Roslindale/West Roxbury Bullitan
Harvard-Arboretum deal to close
Scott Wachtler 20.DEC.07
Half a parcel will remain development-free for 875 yearsAfter four years of nitty-gritty bargaining with Harvard, a formidable opponent used to getting its way, Mayor Menino, Councilor Rob Consalvo, Rep. Sanchez, Jay Walsh and Dave McNulty from Neighborhood Services and Roslindale residents have secured a permanent no-build zone on half of the 14-acre parcel called Weld Hill. The site is a part of the Arnold Arboretum on which Harvard will erect a plant research facility. The deed-restriction calls for half of the land to remain open space--at least for 875 years.
"Harvard's a tough customer, but we saw where we wanted to get to," said Mayor Menino. "Let's see if we can keep it protected for perpetuity."
In last week’s final public meeting before Harvard goes in front of the Zoning Board in January, Roslindale residents quibbled with officials over the legalese of a cooperation agreement and a declaration of development restrictions on the no-build zone, debating such subtleties as whether the land ought to be designated for public enjoyment, or public use and enjoyment. But the main thrust of the papers was there.
"This is the culmination of a four-year process," said City Councilor Rob Consalvo. "This document is much better than it was four years ago, and we’ll feel good about supporting this project when it goes before the Zoning Board, a project that we held our ground on for four years. This is a huge victory for the community holding Harvard accountable like this."
Harvard is proposing a 45,000 square foot research facility on the privately owned parcel, which is currently zoned for single family homes in the Arboretum. Harvard will seek to change the zoning from residential use to institutional use.
According to some residents, the community was divided over the research facility itself, with loud voices against the development, and loud voices supporting the Arboretum’s assertion that it needs to grow and stay relevant. Neighbors were united in their anxiety that the whole parcel might develop into a sprawling complex of buildings and parking lots. The no-build zone ensures a permanent buffer between residential streets and the proposed institutional facility. The community had rebuffed offers for a 10-year, a 50-year, and a 100-year-long deed restriction.
Though it cannot be developed, the no-build zone can be a working landscape, which means that trees and other foliage can be planted.
"Harvard has never protected permanent open space like that," said Consalvo. "This was a quintessential example of a partnership between residents and government holding their ground and holding an institution like Harvard accountable to addressing our issues."
Another victory for residents was the working in of checks and balances into a clause that named the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) as the sole entity able to enforce or waive the terms of the proposed deed restriction. Instead, the Corporation Council of the City of Boston, appointed by the Mayor, will also factor into the equation.
Another major concern for residents was an apparent lack of parking for a 100-person auditorium planned for the facility. Harvard has indicated that it will direct cars to the main Arboretum building for parking, and even provide a shuttle service between the two buildings.-
The Bulletin Newspapers
Saturday, December 29, 2007
More on BC Master Plan
Allston/Brighton Bullitan
Brighton residents ask BC for more timeScott Wachtler 20.DEC.07
Part of Boston College’s $1.6 billion growth and renovation plan seeks to alter Brighton’s landscape, and that has some in the neighborhood worried.
BC's 10-year master plan was submitted to the Boston Redevelopment Authority earlier in the month. Some Brighton residents felt that the timing of the submission would not allow them enough time to properly evaluate the plan.
Braving the snow, ice and the cold, Brighton’s BC Neighbors Forum came together for an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss the plan. The mayor appointed, BC Task Force met the next day.
"Boston College has deliberately filed their master plan in the middle of December, on the first day of Hanukah, right before the Christmas holidays and New Year's in order to minimize resident participation and feedback," said Michael Pahre, facilitator of the BC Neighbors Forum.
Jack Dunn, BC spokesman said BC did take the holiday season into consideration and extended the comment period from 30 days to 45 days.
"They should show goodwill to the neighborhood by extending the comment period substantially to allow the neighborhood to respond," Pahre said.
As a result of the meetings, the BC Task Force voted to file a formal request to Thomas Keady, Jr., BC Vice President for Governmental and Community Affairs, asking that the comment period be extended so that the neighborhood could address the issues properly.
A letter from the BC Neighbors Forum was delivered to Jean Woods, Chair of the BC Task Force, asking them to hold a series of meetings that would address the issues of housing, athletic fields, traffic, transportation and open spaces. The Task Force is putting a plan together that aims to have weekly meetings for four weeks in January.
The Brighton portion of the 10-year master plan will add 30 new buildings, renovate eight more and create a new intersection while reconfiguring another one. The plan also includes the construction and reconfiguration of six playing fields.
According to Pahre, the plan that BC filed with the BRA doesn’t take the community’s concerns into consideration at all.
"BC put forward their ideas for this plan in the spring, presumably with the idea that they would get feedback from the neighborhood and change it," Pahre said. "They didn’t change it much in the end."
Alex Selvig, ran for the Allston-Brighton District 9 City Council seat in the last preliminary election. The issue of university expansion was a hot topic for all the candidates
"What it seems like is that BC has decided that it’s going to stand fast on part of the plan that they’ve been presenting to us for the entire year that I’ve been going to these meetings," Selvig said.
When the neighborhood saw the plans in the spring, the three biggest concerns dealt with the fact that in 10 years BC still wouldn’t be housing all of its undergraduate students on campus.
Neighbors are concerned that having too many undergrad college students in their neighborhoods would open the door for bad behavior.
"We have a big problem on football game days and on weekends when the kids are out partying," Selvig said. "It’s not to say that they’re all bad, but there’s a significant impact on the neighborhood."
Additionally, there is also concern about where the new dorms would be placed.
"There is broad neighborhood opposition for them to put any of those news dorms in the former seminary land," Pahre said.
Dunn wasn’t so sure that everyone in the neighborhood was against the idea of housing students on former seminary land.
"It depends who you ask," he said. "Residents of Cleveland Circle and other areas in Brighton strongly urged us to utilize the 65 acres we purchased from the archdiocese for undergraduate housing and they have born the brut of college students in their neighborhood for decades."
The BC plan would create 75 new beds and 40 parking spaces for graduate student housing on former seminary land on Foster Street.
The third major issue are the athletic fields, and in particular, the baseball stadium close to Lane Park.
