filled (well Seaport is getting there but there is till plenty of room).

There's also a lot of older marginal legacy construction that could be replaced if enough money was on the table, for example, City Hall Plaza, the Revere Hotel, 175 Federal and tons of places around Tufts Medical.
 
bigeman312 said:
Not to mention Charles River Park.
Click to expand...
And scruffy stuff at Kenmore and air rights over the Pike (which is kind of our Grand Central Yards/Park Ave...lots of space right at the transit accessible core).

Before going taller is imperative, you have to have run out of 5 story buildings you can go to 20 on, and air rights spaces you can span.
 
meddlepal said:
I don't really buy into the idea that we're running out of space. The Seaport and Allston rail yards are barely filled (well Seaport is getting there but there is till plenty of room).

There's also a lot of older marginal legacy construction that could be replaced if enough money was on the table, for example, City Hall Plaza, the Revere Hotel, 175 Federal and tons of places around Tufts Medical.
Click to expand...

That kind of shows how we are fairly low on space. Especially space that's unspoken for [the entire Seaport is spoken for; Beacon Yard is landbanked until Harvard wants to do something with it]. If we're having to identify tear-downs that for architectural or urban reasons we don't like, we're out of room. It's like saying we have tons of space because the Pike trench could be decked. We have tons of room if "enough money is on the table". What we're out of is cheap space.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
That kind of shows how we are fairly low on space. Especially space that's unspoken for [the entire Seaport is spoken for; Beacon Yard is landbanked until Harvard wants to do something with it]. If we're having to identify tear-downs that for architectural or urban reasons we don't like, we're out of room. It's like saying we have tons of space because the Pike trench could be decked. We have tons of room if "enough money is on the table". What we're out of is cheap space.
Click to expand...

This is mostly true. There is still some cheap space to be had. I would argue City Hall Plaza falls in this category. While many are being built on, there are still large parking lots left undeveloped around and behind TD Garden, some of the unbuilt parcels in the South Boston Waterfront/Fort Point, and there are many parking lots sprinkled throughout our neighborhoods. Exhibit A: Newbury & Dartmouth.
 
There's tons of industrial lots / vacant buildings in Allston that could be redeveloped (and probably will be, similar to 'Green District') and aren't part of Beacon Park or anything.

There's whole stretches of empty land near the Southwest Corridor in Roxbury that are within a quick walk of the Orange Line.

Not to mention all of the single-story crummy buildings that line many commercial corridors.
 
Include
- East Boston Piers (Maverick)...maybe 8 story limit, but there's lots of it
- Suffolk Downs
- Wonderland dog track
as well-connected and ready to go. If the bad-transit Charlestown Navy Yard could work, these above should work much better.

Matthew said:
Not to mention all of the single-story crummy buildings that line many commercial corridors.
Click to expand...
^ Zactly. That's what Assembly was.

And I think we're going to be doing more infill transit to serve places like this, just as one done at Assembly. Suddenly the Medford-Everett "River's Edge" (the big, empty space between Wellington and Malden Ctr) open up too.
 
That kind of shows how we are fairly low on space. Especially space that's unspoken for [the entire Seaport is spoken for; Beacon Yard is landbanked until Harvard wants to do something with it]. If we're having to identify tear-downs that for architectural or urban reasons we don't like, we're out of room. It's like saying we have tons of space because the Pike trench could be decked. We have tons of room if "enough money is on the table". What we're out of is cheap space.
Click to expand...

I just don't see the crisis. Maybe if Boston had a building boom a magnitude or two bigger than the current one we'd have an issue but I'm think about land use over the next twenty, fifty and one hundred years. Stuff comes and goes.
 
meddlepal said:
I just don't see the crisis. Maybe if Boston had a building boom a magnitude or two bigger than the current one we'd have an issue but I'm think about land use over the next twenty, fifty and one hundred years. Stuff comes and goes.
Click to expand...

I don't see a crisis either. Just very expensive land.
 
Arlington said:
Include
- East Boston Piers (Maverick)...maybe 8 story limit, but there's lots of it
- Suffolk Downs
- Wonderland dog track
as well-connected and ready to go. If the bad-transit Charlestown Navy Yard could work, these above should work much better.


^ Zactly. That's what Assembly was.

And I think we're going to be doing more infill transit to serve places like this, just as one done at Assembly. Suddenly the Medford-Everett "River's Edge" (the big, empty space between Wellington and Malden Ctr) open up too.
Click to expand...

Looks like the thread went off topic.... If we are talking about skyline and not development in general, then Boston is indeed almost out of room.
 
City Hall Plaza, State Service Center, O'Neill Building, etc. Tear them down. Plenty of room for towers to extend the skyline.
 
The Lord and Taylor in the Prudential center could be rebuilt as a skyscraper with the lord and Taylor moving back into the base after construction same for the shaws although that might be harder because it appears it is over I-90. Midtown Hotel maybe and there are a lot of small parking lots open in Downtown the towers would just resemble the really skinny tall buildings NYC is building so it will be awhile before those are used because of expense. As well as some parking garages.

The main issue I have noticed when looking at available space is that zoning in Boston downtown seems to hold heights at a lower point than they should be so that issue needs to change especially near the greenway for some of the available lots I have found to work. for building a tower on.

Here is a link to a map of available lots that I have been working on: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z-P0elakuhEs.kZS5pCWvD5k4&usp=sharing
 
^ That has newer satellite imagery than the standard Google Maps. Looks very recent. Interesting. Sorry for going off-topic. Nice work with the map. Would love to see Lord and Taylor replaced. That stretch of Boylston has improved tremendously (Mandarin, Hynes' restaurants, library renovation, and now the new building in the Prudential Plaza).
 
I originally made an impassioned defense of Boston's skyline on SSP. However, after spending the weekend in Pittsburgh, with a stop in Philadelphia, I suddenly realize how short and unexciting Boston's skyline really is!

Philly in particular just seems like a way huger city because of their handful of giant towers at the top. (also the downtown is outrageously dense) Pitt has a wonderful arrangement, with peaks, valleys, and amazing layering.

Both of these cities also have a much more impressive stock of pre-1950 buildings in their skyline. Apparently Boston NIMBYism has existed for a solid 100 years?

An 800'+ tower in the financial district would be the ideal new peak for Boston.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top