Winthrop Center | 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

[cjbski]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

https://twitter.com/BostonPlans/status/793552246227267589

Millennium awarded. I think more than anything, the NIMBYs should try and work with the City on a compromise here. Perhaps Millennium can find an innovative way to adjust the architecture here to reduce shadows? We could finally get some unique architecture in this terrible skyscraper city.

Ding ding ding. Make something a little narrower at the top or with a thinner crown to keep the height but reduce shadows?

 

[BosDevelop]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

why is shade for 60-90 minutes a day necessarily a bad thing? Especially in May, June, July, August and most of September? And is that amount of shade really a big deal in the colder months when few non-homeless people actually hang out in the parks who aren't simply walking through to get somewhere. How often are people really "enjoying" these parks on a Tuesday morning in January? And is a little shade a bad thing on a Tuesday morning in July?

 

[tysmith95]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

why is shade for 60-90 minutes a day necessarily a bad thing? Especially in May, June, July, August and most of September? And is that amount of shade really a big deal in the colder months when few non-homeless people actually hang out in the parks who aren't simply walking through to get somewhere. How often are people really "enjoying" these parks on a Tuesday morning in January? And is a little shade a bad thing on a Tuesday morning in July?

PREACH. NIMBY's act like it's blocking sun on the whole park. NO it's just a small part of the park and it's just for a small period of time when most people aren't up anyway.

 

[odurandina]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

I think more than anything, the NIMBYs should try and work with the City on a compromise here. Perhaps Millennium can find an innovative way to adjust the architecture here to reduce shadows?

The nimby don't negotiate.

We could finally get some unique architecture in this terrible skyscraper city.

We get a lot of truthful and accurate around here; but balsy and poignant, to go along with truthful and accurate – somewhat less often. After we built so many awful turds in the '60s and '70s, and maybe only slightly better in the '80s.... To see a mix of very good and much less good over 25 years, to be followed by going terribly conservative – to the point of even building epic/safe crap and (virtually nothing) in the category of tall, attractive, or iconic since, is truly quite sad. It could have been so much better.

 

[393b40]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

I'll play the devil's advocate here. I don't see why a private developer should be allowed to profit at the public's misfortune (less sunlight) and why further we should be willing to sacrifice sunlight so a handful of very privileged people can be absentee investment owners in this tower.

Millenium was under no obligation to blow away the rest of the competition by almost $100 million dollars. If they can't make it work at less than 750ft why should we have to suffer? Maybe all the other developers foresaw this problem and that's why there bids were lower.

 

[stellarfun]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

As MPartners's leaning tower in San Francisco was brought up in this thread, MPartners tried to fix a now-out-of-code slope of a sinking parking ramp without a permit. City is unhappy. A resident has posted a short video rolling a metal marble ball on the wood floor, the marble goes four or five feet, stops, and rolls back to where its was pitched from.

More interesting is that MP has another residential tower under construction to the west of the leaning tower. Supposedly sited on better ground, i.e., not on top of harbor mud. Same foundation design as the leaning tower, and Boston's MP,, no pilings MPartners has in effect now halted work on construction, looks to be about 10 floors up (concrete slab and columns). MPartners will now drill pilings down to bedrock to support the new tower

Explanation: they couldn't sell a unit in this new building if the building's foundation was similar to the leaning tower. As no units in the leaving tower have been sold since the news got out, the effective value of all those units is $0.

Finally, they've discovered two faults they thought were unconnected are actually connected. That raises the possibility that the next big one on the Hayward could be a 7.2. The Hayward is overdue.

http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/20/2-bay-area-earthquake-faults-found-to-be-connected/

 

[tysmith95]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

I'll play the devil's advocate here. I don't see why a private developer should be allowed to profit at the public's misfortune (less sunlight) and why further we should be willing to sacrifice sunlight so a handful of very privileged people can be absentee investment owners in this tower.

Millenium was under no obligation to blow away the rest of the competition by almost $100 million dollars. If they can't make it work at less than 750ft why should we have to suffer? Maybe all the other developers foresaw this problem and that's why there bids were lower.

I believe that Millenniums 150 million bid is contingent on their proposal being approved. The city has financial incentive to get this thing approved and built as soon as possible.

 

[DZH22]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

If they can't make it work at less than 750ft why should we have to suffer?

Literally the entire point of this parcel was to go for broke with a new "iconic" tower to become downtown's new tallest. FAA already chopped it from 1000'+ (Menino's Renzo Piano fiasco) down to 750'. (maybe even just 725', we'll see on that one)

Chop it again and it won't stand out among the plateau that's already hovering around 600'+. It literally defeats the entire purpose of the competition in that regard. If we can't build tall in the literal heart of downtown, with no proximate NIMBY's, then..... Well, I don't know. It just seems pretty pathetic. Is Boston a big city, or isn't it?

By the way, you aren't taking into account the sales and tax $$$$$ that will be provided to the city. Who cares if you can find a job there or not, or afford a condo there or not? Is that really a reason to halt a massive development worth hundreds of millions to Boston?