"There are people whose houses will be extremely close to a 1,500 seat stadium. Plus they are proposing for additional fields, all which will have their lights on virtually year round," Pahre said.
Selvig said the stadium would only spread the problem of student partying further and bring noise and disruption throughout the neighborhood.
Dunn said according to the 10-year master plan, 92 percent of Boston College students will be housed on campus.
"That’s more than any other school in Boston. We think that is a significant accomplishment," Dunn said.
Kevin Carragee, a member of the BC Task Force, said it was possible for some of the dorms that BC is proposing to be built larger to accommodate more students.
"The new dormitories that they are proposing are four stories," Carragee said. "It strikes me, at best, that this is simply inadequate. There’s no reason these dormitories can’t be higher to house more students. There’s simply no reason for it. It’s just dogmatic."
Carragee suggested the new dorms should be six stories like the newest dorm that was built during the last master plan.
Dunn said that according to prevailing policies among universities nationwide, four story dorms, housing between 200 and 400 students, are more beneficial to intellectual enrichment and student formation.-
The Bulletin Newspapers
Brighton residents ask BC for more timeScott Wachtler 20.DEC.07
Part of Boston College’s $1.6 billion growth and renovation plan seeks to alter Brighton’s landscape, and that has some in the neighborhood worried.
BC's 10-year master plan was submitted to the Boston Redevelopment Authority earlier in the month. Some Brighton residents felt that the timing of the submission would not allow them enough time to properly evaluate the plan.
Braving the snow, ice and the cold, Brighton’s BC Neighbors Forum came together for an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss the plan. The mayor appointed, BC Task Force met the next day.
"Boston College has deliberately filed their master plan in the middle of December, on the first day of Hanukah, right before the Christmas holidays and New Year's in order to minimize resident participation and feedback," said Michael Pahre, facilitator of the BC Neighbors Forum.
Jack Dunn, BC spokesman said BC did take the holiday season into consideration and extended the comment period from 30 days to 45 days.
"They should show goodwill to the neighborhood by extending the comment period substantially to allow the neighborhood to respond," Pahre said.
As a result of the meetings, the BC Task Force voted to file a formal request to Thomas Keady, Jr., BC Vice President for Governmental and Community Affairs, asking that the comment period be extended so that the neighborhood could address the issues properly.
A letter from the BC Neighbors Forum was delivered to Jean Woods, Chair of the BC Task Force, asking them to hold a series of meetings that would address the issues of housing, athletic fields, traffic, transportation and open spaces. The Task Force is putting a plan together that aims to have weekly meetings for four weeks in January.
The Brighton portion of the 10-year master plan will add 30 new buildings, renovate eight more and create a new intersection while reconfiguring another one. The plan also includes the construction and reconfiguration of six playing fields.
According to Pahre, the plan that BC filed with the BRA doesn’t take the community’s concerns into consideration at all.
"BC put forward their ideas for this plan in the spring, presumably with the idea that they would get feedback from the neighborhood and change it," Pahre said. "They didn’t change it much in the end."
Alex Selvig, ran for the Allston-Brighton District 9 City Council seat in the last preliminary election. The issue of university expansion was a hot topic for all the candidates
"What it seems like is that BC has decided that it’s going to stand fast on part of the plan that they’ve been presenting to us for the entire year that I’ve been going to these meetings," Selvig said.
When the neighborhood saw the plans in the spring, the three biggest concerns dealt with the fact that in 10 years BC still wouldn’t be housing all of its undergraduate students on campus.
Neighbors are concerned that having too many undergrad college students in their neighborhoods would open the door for bad behavior.
"We have a big problem on football game days and on weekends when the kids are out partying," Selvig said. "It’s not to say that they’re all bad, but there’s a significant impact on the neighborhood."
Additionally, there is also concern about where the new dorms would be placed.
"There is broad neighborhood opposition for them to put any of those news dorms in the former seminary land," Pahre said.
Dunn wasn’t so sure that everyone in the neighborhood was against the idea of housing students on former seminary land.
"It depends who you ask," he said. "Residents of Cleveland Circle and other areas in Brighton strongly urged us to utilize the 65 acres we purchased from the archdiocese for undergraduate housing and they have born the brut of college students in their neighborhood for decades."
The BC plan would create 75 new beds and 40 parking spaces for graduate student housing on former seminary land on Foster Street.
The third major issue are the athletic fields, and in particular, the baseball stadium close to Lane Park.
"There are people whose houses will be extremely close to a 1,500 seat stadium. Plus they are proposing for additional fields, all which will have their lights on virtually year round," Pahre said.
Selvig said the stadium would only spread the problem of student partying further and bring noise and disruption throughout the neighborhood.
Dunn said according to the 10-year master plan, 92 percent of Boston College students will be housed on campus.
"That’s more than any other school in Boston. We think that is a significant accomplishment," Dunn said.
Kevin Carragee, a member of the BC Task Force, said it was possible for some of the dorms that BC is proposing to be built larger to accommodate more students.
"The new dormitories that they are proposing are four stories," Carragee said. "It strikes me, at best, that this is simply inadequate. There’s no reason these dormitories can’t be higher to house more students. There’s simply no reason for it. It’s just dogmatic."
Carragee suggested the new dorms should be six stories like the newest dorm that was built during the last master plan.
Dunn said that according to prevailing policies among universities nationwide, four story dorms, housing between 200 and 400 students, are more beneficial to intellectual enrichment and student formation.-
The Bulletin Newspapers
92 apartments in West Roxbury?
West Roxbury Bullitan
BRA responds to Edgemere housing project
Lydia Mulvany 13.DEC.07
The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) has issued a determination to Chestnut Hill Realty, outlining further requirements for its latest proposal for expanding Ridgecrest Green by 92 apartment units and 191 parking spaces. The Ridgecrest Green complex, which lies off of Edgemere Rd. in West Roxbury, currently has 144 rental units and 166 parking spaces.
