Winthrop Center | 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

"I said whatever height he gets, let's do it," the mayor said. "Let's build the most significant building in Boston."
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First and foremost, Menino is an idiot. I don't think he cares what gets built as long as its something big and flashy. Sometimes I feel like he's Boston's biggest "fair weather fan".

Even if Belkin can't build a 1,000-foot tower, it's possible he could create something in the range of the Hancock, 50 to 60 stories in height.
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Yes, let's blend in some more please. Maybe if it's at just the right height you won't be able to see it at all.
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

How depressing... I was so excited for this. Lets face it, Boston isn't exactly a beautiful "skyscraper city", heck I'd say Pittsburgh, Philly, Seattle, San Fran- are just a few that have it beat...

The best we can hope for now is a mediocre tower that will moderately blend in with all the other boxes downtown. I guess the future will have to be in the Back Bay, huh?
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

This is why "world class" cities usually don't have a major airport right in the city center. (And most of you know that Boston is so small that, in most big cities, East Boston would be city center.)

This is an amazing situation. What this shows is that the BRA is so incompetant that it doesn't know the height restrictions that apply to the city's most commercially important area.

As a planning exercise, one would have thought it prudent to develop with FAA input a height overlay, just so that someone actually knows what heights might be acceptable in different sections of town. I'm not talking about a zoning overlay (yet), but a document for planning purposes that might be used to guide future zoning changes. The fact that this 1000 foot project got this far (with who knows how many tax dollars wasted on advertising, "planning" and processing) means either that no such document exists, or that it exists forgotten in a drawer somewhere.

I am stunned that the BRA is so clueless. The Mayor and city planning officials ought to be shame faced with embarassment.

Ship of fools.
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

Did anybody see the graphic that went along with this article in the Boston Globe? It shows a map of Boston (with Logan) and pinpoints exactly where Boston's tallest buildings are located campared to the runways.

This building is nowhere near any of the runway paths. The closest one would bring you over Southie and then over the South End. The only way an aborted flight would come close to this building is if it was aborted and the pilot turned right (towards ALL of the financial district's buildings - not just this one building). And with a barricade of 40 story buildings before it (Federal Reserve, 1 Financial Center, International Place), plus countless 30+ story buildings, I really don't see this particular building being an FAA obstacle.

Again, this is only if flights abort on that one runway. None of the other runways even head in this direction. And any aborted flights on this runway (if they continued straight) would go nowhere near the financial district.

I'm not an aviator so maybe I'm talking out of my ass. But I can accept the logic of the economy derailing this project more than FAA regulations.
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

I?ve actually been on a flight where the landing was aborted. We circled above the financial district for about a half hour at what seemed to be an extremely low altitude. I?m not sure how common this is but it does happen.
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

As far as I am concerned this is good news...there was no way a speculative 100 story building was going to be built in this economy...forcing a smaller scale will help this project move forward.
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

stellarfun said:
Happens fairly frequently. I've been on two flights where the landing was aborted at a low level; one was visibility, the other was another plane hadn't cleared the runway in time. Happens so frequently there is either a button or a slot on commercial aircraft throttles called TOGA (Take Off Go Around). It immediately puts the engines at max rated power, which is a higher power setting than normal takeoff.
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Ok, my mistake, never happened in my 75 or so flights.
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

snarl71 said:
Did anybody see the graphic that went along with this article in the Boston Globe? It shows a map of Boston (with Logan) and pinpoints exactly where Boston's tallest buildings are located campared to the runways.

This building is nowhere near any of the runway paths. The closest one would bring you over Southie and then over the South End. The only way an aborted flight would come close to this building is if it was aborted and the pilot turned right (towards ALL of the financial district's buildings - not just this one building). And with a barricade of 40 story buildings before it (Federal Reserve, 1 Financial Center, International Place), plus countless 30+ story buildings, I really don't see this particular building being an FAA obstacle.

Again, this is only if flights abort on that one runway. None of the other runways even head in this direction. And any aborted flights on this runway (if they continued straight) would go nowhere near the financial district.

I'm not an aviator so maybe I'm talking out of my ass. But I can accept the logic of the economy derailing this project more than FAA regulations.
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The runway is 27/9 on this map, and it does align pretty directly with the Financial District high-rises.

Map:
http://204.108.4.16/d-tpp/0805/00058AD.PDF

The FAA restrictions chopped the top off this proposed tower.

SNAG-01844.jpg
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

ArcaneAlchemy said:
How depressing... I was so excited for this. Lets face it, Boston isn't exactly a beautiful "skyscraper city", heck I'd say Pittsburgh, Philly, Seattle, San Fran- are just a few that have it beat...

