Winthrop Center | 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

stick n move said:
Is there any useful info in this link?

Poolio- I agree about the crown too it actually makes sense how the crown grows from the lines of the tower vs something that is just slapped on after.

I really hope whatever revisions they make are veryyy small because they finally got it right.
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More from the linked article:

“My concern is this is a site for one tower, not two. There’s a lot of volume we’re trying to put on this site,” commissioner Andrea Leers said. “It’s particularly painful from South Station.”

Commissioner Linda Eastley said the redesign is a “stunning solution,” particularly from the Winthrop Square side of the property.
“This is a huge improvement from what we saw last time. The difference in the materials is beautiful and the way the towers are joined makes more sense,” Eastley said.

But commissioner David Hacin said the scale of the project including the entrance to the first-floor “Great Hall” running between Federal and Devonshire streets could overwhelm the park in Winthrop Square.

“The language of the Great Hall feels like it reaches out and privatizes Winthrop Square. It throws the balance of the square off,” Hacin said.
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Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Put that public space in the lowest value floor/s. Brilliant tactic to fake out the public, and entice buyers; "nope, the public ain't goin' past the 3rd floor," etc.... in 5 years, maybe it'll be a flea market for upscale retailers to clear their inventory during the holiday season.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

A camel is a horse designed by committee. Will this be Boston's latest camel? Hopefully not.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Keep this new tower design, bring back the old Great Hall, put an observation deck on the top floor, put a restaurant on the next floor down, put a grand stair case leading up to the obs deck from the restaurant that way you have a grand stair case showpiece in the restaurant to look high class and functional, kind of like 40 trinity, add escalators to get up/down from obs deck to restaurant as well that way both these floors are interconnected.

If you dont want to waste floor space you could put an outdoor observation deck on the flat roof which is even better anyways and we don't have one in Boston anywhere near this height anyways. Then here they could do like the old wtc and use an escalator to get from the top floor up to the roof. So now it only takes 1 floor of the building for the restaurant, then put the obs deck outdoors on the roof.

If this building had an outdoor observation deck, maybe inside too doesn't matter that much as long as you have one, roof top restaurant, and the great hall which has runway model shows etc... this becomes a part of the community and not just something to look at. Although I love the Hancock its really just someting pretty to look at since the obs deck was shut down. It has 0 street interaction besides the reflections, which Im cool with in short numbers, but I think at this tower it should be completely different.
 
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Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

datadyne007 said:
No no no no no no.

Please people do not do this. This is not the right way to get what we want.
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Not to open up a can of worms, but as long as the messages are polite, this is how democracy is supposed to work. I get that some people may have back channels or professional connections they can use to reach people like Mr. Hacin, but he's serving in a public official capacity and is taking an active role (he's an architect) in shaping the design of a project that has closed for official public comment.

He should be accountable to POLITE public feedback.

[edit] That said, the feedback might be more effective as a group letter and not individual emails.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Equilibria said:
Not to open up a can of worms, but as long as the messages are polite, this is how democracy is supposed to work. I get that some people may have back channels or professional connections they can use to reach people like Mr. Hacin, but he's serving in a public official capacity and is taking an active role (he's an architect) in shaping the design of a project that has closed for official public comment.

He should be accountable to POLITE public feedback.

[edit] That said, the feedback might be more effective as a group letter and not individual emails.
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? what on earth does democracy have to do with this?

The BCDC is a group of experts who are charged with reviewing the public realm of the city. David Hacin's comments are about the part of the building that directly connects to the public realm and are perfectly reasonable. The top is right (finally!) and now Millennium needs to get the bottom right too.

At this point, another week at BCDC isn't going to change the schedule of the project.

And, all of this could have been avoided if Millennium hadn't pulled a bait and switch.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

estyle said:
perfectly reasonable
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This is your opinion. I disagree with it. So do others.

People have the right to let David know if they disagree with his statement. He is representing the citizens of Boston.

If one is going to take issue with "the part of the building that directly connects to the public realm" why not:

jis06yX.png
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Justin7 said:
This is your opinion. I disagree with it. So do others.

People have the right to let David know if they disagree with his statement. He is representing the citizens of Boston.

If one is going to take issue with "the part of the building that directly connects to the public realm" why not:

jis06yX.png
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I totally agree with your diagram as a planar view of one of the major areas the BCDC should be looking at. I also think that the revision of the "great hall" to have a larger read on the street is good.

But, I also think that David Hacin's (and the rest of the BCDC's) understanding of how the city works is worth listening to. I can't read the whole article and wasn't at the hearing so this is a single sentence with a constructed context. I'm not sure it's useful as a basis for reaching out.