Part of Chestnut Hill’s proposal included a rerouting of traffic, turning Desoto and Edgemere into one-way streets. This was booed by the neighborhood in October, and the BRA has followed suit. The BRA has asked Chestnut Hill to conduct an expanded traffic study using strips on the roads to count all cars traveling on seven roads in the neighborhood. The study should also count how many cars come from entrances of nearby developments, to get an accurate picture of the neighborhood’s traffic and see where it originates. The information will determine whether the real impact to the neighborhood is coming from an access gate off of Willers St., and how that impact might be mitigated.
Chestnut Hill has also been asked to scale down the development, although it has as of right to build the 92 units.
"We received the scoping letter, and we’re investigating different refinements to the program to see if we can make economic sense out of reducing the scale of the project. We’ve already reduced the scale significantly over the last couple of years," said Chestnut Hill Realty’s Director of Real Estate Development, Marc Levin.
The height variance it requested in the proposal, also rejected by the neighborhood in October, would allow for a tall structure that would save green space. That variance has not yet been tossed out.
"This would not be the first 70-foot structure in the neighborhood," said Peter Serdiuk, a member of the Impact Advisory Group, in his comments to the BRA.
"Since they have as of right, they can either build a tall structure or eat up green space. I’d rather see a tall structure with a playground for children," said Olivia Waishek at the Bellevue Hill Neighborhood Association’s meeting last week.
Waishek also said that Levin had been in contact with a resident who was concerned about potential tenants visiting Chestnut Hill that park in front of her house, instead of in the Chestnut Hill parking lots. The visitors are now using the parking lots.
- The Bulletin Newspapers
BRA responds to Edgemere housing project
Lydia Mulvany 13.DEC.07
The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) has issued a determination to Chestnut Hill Realty, outlining further requirements for its latest proposal for expanding Ridgecrest Green by 92 apartment units and 191 parking spaces. The Ridgecrest Green complex, which lies off of Edgemere Rd. in West Roxbury, currently has 144 rental units and 166 parking spaces.
Part of Chestnut Hill’s proposal included a rerouting of traffic, turning Desoto and Edgemere into one-way streets. This was booed by the neighborhood in October, and the BRA has followed suit. The BRA has asked Chestnut Hill to conduct an expanded traffic study using strips on the roads to count all cars traveling on seven roads in the neighborhood. The study should also count how many cars come from entrances of nearby developments, to get an accurate picture of the neighborhood’s traffic and see where it originates. The information will determine whether the real impact to the neighborhood is coming from an access gate off of Willers St., and how that impact might be mitigated.
Chestnut Hill has also been asked to scale down the development, although it has as of right to build the 92 units.
"We received the scoping letter, and we’re investigating different refinements to the program to see if we can make economic sense out of reducing the scale of the project. We’ve already reduced the scale significantly over the last couple of years," said Chestnut Hill Realty’s Director of Real Estate Development, Marc Levin.
The height variance it requested in the proposal, also rejected by the neighborhood in October, would allow for a tall structure that would save green space. That variance has not yet been tossed out.
"This would not be the first 70-foot structure in the neighborhood," said Peter Serdiuk, a member of the Impact Advisory Group, in his comments to the BRA.
"Since they have as of right, they can either build a tall structure or eat up green space. I’d rather see a tall structure with a playground for children," said Olivia Waishek at the Bellevue Hill Neighborhood Association’s meeting last week.
Waishek also said that Levin had been in contact with a resident who was concerned about potential tenants visiting Chestnut Hill that park in front of her house, instead of in the Chestnut Hill parking lots. The visitors are now using the parking lots.
- The Bulletin Newspapers
More on Biolab
Bay State Banner
BU biolab beef brings local concerns to national stage
Dan Devine
The controversy over Boston University’s development of an anti-bioterror laboratory in Boston’s South End exploded this year, earning national headlines as judges, federal agencies and scientific monitors scrutinized the project slated to open next year.
The story started back in 2003, when the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded Boston University a $128 million grant to design and build a biocontainment laboratory, intended to include biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) research space, on Albany Street, adjacent to the university’s medical center. BSL-4 facilities host research on dangerous, exotic diseases like avian influenza and Ebola virus.
Many South End residents and environmental activists oppose the project, known as the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL), or “the biolab.” They are concerned that bringing such deadly pathogens into a congested urban neighborhood poses an extreme health risk to the area’s population.
Project supporters and health experts have responded by pointing out that in thousands of hours worked in BSL-4 labs, the U.S. has yet to experience a single infection.
In December 2005, NIH published a Final Environmental Impact Statement for the BU biolab, which the agency says “demonstrated that the construction and operation of the NEIDL did not pose a risk” to either the South End community where it will be located or any surrounding communities.Lawyers representing community opponents filed a federal suit against NIH in May 2006, claiming that NIH awarded BU the grant without conducting required risk assessment, environmental review or site analysis. Three months later, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Ralph D. Gants agreed, ruling earlier environmental impact assessments inadequate and calling for additional environmental review of the proposed lab.
Following Gants’ instructions, NIH and BU agreed to conduct a more detailed review of the biolab proposal that considered rural and suburban sites.
In the resulting report, released in August, NIH concluded that the laboratory posed no threat to the safety of residents in the surrounding South End neighborhood.
Opponents assailed the NIH report, citing an apparent conflict of interest in the NIH — the organization that gave BU $128 million to construct the biolab — being responsible for reviewing the university’s model.
After the release of the NIH report, a Boston University statement said the agency’s study “confirmed that the Albany Street location is the best and most appropriate site for the NEIDL and that its urban location is as safe or safer than less congested alternatives.”
Still unconvinced, the state ordered a study by a group of independent scientists from the National Research Council (NRC). The NRC released findings in late November that undercut the NIH report, characterizing it as “not sound as credible.”
In its review, the NRC wrote that “the [NIH] draft assessment does not effectively examine highly infectious agents, and therefore is not representative of a worst case scenario.”
The report added that the process used by the NIH “is not transparent, is not complete, and may not address the fundamental concerns of the community, particularly regarding environmental justice.”
Biolab opponents said the NRC review confirmed their beliefs that project developers failed to adequately consider the risks to South End residents.
“That is the point they have been making for four years — is that unless someone gives them an honest analysis, which has not yet occurred, we don’t know,” said Eloise Lawrence, an attorney at the Conversation Law Foundation.
