0 New Boston Skyscrapers will Make — or Brake — the Skyline

Posted on July 13, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Copley square office buildings in Boston

Credit: Boston Globe

The greater Boston audience has an opinion about just about anything, including our skyline. This poses a challenge to Boston’s strongest developers and architects to reshape our city into something elegant, energizing, and functional.

From the Boston Globe:

No matter how elegantly they may be paved or planted, urban plazas are boring, windy, and little used, especially in weather like ours. The Prudential, back before its Arctic plazas were filled in with shopping arcades, was a good example. The Federal Reserve Bank, next to South Station, is another. It’s a handsome, eloquent Diva tower behind a plaza that has the charm of a recently abandoned battlefield.

As far as the public is concerned, cities aren’t made of buildings and plazas, anyway. Cities are made of streets and parks. From the point of view of urban design, the buildings are there to shape those public spaces and feed them with energy.

0 Tower Height Contended on Boston Harbor Garage Site

Posted on June 30, 2015 by Wil Catlin

rendering of the proposed towers at Boston Harbor

Credit: Boston Globe

The Boston Waterfront will continue to change and be the gateway to our city. City Hall has moved to the positive side, but it appears not all the abutters are for the size of the Harbor Garage site.

From the Boston Globe:

Boston Redevelopment Authority officials said they plan to recommend Wednesday that a skyscraper on the site of the Boston Harbor Garage be allowed to reach up to 600 feet. That would essentially match the taller of the two buildings Chiofaro has proposed for the property and would be far taller than any other neighboring building overlooking the harbor.

But Chiofaro would not get everything he wants: City officials will propose to limit development at the garage site to 900,000 square feet. The two-building complex proposed by Chiofaro last year would total 1.3 million square feet, with a mix of offices, residential units, and other uses…Chiofaro declined to comment, so it’s unclear whether the smaller building area would limit the developer to one tower instead of two.

0 Designers Wanted for City Hall Project

Posted on June 17, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Boston Herald

Mayor Walsh wants your creative ideas for City Hall. Let’s see what some of our creative thinkers will come up with.

From the Boston Herald:

Walsh announced plans to “re-envision” the plaza to make it a more inviting and attractive civic space for residents and visitors during this year’s State of the City address in January…The master plan will identify areas for improvements at City Hall and the plaza, including possible public-private ventures, historic considerations and approaches for reuse, according to the solicitation issued by the city’s Public Facilities Department. It will look at existing conditions, including land use and zoning, and develop detailed cost estimates for the recommended work and programming.

“(The) vendor will coordinate with city representatives, other stake holders and (a) community advisory council on all aspects of project,” the advertisement states. “(The) scope of work will include a visioning exercise, identifying goals and objectives, best practices for municipal services and civic spaces as they relate to Boston City Hall and the plaza.”

0 745 Atlantic Ave. Purchased by Oxford Properties for $114.5M

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Office building at 745 Atlantic avenue in downtown Boston

Credit: BBJ

Oxford Properties continues its buying spree by plunking down $114.5 million for 745 Atlantic Avenue or $657 per square foot. 745 Atlantic Avenue is home to WeWork and Dain Torphy as well as a number of companies. WeWork will be building out a Café on the 1st floor as part of their future expansion.

From the BBJ:

“It really fits our profile of what we like to buy for the long-term: Class A assets in downtown cores near transit-oriented locations,” said Chad Remis, the head of Oxford Properties’ Boston office.

Its $114.5 million acquisition of 745 Atlantic, which closed May 29, is more than double the $54.65 million sale price 745 Atlantic fetched in 2003. The property sold again in 2008 as part of a $1.7 billion office property acquisition invovlingBeacon Capital Partners and Charter Hall Office REIT of Sydney, Australia.

You can read the full article on the Boston Business Journal website.

0 Is Boston an Architectural Eyesore?

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Office Building in Back Bay at 111 Huntington Ave.

No Boston isn’t ugly and as a matter of fact, it’s beautiful. Opinions are just that, opinions and each of us are allowed to express ours despite who it might offend.

Boston Magazine has a strong one, noting “the dirty little secret behind Boston’s building boom is that it’s profoundly banal—designed without any imagination, straight out of the box, built to please banks rather than people…Renderings of 30 Dalton show how its panel-and-glass motif will create a relentless gridded box of windows from floor to sky: Click, copy, and paste. A few weeks after 30 Dalton’s miniature arrived on the site, the backhoes arrived to carve a foundation out of what had been a parking lot. A few feet away, the old brownstones of St. Germain Street—the ghosts of Boston’s long-lost architectural ambitions—hunkered down in 19th-century resignation.”

We must, however, remind everyone that the office market today is vastly different from decades past. Today’s tenant wants floor to ceiling light with as many corners on each floor. 111 Huntington Avenue is one most sought after address’s in Back Bay with its efficient floor plates combined with abundant amenities.

