development
Interesting: Even as the city looks to give one developer a $16-million tax break, it rejects a $50 million offer from another. Of course, one is longtime local stalwart Liberty Mutual, which wants to build its new headquarters in the Back Bay, while the other is Menino foe Don Chiofaro, who wants to put a 59-story tower (and a tinier 40-story one) right on the waterfront. The BRA says it will deign to let him put a 16-story building on what is now the aquarium parking garage.
Construction of the new Carpenters Center (that striking building with the giant LED screen off the Expressway), by the New England Regional Council of Carpenters:
Ramshackle Salvation Army building: To become sparkly new corporate headquarters?
Boston city councilors today generally backed a proposed city/state deal to grant Liberty Mutual 20 years' of tax breaks to build a new headquarters in the Back Bay, but said the insurer's CEO really should take his foot out of his mouth and stop comparing Boston to Venezuela (assuming the Herald quoted him accurately, which councilors Feeney and Linehan doubted). Residents, however, objected to giving a very profitable company money for building on a "blighted" property. The company itself said it has no plans to move out of Boston no matter what happens - but might not expand without the tax break. Read more
Now why would the CEO of Liberty Mutual give what the Herald calls a rare interview to complain that Massachusetts taxes are too high for his tastes and to blame state workers for affecting his profits? Could it have anything to do with a city-council committee hearing today on whether to give the company a $16-million tax break to build a new headquarters building in the Back Bay? If you can't get to City Hall for the Committee on Economic Development and Planning's meeting at noon, you can watch on Comcast Channel 51 or online with RealPlayer.
Third Decade thinks it's good the mayor may finally do something about the mess that is the Filene's Hole downtown, but wonders when he'll do something about the derelict Ferdinand's building in Dudley Square - which the city already owns:
... C'mon, Mr. Mayor, address development in the city in a holistic manner. What's good for downtown is also good for the neighborhoods. Address our problems as aggressively as you're addressing those where the tourists and suburbanites go. We want progress, too!
So those steel girders can just slowly turn to dust now - unless some enterprising soul puts some boards across them and turns the ex-construction site into a teeter-totter park.
Vincent Price as ruined landmark: Before the remains were Christoishly covered up.
Steven Roth, the New York real-estate mogul who gave us the Hole, told an audience of Columbia architecture students last week that he deliberately pulled a similar stunt in New York in the hopes of gaining concessions from the city:
Why did I do nothing? Because I was thinking in my own awkward way, that the more the building was a blight, the more the governments would want this to be redeveloped; the more help they would give us when the time came.
And they did.
Of course, nothing gets Tom Menino's Boston up quite like a New York developer pulling stuff like that. The Globe reports Hizzonah has directed the BRA (which, remember, can do pretty much anything it wants) to start looking at taking the whole site over by eminent domain. Sure, the city's supposed to at least have some pretense it's taking the land for some greater good - maybe they can finally build that downtown swimming hole. Wonder what Roth's Boston partner on the deal, John Hynes, thinks?
Michael Pahre wondered why the company that wants to put a Lowe's in Brighton Landing would submit a traffic report that shows traffic along Market Street that is far worse than anything Pahre, who drives the road, ever sees. He comes up with a possible answer: It would make the big-box store's plan to reduce traffic seem all the better. Lowe's goes before the Brighton Allston Improvement Association tonight.
And yes, this is the same parcel on which New Balance has proposed a mixed-use development.
Banker & Tradesman reports developers submitted a letter of intent with the BRA yesterday to plow the Fenway Howard Johnson's (and the Hong Kong) under so they can build two 12-story buildings with residential, hotel and retail space.
Back when the region was awash in cash, a private developer proposed replacing the Lechmere Green Line stop with a fancy-shmancy indoor station as part of the T's plans to extend the line into Somerville and Medford. When that crashed and burned, the T proposed a simple Riverside-like station with no real way to get commuters to the station from across a six-lane highway.