For their part, BU said the NRC’s review was just part of the process.
“We recognize that the [NRC] report states a number of concerns regarding the NIH methodology and analysis and are confident that the NIH will address those issues in its final report,” said a statement issued by BUMC following the NRC report’s release, adding that the Albany Street site “is as safe as or safer than alternative locations.”
Despite the NRC’s negative assessment, Mayor Thomas M. Menino told attendees at a Dec. 11 breakfast hosted by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce he has “no fears about the biolab opening in the next year or so” and that there is “nothing [the city] can’t overcome” to achieve that goal.
Just two days later, the Supreme Judicial Court unanimously upheld Gants’ July 2006 ruling, meaning that BU must complete another environmental review of the biolab project and submit it to the state for approval, which could delay the facility’s anticipated opening next year. For the time being, however, construction continues, with building at least 70 percent complete.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
BU biolab beef brings local concerns to national stage
Dan Devine
The controversy over Boston University’s development of an anti-bioterror laboratory in Boston’s South End exploded this year, earning national headlines as judges, federal agencies and scientific monitors scrutinized the project slated to open next year.
The story started back in 2003, when the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded Boston University a $128 million grant to design and build a biocontainment laboratory, intended to include biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) research space, on Albany Street, adjacent to the university’s medical center. BSL-4 facilities host research on dangerous, exotic diseases like avian influenza and Ebola virus.
Many South End residents and environmental activists oppose the project, known as the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL), or “the biolab.” They are concerned that bringing such deadly pathogens into a congested urban neighborhood poses an extreme health risk to the area’s population.
Project supporters and health experts have responded by pointing out that in thousands of hours worked in BSL-4 labs, the U.S. has yet to experience a single infection.
In December 2005, NIH published a Final Environmental Impact Statement for the BU biolab, which the agency says “demonstrated that the construction and operation of the NEIDL did not pose a risk” to either the South End community where it will be located or any surrounding communities.Lawyers representing community opponents filed a federal suit against NIH in May 2006, claiming that NIH awarded BU the grant without conducting required risk assessment, environmental review or site analysis. Three months later, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Ralph D. Gants agreed, ruling earlier environmental impact assessments inadequate and calling for additional environmental review of the proposed lab.
Following Gants’ instructions, NIH and BU agreed to conduct a more detailed review of the biolab proposal that considered rural and suburban sites.
In the resulting report, released in August, NIH concluded that the laboratory posed no threat to the safety of residents in the surrounding South End neighborhood.
Opponents assailed the NIH report, citing an apparent conflict of interest in the NIH — the organization that gave BU $128 million to construct the biolab — being responsible for reviewing the university’s model.
After the release of the NIH report, a Boston University statement said the agency’s study “confirmed that the Albany Street location is the best and most appropriate site for the NEIDL and that its urban location is as safe or safer than less congested alternatives.”
Still unconvinced, the state ordered a study by a group of independent scientists from the National Research Council (NRC). The NRC released findings in late November that undercut the NIH report, characterizing it as “not sound as credible.”
In its review, the NRC wrote that “the [NIH] draft assessment does not effectively examine highly infectious agents, and therefore is not representative of a worst case scenario.”
The report added that the process used by the NIH “is not transparent, is not complete, and may not address the fundamental concerns of the community, particularly regarding environmental justice.”
Biolab opponents said the NRC review confirmed their beliefs that project developers failed to adequately consider the risks to South End residents.
“That is the point they have been making for four years — is that unless someone gives them an honest analysis, which has not yet occurred, we don’t know,” said Eloise Lawrence, an attorney at the Conversation Law Foundation.
For their part, BU said the NRC’s review was just part of the process.
“We recognize that the [NRC] report states a number of concerns regarding the NIH methodology and analysis and are confident that the NIH will address those issues in its final report,” said a statement issued by BUMC following the NRC report’s release, adding that the Albany Street site “is as safe as or safer than alternative locations.”
Despite the NRC’s negative assessment, Mayor Thomas M. Menino told attendees at a Dec. 11 breakfast hosted by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce he has “no fears about the biolab opening in the next year or so” and that there is “nothing [the city] can’t overcome” to achieve that goal.
Just two days later, the Supreme Judicial Court unanimously upheld Gants’ July 2006 ruling, meaning that BU must complete another environmental review of the biolab project and submit it to the state for approval, which could delay the facility’s anticipated opening next year. For the time being, however, construction continues, with building at least 70 percent complete.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
Expanding at UMass/Boston
Dorchester Reporter
UMass trustees debate campus re-design, dorms
December 27, 2007
By Gintautas DumciusReporter Correspondent
Two new academic buildings, including a gleaming, state-of-the-art science facility (minus dangerous infectious diseases). Two new parking garages to replace the crumbling substructure holding up the plaza and campus. A glass façade and new entrance to the Healey Library.
And, of course, dorms.
UMass-Boston's final conceptual plan, presented to UMass trustees on the last day of fall semester classes earlier this month, calls for 1,000 beds in the first phase, while reaching at least 2,000 beds by the end of the 25-year plan.
The plan is the first major redesign since the 1970s, when the Columbia Point campus was built on Dorchester Bay, creating a brick fortress and a sprawling, barren plaza. University officials now are hoping to move towards more modern, skinny buildings with wider hallways, pedestrian walkways and more greenery outside.
The first phase of the plan includes stripping away the windswept plaza and replacing it with walkways and a new science building. An academic building could sit on the current field by the Quinn Building, a one-time site for dorms, though UMass officials say there is no defined set of buildings laid out, merely placeholders for the sake of future planning.
Student housing buildings would be placed closer to the Harbor Point apartments, where many students, numbering as many as 1,000, already reside, essentially creating what UMass officials have referred to as "de facto dorms."
The next steps for the campus include engineering how they go about bringing down the plaza and the scope of the demolition.
Some members of the 22-member board of trustees, which signs off on individual campus projects through the university system's borrowing requests, raised concerns that the plans, which will remain subject to change over the course of the next two decades, could create an "overly-residential" campus.
