I think we need to separate the discussion of the aesthetics from the discussion of dimensions. You may prefer the version with the whale skeleton to the current, and that's fine, but that doesn't make the whole thing a con job.
What DOES make the 2016 proposal a con job, in a sense, is how the floor plan has evolved. See below - 2016 on the left, 2019 on the right:
I've looked at several iterations, and it seems like three big things happened:
- Millennium didn't give any thought to the elevation change between Winthrop Square and Federal St. when they drew up the initial proposal - at least I can't see any ramps or stairs in that plan or renders. Immediately upon revising it for the second DPIR (the February 2018 hideously ugly one), they started taking about half of the space to change elevation. Unless there were hidden ramps/elevators in the 2016 version, that Great Hall would not have been buildable as a level space.
- Millennium doubled the number of office elevators between 2016 and 2018. Again, I'd chalk this up to vision vs. reality setting in as they considered what they actually needed. Once they added the elevators, they also closed off the area of the Great Hall that the elevators now defined as "Office Lobby". That lobby space was supposed to share the Great Hall with the public, with a security desk in front of the elevators, but by 2018 the Office Lobby became (and has remained) its own space fully removed from the public. That's likely a tenant preference, but I can't see it being a tenant demand, particularly as other buildings around the city have publicly accessible lobbies and the market is really hot for Class A office space.
- For the most recent version (February 2019), Millennium has outlined kiosks that go all the way up to the column line on either side, essentially sealing off the "shoulders" of the Great Hall behind counters and (if you look at their surprisingly honest renderings) shutters during non-business hours. If you look at the 2016 drawing, those businesses all exist essentially in ephemeral space, with a bar/counter but no food preparation or other back-of-the-house space. The Federal Court side in 2016 had no retail space at all but does in 2019, probably because they had to make the space back after taking a whole cafe for the Office Lobby. EDIT: One thing to consider about this is that "kiosks" can be a variety of useful businesses selling different types of products and services, while the 2016 render essentially showed only high-end food-and-drink.
- EDIT: It's also worth noting that the 2016 Great Hall was open to the elements, while the 2019 version is climate controlled. In Boston, that's a plus.
- EDIT: Also, some of the shoulder space was lost to a parking garage entrance from Federal St. The 2016 version has no visible access the parking garage at all - Handel simply didn't draw one in. It's possible that the top-left of the site has it, but that would imply that all vehicles would access the garage through the pedestrianized Winthrop Square, which makes no sense.
In short, Millennium has made some questionably-elitist or tenant-centric decisions here (the Office Lobby mainly), but the central problem here was that Handel designed a non-constructable Great Hall and retail space in 2016 and reality caught up.
