Winthrop Center | 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

don't necessarily disagree and i don't have a huge hard-on for height just for height's sake. that said, i think that breaking the homogeneity of the financial district by having one building standing (literally) apart from the pack would be an overall improvement, aesthetically.

regardless -- yes, that parcel absolutely needs to be utilized to maximum effect, whatever that final use is.

and who knows? millenium has proven it can be both crafty and persuasive. maybe they can somehow pull this off.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Let me put this in plain English. The use of "shade" as any excuse for any development on parks in Boston is absolutely bullshit considering there are cities such as Seattle that have to deal with significantly many more cloudy days that deprive their parks of sunlight yet none of them are deprive of foliage. Boston is NOT a city deprived of sunlight.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

They don't care what happens in other cities they care about shade on the Boston common. That being said they need to take the hours into consideration as the sun moves and it is not a static shadow. That comment about the flight path being moved sounds like they pulled that out of their ass. From East Boston this tower is barely going to stick above the skyline and no runway goes directly over downtown. Also remember I made those two renders from East Boston that is not exact.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Maybe a naive question: does 75 feet mean that much to Millennium? Is it that meaningful? If it makes the difference?
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

nm88 said:
Maybe a naive question: does 75 feet mean that much to Millennium? Is it that meaningful? If it makes the difference?
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I don't think anyone except Millennium knows the exact square footage that would be lost, but the 150 million or so they promised to pay for the garage is dependent on the amount of square footage built (with 150m being the max). Lower height would mean less money for the city. I expect that to have bad publicity in the general public for both Millennium for paying less than the 150 million (widely used on the globe and other news sites) and bad for the city for not standing firm on the original price, and decreasing funds for city-wide public space improvements promised from the expected income.

EDIT: for more specifics, MP will pay $100m once shovels are in the ground, and then $100/sq. Ft. of saleable residential space (up to 507,960 per RFP response)
 
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Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

I feel like the natural process is bickering back and forth where usually the city throws them a bone and knocks a few feet off, but Millennium built in a fail safe as detailed above. So I think this will go through as is height wise, but Millennium said that this design is not the final iteration and it will look different than the renders in the finished product.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

i was told 2 years ago, the absolute tallest exists within a range of 725-740'.

O'Brien proposed 740' before he withdrew HYM from competition. He didn't propose 765', because he knew that eagle can't fly.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Agreed on the gamesmanship angle. FAA cuts the height down to 740 lets say. Its still the tallest downtown building by a about 50 feet but NIMBY's get to claim they got the height lowered to "SAVE THE COMMON" since drug dealers and bums need that extra sunlight at 7 AM in December to do their thing. Developer most likely already has this taken into account and makes dramatic offer to keep 153M payment even though it was based on 775 height. Everybody gets something and goes home happy.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Based on the FAA height proposal for this building the actual height to the roof from the ground level is 758 feet and it is 777 feet above sea level.

Source

I think this might mean the building was never as tall as Millennium claimed they just used the height from sea level instead of the actual building height. The FAA still hasn't approved the building and IDK if the height restrictions are based on height above sea level but this seemed interesting to me.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

stefalarchitect said:
I don't think anyone except Millennium knows the exact square footage that would be lost, but the 150 million or so they promised to pay for the garage is dependent on the amount of square footage built (with 150m being the max). Lower height would mean less money for the city. I expect that to have bad publicity in the general public for both Millennium for paying less than the 150 million (widely used on the globe and other news sites) and bad for the city for not standing firm on the original price, and decreasing funds for city-wide public space improvements promised from the expected income.

EDIT: for more specifics, MP will pay $100m once shovels are in the ground, and then $100/sq. Ft. of saleable residential space (up to 507,960 per RFP response)
Click to expand...

Worth noting: The second, $51 million, tranch of payments to the city is based on condo sales. The building is a mix of condos and office and Millennium still has some flexibility on how much they devote to each use. If they lose, say, 50 feet, they could take that out of office space instead of condos, depending on how they see the market at the time.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

citylover94 said:
Based on the FAA height proposal for this building the actual height to the roof from the ground level is 758 feet and it is 777 feet above sea level.