Trustee Jennifer Braceras asked whether it would mean "importing more suburban white kids onto campus," a notion Chancellor Keith Motley disputed, saying the focus will remain on Boston Public Schools and Boston itself. Motley noted that students come from 330 out of the 351 cities in the state, and 2,000 students come from Greater Boston.
Other trustees voiced support for the plan.
"The devil will clearly be in the details and the dollar signs," said trustee Ruben King-Shaw, Jr. He added, "There are students who would like to have a campus-like experience."
Added James Karam, a Fall River developer and former chairman of the board, "We're never serving the local community by serving a substandard product."
He told Motley: "Please don't stop dreaming."
Some faculty members expressed concerns over the layout of the academic buildings, which remain years away from being built.
"We're concerned about having too many large lecture classes called into being," said Rachel Rubin, president of the faculty staff union. "There is this push and we're concerned that we go overboard."
The final design for the campus comes after months of planning and two lightly attended meetings for the Dorchester community.
UMass officials plan to meet with the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association on Jan. 7, when a presentation on the final plan is expected. The civic association has included some of the strongest opponents of dorms, several of whom are holding their fire before the presentation.
UMass-Boston's immediate neighbors also weighed in. Secretary of State William Galvin, who runs the Massachusetts Archives in between the campus and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, wrote a letter to UMass officials and trustees in late November raising concerns that the conceptual plans would encroach on the archives and its own plans to expand.
Any construction within the parcel would hurt his office's "future ability to adequately store additional historic artifacts, papers, documents and state agency's records that make up the history of the Commonwealth," he wrote in a Nov. 29 letter.
UMass officials say they are having ongoing conversations with Galvin's office and that their plans don't invade the archives' five-acre parcel.
In an e-mailed statement, Tom Putnam, director of the JFK Library, said they were "excited" to learn about the campus's "ambitious plans."
"We look forward to working with our partners on Columbia Point and at UMass to help make this project a reality and a positive for the entire community," he said.
The plans come as the Boston Redevelopment Authority is also looking at Columbia Point.
The university's full plans, and past documents, can be viewed on UMass-Boston's website at www.umb.edu.
UMass trustees debate campus re-design, dorms
December 27, 2007
By Gintautas DumciusReporter Correspondent
Two new academic buildings, including a gleaming, state-of-the-art science facility (minus dangerous infectious diseases). Two new parking garages to replace the crumbling substructure holding up the plaza and campus. A glass façade and new entrance to the Healey Library.
And, of course, dorms.
UMass-Boston's final conceptual plan, presented to UMass trustees on the last day of fall semester classes earlier this month, calls for 1,000 beds in the first phase, while reaching at least 2,000 beds by the end of the 25-year plan.
The plan is the first major redesign since the 1970s, when the Columbia Point campus was built on Dorchester Bay, creating a brick fortress and a sprawling, barren plaza. University officials now are hoping to move towards more modern, skinny buildings with wider hallways, pedestrian walkways and more greenery outside.
The first phase of the plan includes stripping away the windswept plaza and replacing it with walkways and a new science building. An academic building could sit on the current field by the Quinn Building, a one-time site for dorms, though UMass officials say there is no defined set of buildings laid out, merely placeholders for the sake of future planning.
Student housing buildings would be placed closer to the Harbor Point apartments, where many students, numbering as many as 1,000, already reside, essentially creating what UMass officials have referred to as "de facto dorms."
The next steps for the campus include engineering how they go about bringing down the plaza and the scope of the demolition.
Some members of the 22-member board of trustees, which signs off on individual campus projects through the university system's borrowing requests, raised concerns that the plans, which will remain subject to change over the course of the next two decades, could create an "overly-residential" campus.
Trustee Jennifer Braceras asked whether it would mean "importing more suburban white kids onto campus," a notion Chancellor Keith Motley disputed, saying the focus will remain on Boston Public Schools and Boston itself. Motley noted that students come from 330 out of the 351 cities in the state, and 2,000 students come from Greater Boston.
Other trustees voiced support for the plan.
"The devil will clearly be in the details and the dollar signs," said trustee Ruben King-Shaw, Jr. He added, "There are students who would like to have a campus-like experience."
Added James Karam, a Fall River developer and former chairman of the board, "We're never serving the local community by serving a substandard product."
He told Motley: "Please don't stop dreaming."
Some faculty members expressed concerns over the layout of the academic buildings, which remain years away from being built.
"We're concerned about having too many large lecture classes called into being," said Rachel Rubin, president of the faculty staff union. "There is this push and we're concerned that we go overboard."
The final design for the campus comes after months of planning and two lightly attended meetings for the Dorchester community.
UMass officials plan to meet with the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association on Jan. 7, when a presentation on the final plan is expected. The civic association has included some of the strongest opponents of dorms, several of whom are holding their fire before the presentation.
UMass-Boston's immediate neighbors also weighed in. Secretary of State William Galvin, who runs the Massachusetts Archives in between the campus and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, wrote a letter to UMass officials and trustees in late November raising concerns that the conceptual plans would encroach on the archives and its own plans to expand.
Any construction within the parcel would hurt his office's "future ability to adequately store additional historic artifacts, papers, documents and state agency's records that make up the history of the Commonwealth," he wrote in a Nov. 29 letter.
UMass officials say they are having ongoing conversations with Galvin's office and that their plans don't invade the archives' five-acre parcel.
In an e-mailed statement, Tom Putnam, director of the JFK Library, said they were "excited" to learn about the campus's "ambitious plans."
"We look forward to working with our partners on Columbia Point and at UMass to help make this project a reality and a positive for the entire community," he said.
The plans come as the Boston Redevelopment Authority is also looking at Columbia Point.
The university's full plans, and past documents, can be viewed on UMass-Boston's website at www.umb.edu.
Friday, December 21, 2007
All the Usual Suspects
Berklee rethinks expansion
Forgoes disputed plan, seeks to buy other parcel
Globe Staff / December 21, 2007
In the face of strong neighborhood opposition, Berklee College of Music is shelving plans for a high-rise dormitory and theater complex at the junction of Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston Street and is instead seeking to buy a parcel from a neighboring church to divide its expansion into smaller parts.
