Winthrop Center | 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

Bananarama said:
The mech vents along that face are poorly integrated (unlike Dalton). The wide off-centered one in the middle kills me.
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I suppose the late stage hacking off of the secondary tower it is probably why - we really weren't meant to see it and already in cost cutting mode, it is what it is. Forgetting that, yeah, the OCD starts ticking a bit.
 
Bos77 said:
I suppose the late stage hacking off of the secondary tower it is probably why - we really weren't meant to see it and already in cost cutting mode, it is what it is. Forgetting that, yeah, the OCD starts ticking a bit.
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That definitely makes the most sense.
 
Walking along Beacon Street by the State House yesterday I noticed for the first time that this building and the Millenium Tower are the same glass. So from that point of view it looks like one massive building. Didn't have time to snap a picture but it was striking
 
Just came back from a Boston visit. I have to say that this tower looks good only from a distance. The street level is flat, dull, and not the monumental entrance promised even by the latest graphic iterations. Basically it's a hole in the glass framed by a weird column decorated by shards of metal. The front doors could be from TJ Maxx. Maybe the ground floor corridor will offer something more lively for pedestrians and visitors, unlike 75 State St., which promises so much and delivers little in its atrium.
 
DwnTwnr said:
Walking along Beacon Street by the State House yesterday I noticed for the first time that this building and the Millenium Tower are the same glass. So from that point of view it looks like one massive building. Didn't have time to snap a picture but it was striking
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I’ve noticed this too and took this pic from Charles/MGH during Boston Pride.
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Remember the time when Millenium was the darling developers in the city and they could do no wrong? So much for that
 
Life Coach Mike said:
Just came back from a Boston visit. I have to say that this tower looks good only from a distance. The street level is flat, dull, and not the monumental entrance promised even by the latest graphic iterations. Basically it's a hole in the glass framed by a weird column decorated by shards of metal. The front doors could be from TJ Maxx. Maybe the ground floor corridor will offer something more lively for pedestrians and visitors, unlike 75 State St., which promises so much and delivers little in its atrium.
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For what it's worth, neither the column nor the entry are complete. Scroll back and you'll see the column was clad in a nice marble facade that collapsed/was removed (big debate!). The plaza/park out front isn't complete either. I don't think it will be a world beater, but I'd reserve final judgment until the office is in full swing and the plaza is finished.
 
Justbuildit said:
For what it's worth, neither the column nor the entry are complete. Scroll back and you'll see the column was clad in a nice marble facade that collapsed/was removed (big debate!). The plaza/park out front isn't complete either. I don't think it will be a world beater, but I'd reserve final judgment until the office is in full swing and the plaza is finished.
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Indeed. Also, FWIW, now that the Federal St. sidewalk in front of the tower has finally reopened, you can peer into the lobby from the Federal St. entrance and gaze all the way through it, glimpsing the Devonshire St. doorways at the far side of the lobby. On sunny afternoons, it's a lovely effect to see the sun streaming in all the way across the lobby via the Devonshire St. doorways, bathing the whole lobby interior in light. In comparison to 75-101 Fed. lobby passageway immediately adjacent, the overall sensation is much more pleasing, given the light and the soaring cathedral-like interior space. (This is not to dismiss 75-101 Fed. lobby, which is glorious in other ways, primarily for its impeccable Art Deco motifs.)
 
type001 said:
It's just his thing to thrash on Boston.
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More like I'm not a Homer. Several folks here like to put down other cities' architecture because of their Boston = small city insecurities and I'm putting some objectivity here.

The One Dalton is an average building. It wouldn't stick out if it was shortened. Several skyscrapers in the world suffer from this. If the Salesforce tower in SF is shorter, it wouldn't stick out. Several buildings in LA suffer the same thing (I'd go out with a limb to say none of LA's downtown building would stand out based on their design except the US Bank Tower, Wilshire Grand Center, and maybe the Ritz Carlton).
 
