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Sneakerville, USA: Reebok picks Seaport building for HQ

The Boston Business Journal reports Reebok has picked the the Innovation & Design Building in the Seaport for its new headquarters.

It'll join New Balance (Brighton) and Converse (North Station) in Boston.

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Comments

Train service to the South Boston Waterfront is needed. NB and Converse have or will have it.

Or maybe Reebok can go one (or two) better by getting ferry service...and HELICOPTER service! (Go away, Silver Line)

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Reebok's now headquarters in Canton is actually closer to a commuter rail station in a straight line, and is more likely faster to get to in rush hour traffic than South Station is from the old Army Base where Reebok is going.

Guess what, Reebok don't care.

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Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.............snoozeville daddy-o!

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ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ - "Hey let's go to that corporate chain in the Seaport, as opposed to the corporate chain place at University Station in Westwood?

Weak argument on your end.

By the way, Boston is an Adidas Town (which I know has owned Reebok for 10 years).

I've never owned a pair of Reeboks. What good Irish American would wear a British flag on their shoe?

By the way, Reebok was also interested in a building much closer to South Station that would have not required Silver Line travel.

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I'll take being on the water and across from the Harpoon Beer Hall. Then there is Row 34, Drink and other fine establishments a walk away in Fort Point.

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The IDB is much different than a typical corporate office. The tenant mix here is incredibly diverse, between architecture firms, graphic design and marketing firms, tech companies, research collaboratives, retail design spaces, an art gallery, non profits, etc..

Look at some of the tenants now - the new Autodesk Build Space is garnering all kinds of exposure, the new America's Test Kitchen is moving in. There has also been a huge amount of site and building improvements as well, adding much needed food and beverage operations in the shipping containers.

If you're looking for a mini-tech/design hub, this is it. Not to mention there is added exposure of all the cruise ships coming in.

Not trying to sound like advertisement, but credit where it's due. Jamestown has done a lot since my company moved here a few years ago.

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For years they tried to keep the building walled off, especially the BDC crowd. They have done a great job.

Most of the Seaport however is still to me a mall with offices. If you took away the ocean air, you could think you are on Mall Road in Burlington.

The institutional owners want guaranteed rent streams from retail tenants and the spaces are geared to large corporate occupiers, not local operators. That hampers the vitality of the area.

One of the best things that was asked about the Seaport 15 years ago was "Where is the Bromfield Street?" It may happen someday, but not soon.

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EDIC still owns it, Jamestown has the contract to manage it. Dana Farber owns 27 Drydock (the eastern end of the building) but is selling. Jamestown is trying to buy that last section.

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Not to mention about 18 acres across the Summer Street Bridge and Reserve Channel will be transformed to mixed use over the next two years as the power plant comes down. Including plans for a Hotel.

Add in the floating heliport GE is getting off the BOA pavilion, and that's some pretty sweet digs.

As more and more people move into the waterfront and commercial areas between southern and the waterfront are converted, well be seeing a push for real transit options and the conversion of the silver line

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Grandfather came from Ireland. I wear Reebok's with pride all the time. My Irish grandfather would have laughed at your comment.

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..half the people that claim to be Irish in boston couldn't find ireland on a map.

my co-workers from ireland laugh at them.

- the original SoBo Yuppie

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Including all you yuppies who moved to Southie because you saw a movie. Can tell you Scally cap wearing phony baloneys sitting in Starbucks pretending you are hard guys.

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no yuppie would ever be caught dead in a scally cap.

the only reason people moved into SoBo is because it was affordable (at one time) and close to high paying jobs. if you took SoBo and moved it down the shore 15 miles it would be the same neighborhood it was back in the 70s.....even if they made Good Will Hunting 2,3 and 4.

- the original sobo yuppie

(that is funny. moving to a neighborhood because someone saw a movie. HAHAHA)

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But Irishmen who side with the British are a whole other thing. Very long story but suffice it to say your grandfather wouldn't be welcomed in a lot of Irish establishments.

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If only there was something athletic you could put on your feet to make the walk bearable.

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Aren't there existing unused tracks of some kind going out there? Why can't the T buy some extra green line trains or something and stick them on there? Cheaper than converting the SL, even if that's what they SHOULD do.

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There was an article in the Globe about potential passenger service using the CSX owned freight rails. It would likely be an extension of the Fairmount line, which would really do almost nothing to aid the Silver Line. This needs to be rapid light rail with short headways, not commuter rail trains passing through every 30 min.

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Summer Street had trolleys for ages. It is wide enough, straight enough, and gosh darn it, long enough to support light rail from South Station to City Point.

A smart group of congressmen (especially one from South Boston who has to see that the neighborhood isn't going back to "God's Country" as I heard one muttonhead call it the other day) could maybe convince the Federal Reserve to give up some of its suburban office landscape at the corner of Dorchester Ave. and Summer Street for a transfer point. The Fed was built for a different banking world than 1975. It is time they come to the realization that maybe you don't need so much lawn.

I was in Zageb over the summer. It is yes, a much smaller city, but the trams ran through the city center every few minutes, people go on and off, and I got where I needed to go quickly.

This would be a great solution to a lot of Seaport and then downtown problems.

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Literally every other thread that talks about Seaport and transit mentions this track.

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Build an elevated rail line on a modern concrete viaduct. Cheaper than a subway with the same or better service!

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There are tracks, but they connect to a rail yard and points south. Connecting them to anything would start to cost month. There was talk of running a DMU train on those tracks to the convention center, but getting that train to back bay is the train equivalent of trying to running a local road across i93.

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... to Drydock Ave (and the loading dock). Running from the direction of Summer Street towards those big gravel silo thingies to the east of the building.

