Filene's

Holey moley: Developer that actually builds things downtown to take lead on Filene's project

adamg — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:37:10 +0000

The lights were on but nobody was home the other night, CKP reports.

The Globe reports Millennium Partners has struck a deal with the owner of the Hole to actually build a tower on the negative space on Washington Street.

Millennium Partners built the Ritz and is currently building a new residential tower on the other side of Washington Street. Vornado Realty Trust of New York tore down most of Filene's - it will remain a "passive" partner in the new project.

Details of the plan - such as the exact specs of the tower and whether the city sweetened the deal with promises of Liberty Mutual-style tax breaks - remain unknown. The Globe says Millennium Partners expects to file its proposal within two months.

Imagine the Hole full of college students

adamg — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:33:04 +0000

The Globe reports Suffolk University is looking at possibly becoming even more of a presence in Downtown Crossing - where it already butts up against Emerson College - by selling off four Beacon Hill buildings and doing something interesting with either the abandoned Border's building, the Filene's Hole or both.

City Council may try to raise stakes in Filene's Hole battle

adamg — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:55:30 +0000

The Herald reports the City Council has formed a special committee on gambling. Part of its role will be to figure out if everybody in Boston should vote on allowing a casino at Suffolk Downs, but it may also attempt to leverage Vornado Realty Trust's 20% ownership of Suffolk Downs into getting it to do something about the Hole, of which it is the majority owner.

Citizen complaint of the day: A large hole

adamg — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 11:54:53 +0000

A puckish citizen complains about a large hole off Washington Street in Downtown Crossing that has gone unfilled despite numerous past complaints.

How about a Target next to the Hole?

adamg — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 11:50:41 +0000

The Herald reports the chain is now eying part of what's left of the old Filene's building. Of course, the question is whether Tornado, um, Vornado would want to sell.

New signage at the Hole

adamg — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 00:33:39 +0000

Look what showed up at Downtown Crossing's best known negative space today. Who's the wise guy?

Copyright BostonUrbEx. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

Planting an idea: Throw some topsoil in the Hole

adamg — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:23:32 +0000

Jeremy Marin notes that an ugly, vacant construction site in Manhattan is now an urban farm:

The farm is comprised of roughly 6,000 plants growing in easily transportable black milk crates. There's eggplant in shades of white and purple, an array of squash, tomatoes, salad greens - even okra, a southern crop rarely seen on farms in the Northeast. The produce regularly sells out in the Riverpark restaurant.

Citizen complaint of the day: The Filene's Memorial Hole not looking so hot

adamg — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 13:45:06 +0000

Just in case somebody at City Hall didn't already know about it, an alert citizen used Citizens Connect to report there are now holes in the canvas covering what's left of the old Filene's building.

Menino: Leave that frickin' hole there - that'll teach those New Yorkers!

adamg — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:21:06 +0000

The Herald seems to have captured Menino saying the Hole can stay a hole until those goddamn New Yorkers learn Boston means business. Or something:

People say to me: 'Oh, you've got a hole there - so what! The hole is going to be there until those folks from New York understand we in Boston know how to do development. And just because they can't get development done, that's not my fault.

Mr. Chiofaro, it's Barry Bluestone for you on line 2

adamg — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 12:21:38 +0000

Brian McGrory reports this morning that Don Chiofaro's latest plans for the Aquarium garage would keep the garage in place (no word on the stupid red ribbon) and stick 12 stories of condos and apartments on top of it. That would keep the thing at the 200-foot level Mayor Menino insists is the tallest anybody can build along the Greenway (and a far cry from the 48-story complex Chiofaro proposed a couple months back).

But here's an idea:

Just yesterday, Barry Bluestone proposed a multi-university student village in Downtown Crossing aimed at grad students. And City Councilor Mike Ross marveled at Harvard at Trilogy, which provides housing for Harvard types who want to be near the medical area in one of the city's more successful recent residential projects.

Now where could you find the land for a place to house a few hundred grad students in Downtown Crossing? Yep. Why not get Bluestone, Chiofaro and Ross in a room with the BRA to work out a land swap: the Filene's Memorial Hole for what will become the Menino Memorial Park Next to the Other Park. Bonus for Chiofaro: Bluestone's proposal calls for some luxo-units for rich foreign students.

Then again, this is Don Chiofaro and Tom Menino we're talking about. The city would take ownership of the garage and then the BRA would promptly enact emergency regulations barring any projects taller than two stories along Washington Street.

BRA pulls Vornado's permits on the Filene's Memorial Hole

adamg — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 01:50:17 +0000

The city's lost $20 million in tax revenue from the negative space and enough is enough, the BRA says in a letter sent today.

Possible buyers look at the Hole

adamg — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 14:07:54 +0000

The Globe tells us which developers are interested in buying the Filene's Negative Space - at a discount, of course.

Yankees suck and so do their real-estate agents

adamg — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 14:47:43 +0000

The Outraged Liberal gets outraged about clueless comments from some New York real-estate agent on why the Filene's Hole project finally collapsed, something about the lead developer not shmoozing local pols enough and the mayor needing a Xanax and failing to let Vornado be Vornado. No word on the size of the hat Faith Hope Consolo was talking through, since she missed how Vornado's partner in the deal was John Hynes, about as shmoozy with Boston nobs as you can get (Faith, you might want to look up who his father was), not to mention the way the city kinda bent over backwards to let Vornado put up their homage to Christo.

For sale: Giant hole, never used

adamg — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 11:20:20 +0000

The Globe reports the owners of the Filene's Memorial Hole plan to put the negative space up for sale, as city officials prepare to revoke its building permits after two years of being nothingness.

A downtown hub is missed by the Times

Cynic — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 01:37:11 +0000

The Grey Lady takes note of the giant hole at One Franklin Street. But it would be nice if at some point in her three years as the Boston Bureau Chief, the Times' Abby Goodnough had figured out that the shorthand for Filene's Basement is The Basement. Instead, the Times promises its readers that soon we will have "a new Filene’s for the bargain hungry." That would be something.

But that pales in comparison to this memorable passage:

For nearly a century, Filene's Basement was as renowned a monument as Fenway Park and Faneuil Hall - a plaque out front commemorated Filene's as the "Hub of the Universe."

Where to begin? The plaque was for Filene's, not for The Basement, a distinction that utterly eludes the Times. It was put there by the store's owner, not by its adoring public. And it was a riff on the Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. quote from which this blog takes its name. The implicit point was that if a century before, Bostonians had centered their universe on the State House, by the mid-twentieth century, commerce had supplanted politics and they looked toward Downtown Crossing.

It'd be nice if the features that purport to offer local color managed to offer a scene that locals might recognize as their own.