Winthrop Center | 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

i like the Great Hallway to get a coffee, and maybe a future stop at Payless

while they demo/build 1 Bromfield (rising at 0° directly behind George Washington's horse).
 
statler said:
Hopefully, 1 Bromfield is dead and buried.
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Totally! That Payless Shoes and the abandoned City Sports and the shady Jewelers are much, much nicer than a modern tower that would bring millions in revenue to the city and hundreds of jobs.
 
Because I love the corner of Washington and Bromfield as it is. Any attempt to 'fix' it will just make it worse, but particularly the plan currently proposed.

Edit: We've been around this merry-go-round before, but again, tenants can (and do) change but once you raze a pre-war building it's not coming back.
 
Fot giggles, I went to the first page of this thread, in May of 2007, when I still lived in Boston.

1. 11 years going - what a saga
2. Given the obvious-to-anyone-that-checked-FAA-height-limits, how did this even get as far as it did in the process at 1000 ft to the roof, plus a couple hundred more for the spire?


vanshnookenraggen said:
Trans National Place
115 Federal St, Boston

WinthropSquare.jpg

0125_building_005.jpg
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Because that FAA guideline seems almost political to me:

If its just for radar coverage why cant they move the radar or put it higher?

If its for these one engine out scenarios I get it

We have a whole district (seaport) that's chopped at the knees around 200' because of a radar? It doesnt make sense, wouldnt it make more sense for the developers to get together and spend the money to move the radar?
 
i hate whenever i see that long-ago rendering -- not just b/c i prefer that tower to what's going up, in and of itself, but b/c the overall affect on the skyline is so much more impactful and aesthetically coherent.
 
Suffolk 83 said:
Because that FAA guideline seems almost political to me:

If its just for radar coverage why cant they move the radar or put it higher?

If its for these one engine out scenarios I get it

We have a whole district (seaport) that's chopped at the knees around 200' because of a radar? It doesnt make sense, wouldnt it make more sense for the developers to get together and spend the money to move the radar?
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The Seaport's limited by its proximity to runway 27.
 
Suffolk 83 said:
Because that FAA guideline seems almost political to me:

If its just for radar coverage why cant they move the radar or put it higher?

If its for these one engine out scenarios I get it

We have a whole district (seaport) that's chopped at the knees around 200' because of a radar? It doesnt make sense, wouldnt it make more sense for the developers to get together and spend the money to move the radar?
Click to expand...

I've met the people who set those limits. I promise you, they are the least political people imaginable. It's an engineering decision, that's it. Now, making exceptions... that gets you into some politics with the appointees.

The Seaport is not 200' because of either radar or OEO - it's actually on the centerline of Runway 27. You can't resolve that without moving the airport. Radar has so far only been a major issue for the Harbor Garage.
 
Suffolk 83 said:
Because that FAA guideline seems almost political to me:

If its just for radar coverage why cant they move the radar or put it higher?

If its for these one engine out scenarios I get it

We have a whole district (seaport) that's chopped at the knees around 200' because of a radar? It doesnt make sense, wouldnt it make more sense for the developers to get together and spend the money to move the radar?
Click to expand...

Equilibria said:
I've met the people who set those limits. I promise you, they are the least political people imaginable. It's an engineering decision, that's it. Now, making exceptions... that gets you into some politics with the appointees.

The Seaport is not 200' because of either radar or OEO - it's actually on the centerline of Runway 27. You can't resolve that without moving the airport. Radar has so far only been a major issue for the Harbor Garage.
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The limits here are set by a "one-engine-out" departure, in which a plane climbs much more slowly if they were to lose an engine on take off.
 
datadyne007 said:
The limits here are set by a "one-engine-out" departure, in which a plane climbs much more slowly if they were to lose an engine on take off.
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That's true for Downtown, but not for the Seaport. Is that what you mean by "here?"
 
I have no doubt that the FAA Logan airspace map is set by professionals who know what they are doing. I'm not questioning their competence or intent. But I would love to hear a detailed discussion of the rationale behind the various limits. Obviously there are a lot of considerations that go into the map: direct flight paths, "one engine inoperative scenarios," radar coverage, etc, and I'm sure that different considerations are the relevant limiting factor in different areas. It'd be neat to hear it all specifically broken down.

It seems pretty intuitive, for example, that direct runway flight paths have lower height caps for longer (e.g., Castle Island and Suffolk Downs vs. the North End). But it's not at all obvious, for example, why the height cap at the Volpe site (in the "corner" due west of the runways) drops from "1000 flat" to 500 as you move up Broadway away from Logan/Boston into Cambridge. None of the other "corners" have this "flat" dropoff.
 
If the downtown height limits are mainly due to radar, then how much is it to upgrade this? I saw the $30 million number bandied about in the past. Why wouldn't a developer (or group of developers) just offer to pay the extra $30 million in exchange for being able to go hundreds of extra feet? Wouldn't the tradeoff be worth it on literally 1 bigger building alone? So for instance, if Millennium offered the extra $30 million then instead of a 691' fat pig we could have gotten an 850' pig? Then all the buildings north of the common in particular would be able to actually soar (big bad soar) up to true supertall status.

If radar is the only obstacle then I just don't get it.
 
The map is sketchy at best. The height restrictions are 600-1000ft around downtown but behind it from the airport's perspective is back down to 500'?? Come on that's a joke
 
Equilibria said:
That's true for Downtown, but not for the Seaport. Is that what you mean by "here?"
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Downtown. This site. 115 Winthrop Square. Winthrop Center. What this thread is about.

DZH22 said:
If the downtown height limits are mainly due to radar, then how much is it to upgrade this? I saw the $30 million number bandied about in the past. Why wouldn't a developer (or group of developers) just offer to pay the extra $30 million in exchange for being able to go hundreds of extra feet? Wouldn't the tradeoff be worth it on literally 1 bigger building alone? So for instance, if Millennium offered the extra $30 million then instead of a 691' fat pig we could have gotten an 850' pig? Then all the buildings north of the common in particular would be able to actually soar (big bad soar) up to true supertall status.

If radar is the only obstacle then I just don't get it.
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The downtown height limits are not due to radar. See my post above. We've also had this radar/make developers pay for radar discussion a ton of times before.
 
Sorry staying off topic but they should move Logan Airport elsewhere. The land they are on is tiny and NOT expandable and what use is having an airport close to downtown when it still takes about 20-30 minutes to get there from downtown due to shitty public transit connection and traffic congestion.
 
datadyne007 said:
The limits here are set by a "one-engine-out" departure, in which a plane climbs much more slowly if they were to lose an engine on take off.
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Quite so.

Also worth considering is that FAA regulations are cumulative, adjusted based on historical data and changes in technology. The original 2007 proposal was a year and a half before this famous mishap. If the FAA's guidelines consider the one-engine-out scenario, maybe now they consider the both-engines-out scenario.
 
The simple solution is to build a brand new international airport for Massachusetts 12-15 miles away from Boston (something that should have happened back in the 1970s or 1980s) and then we can have lots of tall buildings in the Financial District, Seaport and have a massive amount of to develop where Logan used to be.
 
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