The Back Bay college was poised to file long-range plans with city officials for a 35-story, approximately $200 million building to house some 600 students, but recently tabled the proposal. Instead, the college has made an offer on a quarter-acre tract from St. Cecilia Parish so it can build two smaller developments that are more to the neighbors' liking.
"The college needs to grow, but the only land we have is at the corner of Mass. Ave. and Boylston," said David Hornfischer, Berklee's senior vice president for administration and finance. "It's not like we have 40 acres out back like Babson or Bentley [colleges] might have. The St. Cecilia site couldn't be a better location, and would give us the room to build two smaller-scale buildings."
Hornfischer said St. Cecilia's decision to sell part of its property, coupled with neighborhood opposition, led the college to drop the high-rise dorm plans for now. The proposed dormitory, which would replace the Berklee Performance Center and a two-story academic building, would help the 4,000-student college double the size of its campus over the next decade and provide housing for half its student body.
Back Bay and Fenway neighbors said they were pleased Berklee had put the high-rise plans on hold and urged college officials not to revisit them. The building would be out of scale with the neighborhood, they said.
"I think they got the message," said Susan Ashbrook, a Back Bay resident and cochairwoman of a community task force that has been reviewing Berklee's preliminary plans over the past year. "It was made very clear to them they would have a fight on their hands if they built anything as big as they were floating."
Several other colleges in the Boston area have announced plans for expansions, including Boston College, Harvard University, and the University of Massachusetts at Boston. In all three cases, neighbors are fighting aspects of the proposals.
State Representative Martha Walz, who represents the Back Bay and is a task force member, said the 35-story plan was "unacceptable to the Back Bay and Fenway communities." She urged Berklee to explore other options, including building over the Massachusetts Turnpike.
"All those uses, at that height and that location is inappropriate," she said, referring to the high-rise dorm plan. "We think there's a tremendous opportunity to develop over the turnpike and that's what we've been strongly urging them to pursue. Let's spread out the uses so it's an appropriate scale."
Hornfischer said building on top of the Turnpike was a complicated process requiring a range of government approvals that would take years, an untenable prospect for a college that needs to expand soon.
He said that in addition to the church property, the college is looking into acquiring several parcels along Massachusetts Avenue as alternatives to the high-rise plan, but has not ruled out that proposal despite the task force's opposition. "That's our fallback position," he said.
Hornfischer said the college's plans were tentative and subject to change as circumstances dictate. He said the original expansion plan, which includes a theater, performance space, and practice rooms, needs to be realized in some form.
"This is critical to the college," he said. "It's just a matter of figuring out the best way to do it."
Jackie Yessian, chairwoman of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay, praised the college for heeding neighborhood concerns and exploring alternatives to the high-rise plan. "They are trying really hard to meet their needs and ours as well," she said.
Peter Schworm can be reached at schworm@globe.com.
Forgoes disputed plan, seeks to buy other parcel
Globe Staff / December 21, 2007
In the face of strong neighborhood opposition, Berklee College of Music is shelving plans for a high-rise dormitory and theater complex at the junction of Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston Street and is instead seeking to buy a parcel from a neighboring church to divide its expansion into smaller parts.
The Back Bay college was poised to file long-range plans with city officials for a 35-story, approximately $200 million building to house some 600 students, but recently tabled the proposal. Instead, the college has made an offer on a quarter-acre tract from St. Cecilia Parish so it can build two smaller developments that are more to the neighbors' liking.
"The college needs to grow, but the only land we have is at the corner of Mass. Ave. and Boylston," said David Hornfischer, Berklee's senior vice president for administration and finance. "It's not like we have 40 acres out back like Babson or Bentley [colleges] might have. The St. Cecilia site couldn't be a better location, and would give us the room to build two smaller-scale buildings."
Hornfischer said St. Cecilia's decision to sell part of its property, coupled with neighborhood opposition, led the college to drop the high-rise dorm plans for now. The proposed dormitory, which would replace the Berklee Performance Center and a two-story academic building, would help the 4,000-student college double the size of its campus over the next decade and provide housing for half its student body.
Back Bay and Fenway neighbors said they were pleased Berklee had put the high-rise plans on hold and urged college officials not to revisit them. The building would be out of scale with the neighborhood, they said.
"I think they got the message," said Susan Ashbrook, a Back Bay resident and cochairwoman of a community task force that has been reviewing Berklee's preliminary plans over the past year. "It was made very clear to them they would have a fight on their hands if they built anything as big as they were floating."
Several other colleges in the Boston area have announced plans for expansions, including Boston College, Harvard University, and the University of Massachusetts at Boston. In all three cases, neighbors are fighting aspects of the proposals.
State Representative Martha Walz, who represents the Back Bay and is a task force member, said the 35-story plan was "unacceptable to the Back Bay and Fenway communities." She urged Berklee to explore other options, including building over the Massachusetts Turnpike.
"All those uses, at that height and that location is inappropriate," she said, referring to the high-rise dorm plan. "We think there's a tremendous opportunity to develop over the turnpike and that's what we've been strongly urging them to pursue. Let's spread out the uses so it's an appropriate scale."
Hornfischer said building on top of the Turnpike was a complicated process requiring a range of government approvals that would take years, an untenable prospect for a college that needs to expand soon.
He said that in addition to the church property, the college is looking into acquiring several parcels along Massachusetts Avenue as alternatives to the high-rise plan, but has not ruled out that proposal despite the task force's opposition. "That's our fallback position," he said.
Hornfischer said the college's plans were tentative and subject to change as circumstances dictate. He said the original expansion plan, which includes a theater, performance space, and practice rooms, needs to be realized in some form.
"This is critical to the college," he said. "It's just a matter of figuring out the best way to do it."
Jackie Yessian, chairwoman of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay, praised the college for heeding neighborhood concerns and exploring alternatives to the high-rise plan. "They are trying really hard to meet their needs and ours as well," she said.
Peter Schworm can be reached at schworm@globe.com.
Housing for Jesuit Students?