The best we can hope for now is a mediocre tower that will moderately blend in with all the other boxes downtown. I guess the future will have to be in the Back Bay, huh?
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Or maybe the Boston Herald site? After looking at the map, there aren't too many appropriate places to build a 1000 foot office tower.
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

^Also if the mayor wins his fight to move City Hall. If CHP is up for redevelopment, a supertall could fit there and would be relatively out of the way of any runway. Not that I'm hoping City Hall ends up on the SBW just so we can have a supertall, but it's another potential site.

In any case, height was brought up as a potential obstacle on this forum right at the start Mumbles' contest. I'm really surprised that it's only becoming an issue now. This is one of those times where the incompetence of the mayor is truly astounding. I don't see how they could have missed this coming.

Well, this is officially as good as dead in my mind (the 1,000 ft proposal anyway). I hope they keep fighting, but i doubt the FAA is about to back down.
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

Somewhere, justin is celebrating.
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

If something "super tall" is going to be built, one would think it would have to be out by the Hancock and Pru, since those are the two tallest already. But the activists in those neighborhoods are vicious. You got the Nimby's on one end of town, and the FAA (and dumb-ass Menino) screwing things up on the other end of town. Maybe we can build a super-tall in Woburn.
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

As long as the tower's body reaches 700 feet or more I'm fine. Honestly I never liked how much it would've stuck out above the plateau... it looked very out of place sitting in the middle of a bunch of 5-600 footers.

And just think: did we really want 1,000 feet of CBT mediocrity?
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

disappointing but not in the least bit surprised
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

I can't post an attachment, but if you check out boston.com right now there is a render of the city with TNP. (If you click on "proposed tower" in the graphics sidebar, but you can't access it if you are actually in the story - stupid) But anyway, what's interesting is that it also includes what I assume is Gateway Center and SST as well as the North Station Towers.
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

Yep, Stellarfun, that is exactly the runway I was talking about.

Based on the scale listed in the Globe graphic (which conceivably could be inaccurate), and utilizing my ultra high-tech FAA skills of holding a ruler against my computer screen along the path of that runway....it appears aborted flights would still be a good 1/2 mile south of Trans-National Place (even south of the existing Federal Reserve, One Financial Center and the proposed South Station Tower).

It looks like a more realistic obstacle is going to be any development south of South Station: like South Bay/Gateway Center, Boston Herald site, or the Post Office Annex site. I can easily understand the risks associated with incorporating height at those sites. In fact, I usually err on the side of caution with most things in my life.

I just don't see Transnational Place, a half mile north of the flight path, 2.25 miles away from the tip of the runway, and already surrounded by 38-46 story buildings, an as an FAA obstacle.
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

snarl71 said:
Yep, Stellarfun, that is exactly the runway I was talking about.

Based on the scale listed in the Globe graphic (which conceivably could be inaccurate), and utilizing my ultra high-tech FAA skills of holding a ruler against my computer screen along the path of that runway....it appears aborted flights would still be a good 1/2 mile south of Trans-National Place (even south of the existing Federal Reserve, One Financial Center and the proposed South Station Tower).

It looks like a more realistic obstacle is going to be any development south of South Station: like South Bay/Gateway Center, Boston Herald site, or the Post Office Annex site. I can easily understand the risks associated with incorporating height at those sites. In fact, I usually err on the side of caution with most things in my life.

I just don't see Transnational Place, a half mile north of the flight path, 2.25 miles away from the tip of the runway, and already surrounded by 38-46 story buildings, an as an FAA obstacle.
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The end of the runway lines up with the Federal Reserve tower / South Station.

SNAG-01845.jpg


The FAA does not look for planes to thread needles, so the safety zone is more of a cone.

The further you go toward Brookline, the higher in height you could go, because the FAA calculations are based on a slope.

The FAA also factors in situations where a plane loses power in one engine on takeoff, and the climb rate is reduced, and the turn back to the airport may be a right turn.
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

justin ... timberlake?

guarini?
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

justin said:
The more I see of this project the less I like it. It seems to me that, sadly, many people on this forum are so easily seduced by the mere fact of height as to give Tommy's tower a free pass on just about every other aspect of design. Gehry has curves, Libeskind shards, and Piano exposed girders; all we're getting is a non-descript box sheathed in starchitect's wrapping paper. And all this before CBT has value-engineered it...

I will lend what humble support I can to NIMBY efforts to derail this ill-conceived ego-trip before it defaces Boston's skyline forever. The cost of correcting a 1000ft mistake can only be measured in the thousands of lives.

justin
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This Justin?
 
Re: Trans National Place (Winthrop Square) Part 2

Of course that justin.
 
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