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Kenmore Square bank could be replaced with hotel

BLDUP.com reports a developer is eying a one-story Citizens Bank at 560 Commonwealth Ave. - at the intersection with Beacon Street - for a glass-walled hotel with a roof-deck restaurant.

Bank fans need not fret, however - the rendering shows a bank going into the first-floor retail space.

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Comments

It's back bay brownstones, then the BU campus, but then the cityscape just sorta ends going down Beacon Street with little to make up for the gaping hole of the bridge over the pike.

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Unless the developer is also planning on building across the street on beacon st, the building in the photo is really an ugly old parking garage.

That aside, this proposal looks good. I hope they build it. (Maybe replace the citizens Bank with super socks.)

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He's almost ready to get down to Home Depot to order the materials. Good for him that he has stuck it out but I had an infant when this project was announced, the infant drove me to the store the other day.

About the Citizens Bank Building - It has always been a little underwhelming spot for such a prominent intersection.

I hope we are not off in the dreamworld phase of development in town. I have pictures of some sexy as hell circa 1986 post modern developments planned on sites that are still just drawings on paper.

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https://goo.gl/maps/prtyefiaqYN2

(Adam: Something has changed. These streetview links used to open automatically when surrounded by "[img]" using filtered HTML. Now that doesn't work anymore for Google links.)

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I'll take a look. I don't think I touched anything, but obviously something changed.

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What about those downtown facing units behind the Citizens Bank? Is this fair?

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566 Commonwealth... AKA Kenmore Tower... does anyone care about these Bostonians, or is everyone so ready to have more tourists, that it does not matter that this plan literally ruins these particular Boston residents home and quality of life.

Not to mention, it is Commonwealth ave and Beacon.... does anyone know what city planning is? Tall buildings belong off the Charles River and closer to Boylston. I feel like I am taking crazy pills with all these responses loving the idea.

They didn't build the Millennium Tower, or the Pierce, or any of these new tall buildings on Comm ave and Beacon St. Nope, they built them further in off the Charles River.... Why?, the same reason they didn't build the Prudential and the Hancock Tower right on Storrow Drive, because there is a flow to Boston that respects history and city design. This new project, as it currently exists, spits in the face of all those that have worked to make Boston as beautiful a city as it has come to be today. There is an actual line of Skyscrapers in Boston, that essentially follows Boylston through the fens to the Pierce and Medical Campuses, where there continues to be more available real-estate for upward development.

As this regards specifically to Kenmore Sq, I truly believe that no new building should be erected, but if it must, architecturally speaking it should not exceed the current height of the Buckminster Hotel.

I am curious If you are familiar with the recent renovations to BU's Myles Standish Hall at the start of Kenmore Sq.... After being bought with the intent of repurposing the building, they could have tried to build a tall structure, but they didn't. In fact they did not change anything structurally about the building, only giving it a face-lift and redesigning the inside of the building. This project was done properly, with care. The words "Architectural Integrity" come to mind with this project and the 560 project, and I just hope people consider this the way I do.

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Bank fans need not fret, however - the rendering shows a bank going into the first-floor retail space.

What would we do without a bank there? It would be such a shame to have an actual useful business open past 4:30 in its place. God forbid there would be activity on the street in the evening and on weekends. Thank goodness it will stay.

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Is such a ghost town in weekends, especially this spot which is the center of 6 ways. We have often wondered when someone would do something to get more traffic over there.

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But I feel bad for anyone who has one of the apartments that look out into Kenmore Square over the bank from the building behind. What a huge loss of a cool view.

The march of development spares few however.

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It doesn't have to continue everywhere, if it's not what area residents want in particular locations.

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