Winthrop Center | 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

[HelloBostonHi]

BPDA completed late last year the Plan Downtown, that dramatically increases the as-of-rights heights and FAR in the new Downtown Skyline Districts. (Big barrier now is the Shadow law, which is State controlled, and Logan Airspace which is Federal). Draft Zoning (still subject to amendment) was released in April.

Have you not seen this change?

https://www.bostonplans.org/planning-zoning/planning-initiatives/plan-downtown

That work was largely completed under the Walsh admin, shelved during COVID, then left collecting dust during our interim mayoral phase. Example of this presentation from 2020: https://www.bostonplans.org/documen...plan-downtown-scenarios-workshop-presentation

I don't think Mayor Wu can take much credit for just letting them finish what they started under Walsh.

 

[DBM]

That work was largely completed under the Walsh admin, shelved during COVID, then left collecting dust during our interim mayoral phase. Example of this presentation from 2020: https://www.bostonplans.org/documen...plan-downtown-scenarios-workshop-presentation

I don't think Mayor Wu can take much credit for just letting them finish what they started under Walsh.

That is precisely false. If you checked out the PLAN Downtown timeline, you'd see that the Wu administration, after reviving PLAN in November 2022, has since hosted 14 different public meetings on it. I'm not at City/Planning Dept. staffer and thus carry no water for the administration, but this ridiculous (and lazy, in light of not having researched) claim of "just letting them finish" is some serious misinformation, in light of the facts.

P.S. Under the "man proposes, God disposes" category: it's humorous to see the state legislature having mandated, in July 2017, that PLAN Downtown "shall be published not later than 3 years after this act goes into effect."

(In reality, it was published in August 2023, per that timeline linked to above... oops!)

 

[commuter guy]

The mayor can do more:

Particularly to drop the 20% affordable unit requirement just for the Downtown refits.

That could be a gamechanger and it doesn't take away at all from the requirement outside of that 1 mile square.

Wu could also try to prioritize nightlife downtown, some cities have created nightlife zones with success. We often hear that given the scarcity of liquor licenses, many licenses have been siphoned from outlying neighborhoods to the seaport, back bay etc. The response of the city has been to push for geographically restricted licenses in Hyde Park, Mattapan etc. which is great, but the fact remains that the market is indicating that the unmet demand is higher downtown - that's why corporate type restaurant groups are snapping up the licenses for over 500k to open up in Seaport. We need more licenses everywhere, but especially downtown, if we are to satisfy unmet demand. Perhaps they could give downtown some advantage in allowing later hours, close ladder streets on the weekend, allow open carry on that street, something to jump start economic development and give downtown an advantage. Coming out of COVID, the downtown area is the one area needing attention, the outlying neighborhoods are probably doing better foot traffic wise than before covid.

 

[HelloBostonHi]

That is precisely false. If you checked out the PLAN Downtown timeline, you'd see that the Wu administration, after reviving PLAN in November 2022, has since hosted 14 different public meetings on it. I'm not at City/Planning Dept. staffer and thus carry no water for the administration, but this ridiculous (and lazy, in light of not having researched) claim of "just letting them finish" is some serious misinformation, in light of the facts.

Well I was on the BPDA staff during the Walsh admin but oh well what do I know I guess.

 

[shmessy]

Well I was on the BPDA staff during the Walsh admin but oh well what do I know I guess.

I really miss Mayor Walsh.

Ironically, my predisposition towards him before becoming Mayor was negative, and my predisposition to Mayor Wu was far more positive before becoming Mayor.

As it turned out, regarding urban optimism about the future - dynamic/growth planning, I was wrong on both.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Wu could also try to prioritize nightlife downtown, some cities have created nightlife zones with success. We often hear that given the scarcity of liquor licenses, many licenses have been siphoned from outlying neighborhoods to the seaport, back bay etc. The response of the city has been to push for geographically restricted licenses in Hyde Park, Mattapan etc. which is great, but the fact remains that the market is indicating that the unmet demand is higher downtown - that's why corporate type restaurant groups are snapping up the licenses for over 500k to open up in Seaport. We need more licenses everywhere, but especially downtown, if we are to satisfy unmet demand. Perhaps they could give downtown some advantage in allowing later hours, close ladder streets on the weekend, allow open carry on that street, something to jump start economic development and give downtown an advantage. Coming out of COVID, the downtown area is the one area needing attention, the outlying neighborhoods are probably doing better foot traffic wise than before covid.

In Plan: Downtown, the Skyline districts of downtown include prioritizing entertainment uses for the ground floor retail. Whether this translates to nightlife or not remains to be seen. Isn't the liquor licensing issue really under the control of the State Legislature? They have micromanaged Boston licenses for about a century.