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Work could begin this spring to turn Downtown Crossing parking lot into apartments, condos
By adamg on Fri, 02/04/2011 - 6:59am
Proposed Hayward Place. Rendering from BRA.
The Boston Redevelopment Authority reports Millennium Partners have filed new plans for a 15-story residential building on what is now a parking lot across from the Ritz, which they also built.
Hayward Place will mean 265 new residential units, along with first-floor retail space. It's on the parcel bordered by Washington Street, Avenue de Lafayette, Harrison Avenue and Hayward Place, which now consists of a parking lot, an abandoned Orange Line entrance and that weird set of glass panels on beams.
The developers' original plans, submitted in 2006 before the condo market collapsed, called for 225 "loft style" condos.
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Comments
The real question..
...is when is the hole down the street going to be fixed?
Which hole down the street?
There's one in either direction :-).
they got tired of the millions of cash every year from the city?
The BRA owns that lot, which doesn't pay property taxes as MIllineum has been collecting all the parking money for the last few years. Meanwhile, they meander through the process deciding what to build and collect about 2 million a year in cash.
What a great deal for the citizens of Boston!
Exactly
This has all the markings of another failed downtown condo project, leading us to yet another hole near Downtown Crossing. How can these developers think the market for these kind of units would be attractive, given what's happening with other properties in the area and in the city (i.e. the residences at the W Hotel).
Build, Baby,
Build, Baby, Build!
Interesting numbers from 25 Providence (New tower that kicked out the littlest bar)... they've only sold 28 units out of 137. The W is also a failure, and is teetering on bankruptcy.
Where's the demand for luxury condos? There's demand for affordable and middle of the road condo's, but who are we kidding, they won't be building those when they can throw in some polished granite counters and fancy vanity/sink combo and ask for 60% more.
hopefully
Who's saying they're luxury? I hope they will be reasonably priced, and not necessarily all luxury. The market will turn around eventually and when it does some people will have gotten a deal.
The BRA mantra
YOU get a luxury condo! and YOU get a luxury condo! As long as you're the kind of person we want living in Boston, YOU ALL GET LUXURY CONDOS!
...meh...
When even the architects rendering (from the BRA no less) leaves you thinking, "gee...what a cheap looking dump...wonder who'll get the contract to tear it down in 20 years," you know you're underachieving.
Walking through Downtown Crossing, you notice the architectural detail on some of the older buildings and even Winter Street while having a lot of "dated modern" details at least has a lot of corners and details to catch the eye and give a semblance of life (even if that life is urinating in the alley). Looking at the front of Macy's or Ave de Lafayette it just looks boring. Not even a place to step out of the wind to light a cigarette. This proposed building looks like it adds f-all to the streetscape (at least in this initial rendering). Just another blank wall of crap to hurry past on a windy day.
Boring
I'm not commenting on the merits of the project. I want to know why other cities get much more interesting architecture, while anything proposed for greater Boston, excepting perhaps around MIT in Cambridge, is a major snooze fest. I'd rather something polarizing than institutional. Other than the roof, this building looks like it could be a dorm on a mid-western campus.
well...
This is better than the rendition below, and it's better than the first round, where there was a big courtyard because there was "no open space" a block away form the common.
Any project run by the BRA is going to be boring. This is the organization that says "Boston has too many old buildings" and encourages developers to use a lot of glass. Unfortunately, with the BRA in charge, it becomes more "it could be worse" than "wow, this is a great building'.
A client of mine
is an elderly lady who lives in the Ritz condos. Nice lady, her son is a software millionaire who bought her the place. She hates it.
She says to me all the time " I liked it better at 770 Boylston, at least I could walk around there and there were things to do"
That about sums it up for me, that and the miserable people who live in the apartment building at Avery and Tremont, miserable because they believed the crap that they were told by realtors that it was a great neighborhood to live and raise your kids in.
Nothing to do near the Ritz?
Except go to live shows at the Paramount, Modern, Opera House, Wilbur, Wang, Colonial, Shubert, Charles Playhouse, or movies at Loews Boston Common and Stuart Street Playhouse?
The area may have problems, but 'boring' isn't one of them.
No offense, Ron
but would you want your 77 year old mother going anywhere near the Boston Common cinema? Or have her walking around that area at night?
It's a little safer for people her age in the Back Bay,no?
If my 80-year-old mom visited
Sure we'd go to Loews Boston Common if we wanted to see a movie there.
Well, then..
you're a better man than I. I sit down there a lot and it's a cesspool to me...
Heaven forbid a few darkies
Heaven forbid a few darkies walk by, eh?
If that's your definition of cesspool in a city, I'm wondering what normal is. Better lock that front door.
He/She didn't mention race...
why did you?
What a racist.
Original rendering:
Original rendering:
Huh. That certainly is a
Huh. That certainly is a different thing entirely. At first I was inclined to say that anything was better than that nasty parking lot but maybe we really ought to be able to expect something a little better than the pile of shit they are now proposing--so utterly bland. I wouldn't want to live in either of them personally.
Whit
Yikes!
Whoever rendered that needs to go back to the drawing board...literally.
It's like I'm looking through some kind of reverse fisheye.
Plus, is that car on the right about to suicide bomb the first floor? Look at those motion lines, it's heading right for the wall at top speed!
What a hot mess.
"Plus, is that car on the
"Plus, is that car on the right about to suicide bomb the first floor? Look at those motion lines, it's heading right for the wall at top speed!"
LOL!!!! I didn't notice that when i posted!!!! hahaha!!
That car is heading into a
That car is heading into a parking garage entrance or covered drop-off area.
Yeah, I know!
But look at the angle and speed of that thing! He's heading right for a supporting wall!
You can tell this is an artist's rendering...
They hide the building at 600 Washington Street, which is a lot less pretty and was built in 1904. That builiding has an old, unused theater, the outlines of which can clearly be seen from that side today. And, if those trees currently on Avenue de Lafayette are that leafy in the summer, then I'm Camilla Parker Bowles.
they also hide the 3 theatres that have opened across the street
and the Ritz ...
So what's the story with those glass panels?
I'm glad you noticed them because I always wondered what the deal was. Looks like a commercial window sample display you would see in a building material store..
At least something is going there
It's about time that something was built. It smells fishy, the way Millennium got the rights to build nine years ago yet had to do nothing whereas other developers get their permits pulled.
This project may end up being all rentals so people questioning the financial viability of it have nothing to worry about. The demand for pricey apartments is apparently never going to end.
Finally, it would be all well and good if Millennium was doing this out of the kindness of their heart, but I read somewhere that their right to build expired in 2013. So, given the glacial speed that approval takes in this city (other than Liberty Mutual, ahem), they are running out of time.