On a hot day, I gravitate towards the shadows, and generally refer to it as shade. Go to the common during lunch on a hot day (when this wouldn't case a shadow there anyway!!!) and all the benches taken are the ones under the trees. Boston isn't Nebraska, and an early morning shadow sweeping across the common when hardly anybody is there isn't going to hurt anybody. Should there be limits to the overall shading? Yes, but we are so stupidly stringent that we are shooting ourselves in the foot and Boston deserves better than that BS.

 

[393b40]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

Literally the entire point of this parcel was to go for broke with a new "iconic" tower to become downtown's new tallest. FAA already chopped it from 1000'+ (Menino's Renzo Piano fiasco) down to 750'. (maybe even just 725', we'll see on that one)

Literally one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard for a tall tower. Nobody but tower fetishists care about how tall this building is.

By the way, you aren't taking into account the sales and tax $$$$$ that will be provided to the city. Who cares if you can find a job there or not, or afford a condo there or not? Is that really a reason to halt a massive development worth hundreds of millions to Boston?

Let's build over Beacon Hill, The Common, The Public Garden and the Fens while we're at it. It's all about the $$$ right?

 

[DZH22]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

Let's build over Beacon Hill, The Common, The Public Garden and the Fens while we're at it. It's all about the $$$ right?

It's a 2 story parking garage in the heart of downtown, surrounded mostly by 70's and 80's buildings. It's literally THE perfect spot to plop a tower in Boston. If not here, then where?

Literally one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard for a tall tower. Nobody but tower fetishists care about how tall this building is.

THEN WHY HOLD THE COMPETITION AND SPECIFICALLY ASK FOR HEIGHT IF MEDDLEPAL THINKS IT'S STUPID?!?!?!?! Sounds like you know best. Let's never build tall again. Who cares about the demand. We are a small dinky town, not NYC! Even by 2050 let's make sure the 60's-80's boxes are still the visually dominant structures in Boston, forever and ever and ever. The End.

 

[393b40]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

THEN WHY HOLD THE COMPETITION AND SPECIFICALLY ASK FOR HEIGHT IF MEDDLEPAL THINKS IT'S STUPID?!?!?!?! Sounds like you know best. Let's never build tall again. Who cares about the demand. We are a small dinky town, not NYC! Even by 2050 let's make sure the 60's-80's boxes are still the visually dominant structures in Boston, forever and ever and ever. The End.

That's a pretty silly and gross characterization of my criticism. A straw man if you would prefer to call it that. My point is that aesthetics on the skyline should never be the leading and primary reason to do something. In the same vein, pure $ value is not a good primary reason either unless the city is absolutely desperate for money (it isn't.)

 

[tysmith95]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

That's a pretty silly and gross characterization of my criticism. A straw man if you would prefer to call it that. My point is that aesthetics on the skyline should never be the leading and primary reason to do something. In the same vein pure $ value is not a good primary reason either unless the city is absolutely desperate for money (it isn't.)

Money is a great primary reason to do something. 150 million could build a state of the art new school in Dorchester. Heck 150 million dollars could buy you a 1/10th of a mile of trolley tracks for the green line. Imagine the possibilities.

 

[whighlander]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

It would be interesting to see a map of the shadows cast by existing buildings. Without that it is impossible to say how much "new" shadow there would be due to this proposal. Any new shadow is almost certainly a lot less than if this proposal were the only tall building in the area. This is probably an expected aspect of the development process if the city and developers have any foresight at all.

Tocto -- the programs that are used to predict the shaddow from a new structure incorporate some sort of existing massing model to enable that to be done

What of course none of this discussion ever deals with is that all of the outputs are just snapshots of a highly dynamic phenomena. As the apparent sun rises and sets it travels on an arc with a slowly varying tilt [the seasonal aspect]. The result is that a shaddow may be quite persistent if the apparent position of the sun is slowly changing [e.g around noon around the summer or winter solstice]. At the other extreme shaddow may be essentially instantaneous early in the morning, late in the afternoon particularly around the equinoxes.
https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/usa/boston
For example for Boston today here's a small table of solar directions [azimuth and elevation] -- although the linked webpage is interactive and very graphical and highly recommended [all times are Eastern Daylight Savings Time, all azimuths are Clockwise from True North, all angles have a resolution of 1 degree and are measured to the center of the apparent sun]

• Time Azimuth Elevation
• 7:18 109 ESE 0 [on eastern horizon]
• 7:23 110 ESE 0
• 7:25 110 ESE 1
• 7:32 111 ESE 2
• 7:45 114 ESE 4
• 8:00 116 ESE 6
• 8:20 120 ESE 10
• 9:20 132 SE 19
• 10:26 147 SE 27
• 11:00 156 SSE 30
• 11:26 162 SSE 31
• 12:00 172 S 33
• 12:27 180 S 33
• 12:55 188 S 33
• 1:26 197 SSW 31
• 2:00 206 SSW 29
• 2:26 213 SSW 27
• 3:30 227 SW 19
• 4:30 239 WSW 11
• 5:00 244 WSW 6
• 5:18 247 WSW 3
• 5:30 250 WSW 1
• 5:37 251 WSW 0 [on western horizon]