Allston Brighton TAB
Foster Street housing worries Jewish community
By Richard Cherecwich, Staff Writer
Allston, Mass. - While many Brighton residents oppose Boston College’s plans to house undergraduate students on the Brighton campus, members of a quiet Orthodox Jewish community on Portina Road have concerns with proposed housing for Jesuit students on Foster Street.
BC plans to build housing for 75 students and faculty from the Weston Jesuit School of Theology where it would directly abut the Portina Road community, raising fears the quality of life could change in the future if the Weston school goes under.
“It doesn’t concern me for it to be seminary students. They’re not going to have parties, they’re not going to have beer and they’re going to be great neighbors,” Rabbi Din Rodkin said on the phone Wednesday. “My concern is, after five years, it’s going to be dormitories.”
BC originally unveiled its 10-year master plan during a Task Force meeting on Dec. 4, but many Jewish residents did not attend because the meeting fell on the first night of Hanukkah.
Officials outlined the plan to about 40 members of the Portina Road community during a special make-up meeting at Shaloh House on Chestnut Hill Avenue on Tuesday night. The school has decreased the number of beds in Brighton and the number of seats in a baseball stadium near Lane Park Street, but Rodkin said he was dissatisfied.
“Honestly, I didn’t notice anything new, because I saw exactly the same presentation about a year ago,” he said. “I don’t see BC taking any feedback from the community.”
Foster Street housing worries Jewish community
By Richard Cherecwich, Staff Writer
Allston, Mass. - While many Brighton residents oppose Boston College’s plans to house undergraduate students on the Brighton campus, members of a quiet Orthodox Jewish community on Portina Road have concerns with proposed housing for Jesuit students on Foster Street.
BC plans to build housing for 75 students and faculty from the Weston Jesuit School of Theology where it would directly abut the Portina Road community, raising fears the quality of life could change in the future if the Weston school goes under.
“It doesn’t concern me for it to be seminary students. They’re not going to have parties, they’re not going to have beer and they’re going to be great neighbors,” Rabbi Din Rodkin said on the phone Wednesday. “My concern is, after five years, it’s going to be dormitories.”
BC originally unveiled its 10-year master plan during a Task Force meeting on Dec. 4, but many Jewish residents did not attend because the meeting fell on the first night of Hanukkah.
Officials outlined the plan to about 40 members of the Portina Road community during a special make-up meeting at Shaloh House on Chestnut Hill Avenue on Tuesday night. The school has decreased the number of beds in Brighton and the number of seats in a baseball stadium near Lane Park Street, but Rodkin said he was dissatisfied.
“Honestly, I didn’t notice anything new, because I saw exactly the same presentation about a year ago,” he said. “I don’t see BC taking any feedback from the community.”
BC Institutional Plan: Comment Period Extended
Allston Brighton TAB
Neighbors get more time to react to BC plans
By Richard Cherecwich/Staff Writer
Brighton -
Boston College has granted the community an additional 10 days to comment on its institutional master plan, responding to requests from both the BC Task Force and a grassroots neighbors group. The community will now have until Feb. 5 to submit public comments to the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
BC filed its 10-year institutional master plan with the BRA on Dec. 5, and the required 30-day public comment period was extended to 45 days because of the holidays. The task force and a group of neighbors felt that still wasn’t enough to process the school’s $800 million construction plans and provide informed feedback.
On Monday night, the BC Neighbor’s Forum, a grassroots community group that aims to build consensus on BC issues, almost unanimously decided to ask for an extension at a meeting. Michael Pahre, the group’s facilitator, presented a letter to BC officials on Tuesday night, formally asking the college to extend the deadline.
“Unveiling this plan in mid-December is an outrage and we need more time,” resident Sandy Furman said on Monday. “We need at least until the end of January, if not February.”
At the end of the comment period, the BRA will take input from city agencies and public comments to issue a scoping determination, requesting more information from BC and/or that the school change some items in the master plan. Once the scoping document is issued, another 60-day public comment period begins.
Pahre also presented a letter to the mayor-appointed Boston College Task Force requesting they schedule more meetings before the comment period ends on Jan. 19. There is one task force meeting scheduled before then, on Jan. 15, but the group plans to meet on a weekly basis beginning in January. Dates have not been set for the additional task force meetings, chairwoman Jean Woods said on Wednesday.
The neighbor’s meeting on Monday also discussed the college’s plans for new housing and new athletic facilities on the former Archdiocese of Boston property.
The consensus at the meeting, and also at the Dec. 4 task force meeting when BC presented the master plan, was for the school to build higher dormitories in order to house more students, therefore decreasing the number of undergraduates living in residential neighborhoods. Some current dormitories will be demolished as part of the 10-year plan, but new housing will replace the demolished buildings whiled adding 610 new beds, including 500 beds on the Brighton campus.
The proposed new buildings will be four stories tall, and college officials have said they are opposed to building seven- or eight-story buildings. General consensus at the forum was that neighbors didn’t want the school to construct massive towers, but rather add just a few floors.
“If they go from four to six stories, they increase the beds by 50 percent. It’s not that hard,” Shelby Marshall said.
The forum also discussed BC’s proposed athletic center on the northern edge of the Brighton campus, which includes a 1,500-seat baseball stadium, softball stadium and two multipurpose fields, all of which will be lit for nighttime use.
The group tossed around the idea of restricting BC to a certain number of night games per year and limiting public address system use, but several neighbors were undecided on how they felt. The group will continue to discuss the issue.
Neighbors get more time to react to BC plans
By Richard Cherecwich/Staff Writer
Brighton -
Boston College has granted the community an additional 10 days to comment on its institutional master plan, responding to requests from both the BC Task Force and a grassroots neighbors group. The community will now have until Feb. 5 to submit public comments to the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
BC filed its 10-year institutional master plan with the BRA on Dec. 5, and the required 30-day public comment period was extended to 45 days because of the holidays. The task force and a group of neighbors felt that still wasn’t enough to process the school’s $800 million construction plans and provide informed feedback.
On Monday night, the BC Neighbor’s Forum, a grassroots community group that aims to build consensus on BC issues, almost unanimously decided to ask for an extension at a meeting. Michael Pahre, the group’s facilitator, presented a letter to BC officials on Tuesday night, formally asking the college to extend the deadline.