We are never all going to agree on what's good--which is what makes the city interesting. Clearly, Millennium and Handel went rogue on this one (They've done good projects in Boston. I'd argue that Millennium Place is one of the best recent buildings in town. It's interesting, contextual, and individual). It's clearly taken a lot of work to get this building back to a place where it's actually adding to the city.

Personally, I appreciate that effort and wish that we had an economy that would support developers to be more adventurous with design.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

A tower doesn't privatize the space more then the parking garage did. If anything it opens it up. I don't really agree with Hacin's concern. Hacin might be pushing for the lobby to be more like the original great hall, which I guess is better. Still it seems like there is some disagreement within the BPDA.

And about the mass of the project, I think Millennium bid on the tower with the assumption that they would be able to use all of the land for a tower. By cutting it down I wouldn't be surprised if Millennium required a renegotiation of the sites price tag.

Although i'm unsure if the site has been officially transferred over.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Wouldn't have thought this is tall enough to warrant an observation deck.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

tobyjug said:
Wouldn't have thought this is tall enough to warrant an observation deck.
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Also observation decks tend to only be built for office towers. The top floors of this will be residential. I'm pretty sure that having an observation deck above the penthouse units would hurt the value of those units.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Not if its an outdoor observation deck on the roof. We dont have any significant open air obs decks in the city. Theres a whole different level to outdoor obs decks like the top of the rock vs the indoor one at the Pru. An outdoor one here would be above the mechanical floors and separated from the res units below. That means 0 noise probs. Anyways though is it really that loud though in the floor below an obs deck/restaurant. You dont want it to be loud in your office either, but these are thick concrete floor slabs and more sound deadening can be added.

Imagine an outdoor one here at the top of the crown with unobstructed ocean, downtown, airport views. It would be amazing. We have the indoor one at the Pru and this allows people to interact with the building much more than other buildings. If this had the great hall and an outdoor observation deck this becomes tourist stop #1 when people get to town to get a beautiful overview of our city. Tours could stop here first and the guide could point to where all the historical sites are throughout the city and people get an eye in the clouds overview before actually going out and seeing these sites. MT is next door as well and seeing it from roof to roof would be awesome.

Remember Im not just saying this...an observation deck was REQUIRED to be built with the tower. Millennium tried to say the great hall negates this, but its not like they werent going to build something like this anyways...espeeeecislly now with the current “decent hall”, so I hope we hold them to this and they put it outdoors. The great observation decks are outdoors... Esb, top of the rock, Eiffel tower, Burj Khalifa is indoor/outdoor... lets get it done. This makes their tower a must see destination in the city if done.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

stick n move said:
Not if its an outdoor observation deck on the roof. We dont have any significant open air obs decks in the city. Theres a whole different level to outdoor obs decks like the top of the rock vs the indoor one at the Pru. An outdoor one here would be above the mechanical floors and separated from the res units below. That means 0 noise probs. Anyways though is it really that loud though in the floor below an obs deck/restaurant. You dont want it to be loud in your office either, but these are thick concrete floor slabs and more sound deadening can be added.

Imagine an outdoor one here at the top of the crown with unobstructed ocean, downtown, airport views. It would be amazing. We have the indoor one at the Pru and this allows people to interact with the building much more than other buildings. If this had the great hall and an outdoor observation deck this becomes tourist stop #1 when people get to town to get a beautiful overview of our city. Tours could stop here first and the guide could point to where all the historical sites are throughout the city and people get an eye in the clouds overview before actually going out and seeing these sites. MT is next door as well and seeing it from roof to roof would be awesome.

Remember Im not just saying this...an observation deck was REQUIRED to be built with the tower. Millennium tried to say the great hall negates this, but its not like they werent going to build something like this anyways...espeeeecislly now with the current “decent hall”, so I hope we hold them to this and they put it outdoors. The great observation decks are outdoors... Esb, top of the rock, Eiffel tower, Burj Khalifa is indoor/outdoor... lets get it done. This makes their tower a must see destination in the city if done.
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Except people don't want to pay $10 million+ to live in a building with thousands of tourists going in and out of 360 days a year even with separate entrances and of course elevators. It most certainly lowers the value for the highest priced units.
 
Re: 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

an observation deck was REQUIRED to be built with the tower.
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It was a stupid requirement. It's not tall enough to deserve one. It's barely taller than the other buildings around it. Not to mention it would eat up tons of internal space for the private elevator and reduce the value of the penthouse. The tower has already been VE'd to death to deal with the bid price, and economics of the site... let's not pretend that additional loss of revenue would not be chopped off the design too.
 
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