So what has or petit Gedanken Experiment shown us:

• The sun was up for a bit over 10 hrs [10hr 18' 44"]
• in those 10+ hrs the azimuth ranged over 142 degrees while the elevation covered 33 degrees
• local noon was @ 12:27
• for about one hr on either side of local noon the elevation changed only 2 degrees while the azimuth swept through 35 degrees

at a distance of 1000 ft a 100 foot diameter trees footprint subtends an azimuth angle of:
2.8 degrees

Moral of the story -- except for around noon and around the solstice shadows are very dynamic -- as they say about the New England Weather -- wait a minute and it'l change

 

[DZH22]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

My point is that aesthetics on the skyline should never be the leading and primary reason to do something.

Yes but a brief shadow on a park in the early morning should be enough to cancel a billion dollar project.

Some people like and care about aesthetics. There is no need to be condescending. I like watching the Pats on Sundays. Does that mean I have a football fetish too? Does liking something automatically make it a fetish, or do you just think it's funny to shit on other people's hobbies?

For the record, none of my friends (nor my gf) give a real crap about construction, but they all think it's cool that Boston is thinking big, give big thumbs up to MT, and are impressed with the way the Pierce is transforming the area. No fetishes there, just eyeballs.

I guess all the city planners in LA, San Francisco, Philadelphia, NYC, Miami, Seattle, (London, Paris, Frankfurt, Warsaw, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Toronto, Calgary, Moscow, Mexico City....) and every other city thinking big are really just getting off on their fetish. That must be it. None of those cities hold a candle to Boston anyways. I mean, what kind of history does a crappy hunka junk like London have, right?!?!?!

Boston is special, and must be preserved so it always looks like 1985. One Beacon must remain THE beacon for our proud, boxy city! All 2 story parking garages should be preserved! A prime parcel in the heart of downtown is inappropriate for anything more than a triple decker!!!

 

[tysmith95]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

Boston is special, and must be preserved so it always looks like 1985. One Beacon must remain THE beacon for our proud, boxy city! All 2 story parking garages should be preserved! A prime parcel in the heart of downtown is inappropriate for anything more than a triple decker!!!

The Back Bay, South End, North End, Bulfinch Triangle, Southie, and a few other parts scattered about should be preserved. Noone is arguing otherwise (except for Odura who wants a 900 footer in the North End).

 

[DZH22]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

The Back Bay, South End, North End, Bulfinch Triangle, Southie, and a few other parts scattered about should be preserved. Noone is arguing otherwise (except for Odura who wants a 900 footer in the North End).

Yes, the old buildings should be. But some are arguing that even a blighted garage site Downtown is inappropriate to build. Aside from the shadows garbage, Winthrop Square is probably the most prime spot to build tall in the whole city.

 

[whighlander]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

The Back Bay, South End, North End, Bulfinch Triangle, Southie, and a few other parts scattered about should be preserved. Noone is arguing otherwise (except for Odura who wants a 900 footer in the North End).

TySmith -- even those needn't be frozen in time
Consider the Big Black Box [One Boston Place] -- it actually provides a nice background for the Old State House. 200 Clarendon is a fine mirror for the fine late 19th Architecture in Copley Sq.

So it'a nor mere scale nor proximity which causes problems when a modern structure is introduced -- So what is the reason that we don't want a tower in the North End -- because we don't

Nor would a tower be appropriate for ComAve amidst the alphabet streets although 200 Clarendon is just a few blocks away

There needs to be a balance based on the place where you want the modern building, its scale and finish -- a red brick-clad 200 Clarendon would be disruptive and totally inappropriate

This topic deserves more discussion -- not just knee-jerkism and cliches

 

[tysmith95]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

^I totally agree with you. By the Back Bay I meant preserving the brownstones on Comm Ave (and surrounding streets). I have no problem with modern towers replacing parking garages in other parts. I'm happy that something is going up tall at Bulfinch Crossing, that's just a few blocks from the North End.

 

[carpet]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

Arguing about a 90 minute shadow is literally the dumbest thing people can think of to oppose the tower. Who actually cares about a tower blocking a small patch of park from sunlight? Do people really sit in a park and measure how much sunlight they are getting?

 

[lapradetom]

Re: 111 Federal St. | Formerly Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

Literally one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard for a tall tower. Nobody but tower fetishists care about how tall this building is.



Let's build over Beacon Hill, The Common, The Public Garden and the Fens while we're at it. It's all about the $$$ right?

^I have to say I think it's ridiculous for people on this board to get irritated with others whom happen to like tall buildings. Really though, what do you see when you approach any city in the world?....The buildings. Which buildings stand out and look more impressive?...Mostly the tallest ones. Which building was the source of state/national pride for decades because it was the tallest in the world?...The Empire State building. Tall is not bad, it is not everything, but stumps in a skyline do not an impressive skyline make.