Mark Jaquith outlines a proposal by a working group of local residents and merchants to build something better, even if not as grandiose as the old NorthPoint plan:
... A triangle between Cambridge Street and the O'Brien Highway divided by First Street where it extends into NorthPoint is what there is to work with. The group crafted a plan that incorporates substantial commercial development, some of it quite bold, into a new Lechmere Square that would anchor the eastern end of the city with a civic plaza, and a year-round public market and a seasonal farmers’ market.
This "transit-oriented" development would complement the Cambridge and First Street business districts, benefit residents, attract shoppers from the region, offset the DOT project cost, and add to the city’s commercial tax revenues.
Michael Pahre rounds up the latest news and conspiracy theories on the $250 million mixed-use proposal in Brighton, which centers on a parcel of land owned by another company that still hasn't completely given up on the idea of sticking a Lowe's there.
Mike Mennonno reports the owner of the burned-out restaurant row last week submitted plans to the BRA for a five-story mixed-use development; Mike is not optimistic the original tenants will be able to afford the new rents.
The Boston Redevelopment Authority today approved a 10-year construction project that will reshape the gateway to the Longwood Medical Area at the Riverway and Brookline Avenue. Read more
With in-patient stays on the rise and community hospitals beginning to close pediatric units, Children's Hospital said today it hopes to break ground this spring on an addition on Binney Street to add new beds. Read more
John Keith pulls up the records from the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance on Liberty Mutual-related donations to Tom Menino between July 1 and Sept. 1, 2009.
It was during this period that the company was busy buying up two Back Bay parcels on which it said yesterday it will build a 25-30 story office building, for which the city will kick in $16 million in tax abatements over the next 20 years.
The Globe reports the company's planning a $300-million expansion of its Back Bay headquarters, which it says will mean 1,100 new jobs.
They don't own the land, but are hoping to mobilize the public to pressure the owner to sell, the Herald reports.
Project map.
Blogger breaks the news on the project.
Michael Pahre gets the scoop on plans by the sneaker company is looking at building a large mixed-use development - that could take two decades to complete - on the land between its current headquarters and the Stop & Shop.
Blecch
On Sunday, the Globe Magazine posited that Bostonians who object to City Hall, the JFK Building and that mental-health building with the staircases to nowhere are simply stupid, plebian dunderheads unable to grasp the magnificence and brilliance of these 1960s and 1970s edifices and their role in restoring Boston's luster after decades of decline. Or as writer Sarah Schweitzer (of course), put it: Read more
The Chinatown Blog has the details on a proposal for 275 Albany St.
The Supreme Judicial Court yesterday tossed out Canton's lawsuit against the proposed Westwood Station project in neighboring Westwood, ruling the town failed to file its complaints on time. Read more
Massive development along the harbor is so last century. E. Kevin Schopfer proposes a massive development IN the harbor - a floating block of concrete and steel in the harbor with enough room to house 15,000 people and "sky gardens" every 30 floors that he calls the Boston Arcology or Boa:
Boa will eliminate the need for cars within the urban structure to create a carbon neutral entity. Some of these elements are secured wind turbines, fresh water recovery and storage systems, passive glazing system, sky garden heating/cooling vents, gray water treatment, solar array banding panels, and harbor based water turbines. A massive park system platform (pedestrian only) will be more than double the current green space allocation for the waterfront of Boston.
Via ArchBoston.org.
Note: Headline changed because the BRA approved the proposal last month; this month was the zoning board's turn.
The Boston Business Journal reports on the BRA's zoning commission's approval to tear down the current project and replace it elsewhere in Allston.
The Globe reports on the failure of complicated maneuvering to get the Postal Service out of its building next to South Station.
Mass. Transportation Secretary Jeff Mullan, however, doesn't see it quite like that. He tweets this morning:
Postal Service news presents opportunities for us regarding South Station capacity issues. We do not see it as a setback at all.
John Keith reports a bill by state Reps. Marty Walz, D-Back Bay, and Byron Rushing, D-Roxbury/South End, would effectively block all new development in parts of downtown, the North End and the Back Bay. Read more
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