Up until a few years ago, there were signs prohibiting parking after 5:30 to allow overnight trains to run on these tracks (the signs lasted a lot longer than train activity did).

Then they paved over parts of the tracks...because, you know...cars are more important. Would be funny and great (if highly improbable) if they reactivated those tracks for passenger shuttling.

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Who are they displacing from the space? Article says they are adding 700 employees. With the SL2 already well over capacity at rush hour how the hell to they expect people to get there? Not everyone employed there will be driving...

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I doubt they are displacing anyone. IDB is huge. From the rendering it looks like they'll be at 25 Drydock. Currently the first floor (not sure about the above) is an empty flex/event space.

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Is there a particular reason why sneaker manufacturers would locate their corporate headquarters in Boston? I'm curious.

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There is a long history of Boston being a center of shoe manufacturing in the United States. Brockton used to be a huge manufacturer (home of Etonic). Outside of the obvious in Reebok, Converse, and New Balance, there's Saucony, Keds (kehds!), and Sperry. Might it have been the proximity by ship to Europe, and the number of textile mills in the area to feed the companies need for materials?

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Reebok has been local for decades (though they are a subsidiary of Adidas now.) I think that will Converse and New Balance upping their game, they probably want a more prominent spot. It's an odd trend. Companies moved to the suburbs back in the day for the sylvan campus and lots of space. Now, the place to be is in a more urban setting, hence Reebok is moving to Boston.

In the larger sense, the area has always been a shoe manufacturing mecca. Brockton and Lynn were big shoe towns, and even Jackson Square had factories up to the 1950s.

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A century or so ago, Malden, Melrose, and Stoneham were the center of the shoe making industry in the US. Converse Rubber Shoe Company, for example, was founded in Malden by Marquis Mills Converse and headquartered there for many years. The factories were located in those towns with parts sourced from some of the outer suburbs (leather from Woburn and Peabody, soles were made in "shoddy shops" in Burlington and Wilmington, etc)...

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Boston's seafaring legacy and early industrialization made it a center of shoemaking as early as the second quarter of the 19th century. Boston ships would sail around Cape Horn, purchase cowhides in California, and ship them back to Boston where they'd be made into shoes for the world.

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I work at the IDB, and the Silver Line just cannot handle another 700 people. The garage here is also at capacity. This morning alone the platform was full all the way back to the stairs from the red line. Every day it takes multiple buses before you can even get on.

Not to mention the need to start staggering SL1s, SL2s, and SLW buses so that the people who need to actually get all the way out to the IDB can do so. Maybe start offering SL2 buses express to Silver Line Way? Every day SL2s fill up with people getting off at Courthouse + WTC, while passengers trying to get out to Drydock Ave are left waiting for multiple buses.

Between the IDB continuing to add large tenants, additional office construction, and the 1,500 or so hotel rooms being added in over the next few years this needs to become train service ASAP.

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No need for train. They can buy bi-articulated buses for SL2 service.

Throw in wires alone the SL2 route to eliminate 5 minutes per run delay at SLW. Thats an extra "free" bus every hour. Eliminate delays at D street and youre golden. Use the direct ramp to the tunnel for airport buses and thats another bus freed up every hour

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Considering the single-articulated buses already have turning radii issues with the turn on Drydock Ave from Tide St, and then again when turning on SLW by the Reserve Channel from Black Falcon Ave, the routes might have to be adjusted, but maybe some combination of this and a Fairmount extension could resolve some of the issues.

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What really needs to get done is to have the city and Massport get together and figure out how they can square off some of the roads into more of a grid, which would likely hep eliminate the need for some of these odd turns for the bi-articulated buses. It might involve redrawing some parcels, but a lot of the land is still owned by Massport and leased to tenants in less-than-permanent buildings. Better roads would lead to more room for bike lanes, bus-only lanes and better sidewalks. Right now it's a mess of curved roads like Haul and Pappas, which is fine if you're putting in roads along established property like in Downtown Boston, but there's no excuse for it in Seaport.

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And yet Stevil thinks the real estate and regional economy will collapse with 2-3% inflation.

Companies and people are climbing over each other to move into the city or close to it. Infrastructure spending and housing is lagging way behind. Its moderating the economy and the demand isn't going to drop off even in a recession, just as the "great recession" only slowed things down, but did little to hurt the Boston economy.

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I remember reading about a abandoned rail line connecting the design center to south station a few years ago - anyone remember that and know what happened - it was supposed to be fast tracked and only take a few years? did Baker kill it?

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The idea was to run single-car diesel trains from Back Bay to the convention center via that abandoned Track 61

One of Baker's first acts in office was to kill plans to buy these DMU cars (which also would have provided more frequent service on the Fairmount Line), although the Track 61 idea was always kind of wacky because it would have involved getting the cars across the Northeast Corridor outside South Station somehow.

City planners are now looking at possibly diverting some Fairmount Line trains to the convention center instead of South Station, but that plan has some issues as well.

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No Train!

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I guess if there's nothing to break, it counts as being fixed?

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Seaport has become a mess when it comes to traffic. For some reason it became a goal to build as much as possible without planning or thinking about how much traffic it would create.

Have to say I miss the old days in 2002 when I didn't have to wait to go down 2 blocks, back then I could go running without tripping over yet another new building, the crowds and be able to sit peacefully by the waterfront. Yes, we're making progress but everything has a price. So grateful I've found other places to sit by the water without all the noise and congestion.

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Have to say I miss the old days in 2002 when I didn't have to wait to go down 2 blocks, back then I could go running without tripping over yet another new building

IMAGE(http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/27727248.jpg)

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needs another parking garage or at the very least add a few more floors onto the existing garage. Parking is terrible here and will only get worse. Not everyone can park on Southie Streets and walk, bike, Uber or take the bus there.

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