Source

I think this might mean the building was never as tall as Millennium claimed they just used the height from sea level instead of the actual building height.
Click to expand...

i realize this is blasphemy.

but, i little bird told me MT is in fact, only 677' and not 685'.

the top of the little pole on the roof is right at 700'.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

odurandina said:
i realize this is blasphemy.

but, i little bird told me MT is in fact, only 677' and not 685'.
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The 677' is measured to Washington Street. Official height begins measurement at the lowest point of a building, in this case, Hawley Street. Hence the extra 8'.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Another disappointing result for Boston. I wonder if 702' is the tip or if it will still rise closer to that 725' with mech.

Once Walsh gets reelected, it's time to start getting serious about building a new tallest in either Back Bay or West End area! I can't think of a single city on Earth that deserves a new tallest building more than Boston, given its clout, healthy economy, 40+ gap since the Hancock was built, and general shortness compared to many lesser US and world cities. While San Francisco goes 1070', we can't even get something within 300' of that. It's really sad.

Worst part is, this tower was already fat enough. Just wait until it pushes down the proportions!
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Ya seriously let's just make it fatter...it will look like a stumpy middle finger to the whole region.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

This lowering was always going to happen. We all knew it. FAA height limits exist for a reason and they don't get compromised.

I don't understand why Millennium didn't just announce this months ago (or never propose a building above the FAA height cap to begin with) and save everyone a whole bunch of headache...
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

JohnAKeith said:
Opinion piece by Jim Aloisi on "unintended consequences" of building the Winthrop Square tower.
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Thanks for posting this John -- I've been lazy.

I've had the good fortune to get to know Jim a bit over the past few years and his analysis of runway preference based on airlines' risk adversity is valid. When you consider the Massport's current efforts to maximize Logan's capacity, additional overflights of populated areas using 15/33 is a legitimate concern for surrounding communities.

I think the city and developers will migrate height to places where it won't interfere with flight patterns. Further considering public transit infrastructure, the clearest opportunities for very tall buildings are on North Station air rights parcels, over the Pike west of Copley, and at the proposed site of the Government Center Garage office tower.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

JumboBuc said:
This lowering was always going to happen. We all knew it. FAA height limits exist for a reason and they don't get compromised.

I don't understand why Millennium didn't just announce this months ago (or never propose a building above the FAA height cap to begin with) and save everyone a whole bunch of headache...
Click to expand...

Because you don't negotiate against yourself. Open up with 700 ft and NIMBY's will demand a 100ft reduction from the get-go. Then you have a run of the mill tower and are still expected to pony up 153M. I'm sure the developers already knew they could make a 153M payment work at 700-720 ft. That extra height was a well designed give back once they bumped up against the final hurdle which was the FAA limit. Now as has been said loons like Shirley Kressel and hacks like Bill Galvin can claim they had something to do with this and slink back under their rocks after putting out a press release, yet the city still gets their $$$.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Rover said:
Because you don't negotiate against yourself. Open up with 700 ft and NIMBY's will demand a 100ft reduction from the get-go. Then you have a run of the mill tower and are still expected to pony up 153M. I'm sure the developers already knew they could make a 153M payment work at 700-720 ft. That extra height was a well designed give back once they bumped up against the final hurdle which was the FAA limit. Now as has been said loons like Shirley Kressel and hacks like Bill Galvin can claim they had something to do with this and slink back under their rocks after putting out a press release, yet the city still gets their $$$.
Click to expand...

But they didn't give this up to the NIMBYs. They "won" the shadow fight. They gave this up to the FAA, which they were always going to do.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

JumboBuc said:
But they didn't give this up to the NIMBYs. They "won" the shadow fight. They gave this up to the FAA, which they were always going to do.
Click to expand...

Exactly my point. You push for the max as long as you have to and don't start negotiating height away ahead of time. When they got to the FAA review, AFTER all the NIMBY and city and state house stuff, THEN you bring the proposal down to where it can legally go forward at. More developers need to play hardball like this.
 
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