The only space available is a sublease on the 5th floor, so from Boston Properties’ perspective, the building is fully leased.

0 The Landmark Building at 160 Federal St. Sold to Beacon Capital

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: BBJ

Beacon Capital continues to add to their portfolio by purchasing 160 Federal Street with is located at the corner of Federal St. and High St.

According to the BBJ, “the deal for the 351,000-square-foot, 24-story Landmark Building “was financed with a $96.2 million mortgage from Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., a separate Suffolk County record shows. The mortgage was executed April 10…Taurus bought 160 Federal St. in April 2007 for $101.4 million, Suffolk County records show.”

Additional details are available on the Bizjournals.com.

0 115 Winthrop Square Considered for Boston’s Second-Tallest Building

Posted on April 27, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: Banker&Tradesman

The Boston skyline is poised to see significant change of the next five years as projects that are under construction come online. 115 Winthrop Square is getting attention and might be home to Boston’s second tallest building if O’Brien has anything to do with it.

According to Banker&Tradesman, “developer Thomas O’Brien of Boston-based HYM Investments is proposing a 69-story, 780-foot-tall residential tower that would become the city’s second-tallest building, just 10 feet shy of the Hancock Tower…O’Brien was one of eight developers who submitted proposals to build a skyscraper in the Financial District. The Boston Redevelopment Authority sought proposals for a one-acre parcel currently occupied by the municipal garage at 115 Winthrop Square. O’Brien’s plan calls for a substantial redevelopment of the square, including a new Boston public school and a relocated St. Anthony Shrine, friary and ministry center. Under the O’Brien proposal, the church properties and school would be built on the former garage site and a residential tower with 11,000-square-foot floor plates would be built on the former shrine property.”

The HYM Investment Group can be seen, here.

0 Epstein’s Instructive Strategy for Transforming Downtown Boston

Posted on April 27, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Credit: bisnow

Bob Epstein can teach us a few things about remaking duds into destinations. Lafayette Center was that dud that wasn’t getting any airtime from prospective tenants, despite location, large floor plates and infrastructure.

“At Lafayette City Center, they also saw a property with ‘good bones and upside potential. It has high, 14-foot to 17-foot ceilings, expansive column spacing of 30 feet by 36 feet and big windows. As the downtown vacancy rate falls, rents are rising but Downtown Crossing is reasonably priced, Tom tells us. Its rents in the high $30s/SF to $40s/SF compare well to Back Bay rents in the $50s/SF and Cambridge hitting the $60s/SF. Downtown Crossing is still a value play. But back in 2002, Abbey Group saw that it—like Fenway in the ‘90s and Back Bay in the ‘70s—was undervalued,” according to a Bisnow editorial.

The full Bisnow article is available on its website.

0 Boston Greenway will Influence Nearby Office Design

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Wil Catlin

Boston’s Greenway transcends the city’s current incarnation, and will continue to benefit from times gone by. Surrounding buildings will need to create access points to invite visitors to directly access the park and highlight the lush Greenway landscape.

Credit: Bostinno.Streetwise

Bostinno.Streetwise articulates how the city’s architecture can grow to accentuate the Greenway in the coming years:

This beautiful Greenway carved through the heart of downtown Boston, building owners, architects and developers should really be thinking about repositioning the front of their buildings toward the “center.” If you walk down the 1.5-acre strip, you will notice that many of the buildings’ entrances are facing opposite the park toward the dark “maze of streets,” limiting options for retail, hospitality and ultimately commerce along this central corridor.

If we turned these buildings around, similar to what happened in P.O. Square and the projects we completed there, the 1 P.O. Square and 225 Franklin Street lobbies, the Greenway could serve as a grassy green extension of our workplace’s front porch.

You can read the full editorial on Bostinno.Streetwise.co.

0 Boston Developers Contending for Financial District Tower

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Wil Catlin

new Boston office tower financial district

Rendering of Accordia Partners’ proposed tower. Credit: Boston Globe

The shuttered garage that falls between Devonshire and Federal Street in the core of Boston’s Financial District shines brightly as an opportunity for eight suitors to make their mark on the Boston Skyline. Tenants in recent quarters have flocked Downtown to take advantage of value rents and infrastructure driving office vacancy down to 10 percent.

The Boston Globe details the eight developers “have filed proposals for a skyscraper, several of which would be nearly as tall as the city’s largest, the Hancock Tower, on the site of a city-owned parking garage that is now closed. The competitors include a who’s who of local and national developers, a measure of how strong Boston’s real estate market has become…If approved, the Winthrop Square project would add another tower to the fast-changing Boston skyline. Already, five towers over 600 feet are proposed or are being built while other large complexes are under development downtown.”

You can read the full article on the Globe website