Winthrop Center | 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

JumboBuc said:
...They "won" the shadow fight......
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I wonder if any of the shadow bank lost from the Home Rule vote will be returned due to the lowering of the tower. 1 Bromfield could certainly use the leeway to cast a small, brief shadow on the corner of the cemetery and common during a couple specific times of year.

Otherwise, the ramifications could lead to more big wins by the NIMBY's. This is why, more than ever, attention should be paid to the few remaining sites capable of the height they would have wanted here. (ie new tallest) For instance, Boston Properties probably could have gone 850' with the North Station residential. Hopefully some of those awful rental buildings in the West End get razed and we can have "Take 3" be our new skyline frontier.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Nicely done David. i have a feeling that sometime after the election, 1 Bromfield will make an almost felicitous appearance. ...Maybe the slight height reduction at 115 Fed will encourage the BPDA to go for max height 1 more time in DTX.
 
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Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Rover said:
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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But the max was always 700 feet. 775 was never in the cards; all it did was get people opposed to the project even more riled up. Pushing for the max is pushing for 700 ft.

I'm not saying start at 775 then cut it down to 700 right away to please the FAA. I'm saying start at 700 and never even mention 775.

What makes you think that they would have needed to give up more in the shadow dispute if they had started at 700 instead of 775? That doesn't make any sense. If they could get 775 through the shadow dispute than they surely could have gotten 700 through. And they likely could have done it more easily. We saw that 775 wasn't cut down at all (by NIMBYs / shadow police) but you're saying that the NIMBYs would have cut 700 down to 600?
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

J,

You can make the argument that Hines and Midwood went about things better.

i talked to BPDA staff last year that felt 725-735' wasn't going to be a problem.

Midwood was granted 710' and submitted a 709' tower.

Then, it was sometime later the FAA finally hinted at a max height closer to 710' for Winthrop Square as well.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

^ The FAA Logan Airspace map is clean, clear, and bright as day. The site in question sits just above 700' and clearly below 725'. There's no arguing or debating or compromising with this. Any schmuck can look at one PDF and know exactly what the FAA will say. It's not hard.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

JumboBuc said:
But the max was always 700 feet. 775 was never in the cards; all it did was get people opposed to the project even more riled up. Pushing for the max is pushing for 700 ft.

I'm not saying start at 775 then cut it down to 700 right away to please the FAA. I'm saying start at 700 and never even mention 775.

What makes you think that they would have needed to give up more in the shadow dispute if they had started at 700 instead of 775? That doesn't make any sense. If they could get 775 through the shadow dispute than they surely could have gotten 700 through. And they likely could have done it more easily. We saw that 775 wasn't cut down at all (by NIMBYs / shadow police) but you're saying that the NIMBYs would have cut 700 down to 600?
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I'm sorry but have you been paying attention to the tactics of NIMBY loonies over the past 40 years? Whatever you start your initial proposal at, from 775 feet to 200ft, these people who have nothing else going on in their lives go balls to the wall to get a height reduction and their names in the paper. The developer had no certainty that 775 wouldn't have been cut down as they went through the process first with the city and then the state, not for any legitimate reason but just to give somebody a "win" like Galvin for example. The fact that 775 survived this long is astounding, frankly, and again shows good negotiating tactics by the developer. Too often they're too quick to start reducing height, only to find out even that gesture isn't good enough.

Again, you don't negotiate against yourself, especially when the opposition is insane.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Have to agree with Rover; pretty much all these tall threads start with discussion of who's showing up to meetings to try to get the height down. There was no number MP could have thrown out there that someone wouldn't be waiting to say was too tall. Start high and let the others talk to you down to where you knew it had to end up anyway. Now they can move forward and everyone can claim victory for the reduction even though the first and last word is that FAA map.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Boston said:
"got a bunch of guys about to turn blue we're breathing again–thanks a lot...."
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It's becoming more clear the Building Dept nailed it going with MP....

Smartest guys (and gals) in the room 'all in' to the bitter end.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Demolition going to happen very soon, confirmed by sources who would know. Totally unrelated to development review process for tower itself; all they have to do is secure demolition permit. I believe BPDA will make them acquire performance bonds or something to ensure there's no repeat of the Filene's hole. (Not that any situation so spectacular would ever happen again in Boston development history... but still, there are some gross similarities.)
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

DZH22 said:
I wonder if any of the shadow bank lost from the Home Rule vote will be returned due to the lowering of the tower.
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1) I want to echo DZH22's important and practical question. Losing 75 feet should considerably impact the shadow/shade time, no? If so, then that would be one hell of a defeat for those seeking greater density at the heart of downtown (like myself).

2) Apologies in advance, but does anyone know: does '700 feet' include the substantial mechanicals, or is that only to the highest habitable floor? Given the FAA numbers, I assume it's the former. Thanks in advance!
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

115 Winthrop is considered for lack of a better word, a 'legacy tower' with no apologies offered by either the City or the developer over the shadow + FAA + nimby controversies ...it's architectural height to the final foot–flaunted in the rfp, and the City sustained in the process to bring Tom Menino's plan to build something very tall–to it's appropriate, successful conclusion.

It's also a statement to the anti-development interests; the City is no-longer going to be pushed around by a few self-serving nut jobs.

Boston said:
Tom Menino said we're going to build tall here. Who in the hell are you to question Tom Menino?
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Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

So why doesn't this force them to reissue the RFP? The other developers proposed the "right" height from the very beginning.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Why should they re-issue the RFP unless MP is going to demand there bid be changed based on the loss of 75ft?

There's still $150 million coming to the city unless we hear otherwise.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

meddlepal said:
There's still $150 million coming to the city unless we hear otherwise.
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I don't think that's true.

$100 million is owed immediately, but the remaining "up to" $50 million was supposed to be variable and a result of sale of the condos. Does that get changed due to the lowering of the height? I'm not sure.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

reverend_paco said:
I don't think that's true.

$100 million is owed immediately, but the remaining "up to" $50 million was supposed to be variable and a result of sale of the condos. Does that get changed due to the lowering of the height? I'm not sure.
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The globe article states the lost height will be in office space. I don't know if they're speculating or they have insider information. If that's the case, the city would still get 150m. If they do end up taking away from the residential portion, they will pay $100 less for each square foot not built out of the 500k+.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

I would think the developer knew all this ahead of time and had a plan to make it work with paying 153M for 700ft. No need to re-issue or re-bid anything and no more hurdles. Lets get it built. Gonna need that extra space if Amazon is coming to town. ;)
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

hopefully this'll prompt a nearly total redesign. as already noted, the thing was fat/squat enough at 775 feet -- if they simply lop off 75' it'll look even uglier. do something totally different. a... TA pyramid (shorter) type thing? big glass dildo a la 30 st. mary? anything other than a flat roof fatty with slits going up the side (boring)
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

I don't see this changing much aside from height...slits are probably to make the tower appear visually thinner like the original Yankees uniforms.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

i think MP said somewhere along the way that the final design was going to differ from the most recent renders. i guess im hoping that, with the change in height and the already on-the-table intention to tweak the design, they'll manage to do something to put this tower on a diet. last thing we need is another one federal or one beacon in terms of proportions.
 
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