The Boston Redevelopment Authority is renewing its search for a developer of what could be the Hub’s tallest skyscraper, seven years after plans for the project on a city-owned garage site fizzled.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who had previously sought proposals to build a 1,000-foot tower with 1.3 million square feet of office space at the Winthrop Street Garage site on Devonshire Street between Winthrop Square and Federal Street, confirmed the BRA’s plan to seek a developer for the 47,738-square-foot parcel.
In April, the 435-car garage was shuttered after structural issues were identified that would require as much as $30 million in repairs. As a result, the city decided it would be best to sell the property as a development site. The city had earned about $1 million annually from parking fees in the garage. “It’s a choice location in the city of Boston,” Menino told the Boston Business Journal on Thursday night, following the reopening of the Forum restaurant in the Back Bay, ground zero for the second of the Boston Marathon bombs. “It would be a great site for a development.”
In a 2006 speech to the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, Menino called for construction of the city’s tallest building, one that would reach 80 stories to demonstrate Boston’s confidence in its future. Following the RFP, Trans National Group founder Steven Belkin was the sole respondent, in part, because he owns the adjacent 12-story building at 133 Federal St. and could combine the parcels for a larger development site.
But the project never materialized, in part over a disagreement about the value of the city-owned garage that is assessed at $27.3 million.
Peter Meade, the BRA director, said he has asked the agency’s attorneys whether the tentative designation to Belkin precludes the issuance of a new Request For Proposals. “I know he (Belkin) is still interested, but we are trying to determine if that designation has gone away and we should start over, ” he said.