Bananarama said:
The mech vents along that face are poorly integrated (unlike Dalton). The wide off-centered one in the middle kills me.
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Could it be that those mid-height/off-center ones are not mech vents, but black-painted plywood covering missing windows? The resolution on the photo isn't quite good enough to tell (don't get me wrong it's a great photo from that distance), but it doesn't seem there are vent louvers within it and it seems odd there's a random complete piece of glass in the middle of it.

Most of these new towers have at least a few damaged/to-be-replaced windows, and I have seen some paint the plywood black as they await the new glass.
 
Suffolk 83 said:
Remember the time when Millenium was the darling developers in the city and they could do no wrong? So much for that
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And all they did to deserve it was build the two tallest buildings in Downtown, on sites that had been absolute blights on the neighborhood, each with a substantial component of ground-level public access (the Burnham Building, Roche Bros, and the Winthrop "Connector").

I'd estimate the odds any of the other developers who proposed on this site (which included basket case Trans National and Accordia, which has only ever built a couple of prefab hotels on D street but somehow is treated like a savior) would actually have anything vertical in 2023 to be under 20%.

Czervik.Construction said:
When did we turn our backs on this building and start throwing so much shade?
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Yeah. This is a more attractive building than MT and looks amazing from certain angles (Dewey Square in particular).
 
Suffolk 83 said:
Remember the time when Millenium was the darling developers in the city and they could do no wrong? So much for that
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Off topic, but I thought Millennium Tower architects should be embarrassed when their Energy Star score in the BERDO was a 13/100. It's the equivalent of buying a Jaguar - you buy it for the looks not the quality.
 
Equilibria said:
And all they did to deserve it was build the two tallest buildings in Downtown, on sites that had been absolute blights on the neighborhood, each with a substantial component of ground-level public access (the Burnham Building, Roche Bros, and the Winthrop "Connector").

I'd estimate the odds any of the other developers who proposed on this site (which included basket case Trans National and Accordia, which has only ever built a couple of prefab hotels on D street but somehow is treated like a savior) would actually have anything vertical in 2023 to be under 20%.



Yeah. This is a more attractive building than MT and looks amazing from certain angles (Dewey Square in particular).
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Yea sure tall buildings are cool. MT was a win, Winthrop is a complete fail-They reneged on the affordable housing building in chinatown and the "great hall".... and the building is clearly bad architecture. The "neighborhood" here isnt really a neighborhood at all with many people never seeing the garage wedged deep in the financial district. They used COVID as an excuse to cheap out on everything in a housing market that could barely be any hotter if it tried and theyre walking away scott free with huge bags of cash
 
Suffolk 83 said:
They used COVID as an excuse to cheap out on everything in a housing market that could barely be any hotter if it tried and theyre walking away scott free with huge bags of cash
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Come on, this is populist ranting. Please corroborate this with links to sources that objectively and rigorously demonstrate how, exactly, they're walking away "scott free with huge bags of cash." Compared to who?

Otherwise, you're just a Howie Carr-esque (or Rifleman-esque) carnival barker playing to the cheap seats.
 
Suffolk 83 said:
Yea sure tall buildings are cool. MT was a win, Winthrop is a complete fail-They reneged on the affordable housing building in chinatown and the "great hall".... and the building is clearly bad architecture. The "neighborhood" here isnt really a neighborhood at all with many people never seeing the garage wedged deep in the financial district. They used COVID as an excuse to cheap out on everything in a housing market that could barely be any hotter if it tried and theyre walking away scott free with huge bags of cash
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I get your sentiment, but I wouldn't chalk this up as a huge win yet for the developers. They are having a tough time moving units here so much that they're offering rent-to-own. The small number of people I know who live here are taking advantage of that, because it's becoming competitive with downtown rents, when a purchase would be unfathomable (~$1.7M 1 beds renting for ~$5500 vs $9,000 all-in @20% down). The long-term financing and empty office space also put them in a tough spot. The chatter from CRE private equity types is that there may be an opportunity here and at St Regis if rates stay high for another year or two and vacancies continue to hang around.

Let's see how it goes, but my understanding isn't that this has been a huge developer windfall.
 
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