“Unveiling this plan in mid-December is an outrage and we need more time,” resident Sandy Furman said on Monday. “We need at least until the end of January, if not February.”
At the end of the comment period, the BRA will take input from city agencies and public comments to issue a scoping determination, requesting more information from BC and/or that the school change some items in the master plan. Once the scoping document is issued, another 60-day public comment period begins.
Pahre also presented a letter to the mayor-appointed Boston College Task Force requesting they schedule more meetings before the comment period ends on Jan. 19. There is one task force meeting scheduled before then, on Jan. 15, but the group plans to meet on a weekly basis beginning in January. Dates have not been set for the additional task force meetings, chairwoman Jean Woods said on Wednesday.
The neighbor’s meeting on Monday also discussed the college’s plans for new housing and new athletic facilities on the former Archdiocese of Boston property.
The consensus at the meeting, and also at the Dec. 4 task force meeting when BC presented the master plan, was for the school to build higher dormitories in order to house more students, therefore decreasing the number of undergraduates living in residential neighborhoods. Some current dormitories will be demolished as part of the 10-year plan, but new housing will replace the demolished buildings whiled adding 610 new beds, including 500 beds on the Brighton campus.
The proposed new buildings will be four stories tall, and college officials have said they are opposed to building seven- or eight-story buildings. General consensus at the forum was that neighbors didn’t want the school to construct massive towers, but rather add just a few floors.
“If they go from four to six stories, they increase the beds by 50 percent. It’s not that hard,” Shelby Marshall said.
The forum also discussed BC’s proposed athletic center on the northern edge of the Brighton campus, which includes a 1,500-seat baseball stadium, softball stadium and two multipurpose fields, all of which will be lit for nighttime use.
The group tossed around the idea of restricting BC to a certain number of night games per year and limiting public address system use, but several neighbors were undecided on how they felt. The group will continue to discuss the issue.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Columbus Center in Jeopardy
Turnpike may halt Columbus Center job
$800m project loses its biggest lender
By Andrea Estes and Thomas C. Palmer Jr.
Globe Staff / December 13, 2007
The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is threatening to stop construction of the $800 million Columbus Center project in Boston because the developer and its major lender have parted ways and the developer is unable to show it has the money to build the massive complex.
more stories like this Turnpike officials have given developers Arthur Winn and Roger Cassin until next month to provide proof that they have the financing necessary to pay for the first phase of the development, construction of a deck over the Massachusetts Turnpike at Columbus Avenue and Clarendon Street.
The bank lending more than $500 million toward construction costs, Dublin-based Anglo Irish Bank, is out of the deal and the developers are looking for another source of funds, according to several state officials who have been briefed on the matter.
It was unclear yesterday why the bank is no longer involved in the project. Bank officials did not return phone calls seeking comment from the Globe. The split has sent Winn and Cassin and their partners on a hunt for new construction financing at a time when credit for large projects is tight, a result of the nation's sub-prime lending crisis.
The Turnpike Authority, which signed an air-rights lease over the highway for the project, has written at least three letters to the developers warning them that it could order work halted because financing is not in place.
If the developers do not provide assurances by Jan. 15, "the Authority reserves the right to require the Tenants, upon written notice from the Authority, to immediately stop all work on the project," according to a Nov. 20 letter sent by the Authority's outside real estate counsel.
The developer did not notify the Turnpike Authority that it had split with Anglo Irish Bank until two weeks ago - after construction had begun, according to one state official.
Alan Eisner, a spokesman for Winn and Cassin's firm, WinnDevelopment, would not discuss the financing problem, which he sought to minimize.
"This is not unusual in a transaction of this magnitude," he said. "Whenever you have multiple parties to a major economic agreement, all of the parties reserve their rights until there is concurrence on all aspects of the capital structure."
As currently planned, the Columbus Center will be a 1.45 million square-foot, six-building complex that includes a 35-story hotel, luxury condominiums, stores, parking, and parks. It will span two city blocks and link the Back Bay and South End neighborhoods by bridging the canyon caused by the turnpike.
Over the years, its price has soared from $300 million to the current $800 million. The controversial project has, on several occasions, appeared doomed by rapidly rising construction costs and neighborhood opposition.
Construction finally began in mid-October. Yesterday, the edges of the turnpike where the deck will be anchored had been cordoned off and heavy machinery was moving earth and boring into the soil. Workers are installing conduits that will house relocated fiberoptic cables, removing concrete structures to make way for construction, and repainting lines on the highway so that traffic can be diverted during later construction.
Turnpike Authority spokesman Mac Daniel also was optimistic the developers will be able to provide the documentation the agency seeks.
more stories like this
"We have not been satisfied as of yet, but we remain hopeful that we will," he said.
Daniel said the Turnpike Authority would have several options if the developers were unable to come up with a satisfactory financing plan, including canceling the lease. But he said the Authority would be inclined to continue extending deadlines in the hope that a new construction lender could be found, "given that we still support and want this project to move forward." One of the project's investors has said that there are several banks interested in financing the project, a state official said.
But it is unclear how easy it will be for the developers to find the money they need in the current tight lending climate.
"Any construction loan over $100 million is very difficult to get today," said John P. Fowler, executive managing director of the investment advisers Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP. "You've got to put a lot of banks together to get it done."
He declined to discuss Columbus Center specifically.
"Last year you would have had a lot more banks interested in doing loans of that size," Fowler said. But he said that was before the subprime credit crisis shook even the commercial lending markets. Today a bank would syndicate, or sell off to other lenders, more of a large loan. Last year, he said, "they would have kept larger pieces of it."
Lenders are also more conservative, and developers cannot borrow as much money on a given project. The percentage of a large project's cost that banks are willing to support has gone from about 75 percent before last summer, to 60 percent now, Fowler said.
WinnDevelopment's partner in the project is a joint venture between the California Public Employees' Retirement System and MacFarlane Urban Realty Co., a San Francisco real estate investment firm.
If they come up with a new financing plan, it could affect loans and grants they have been promised by state officials. As a condition of receiving a $10 million grant from the state's Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development and at least $15 million in loans from MassHousing, the developers needed to provide details of their financing plan.
Officials of both agencies said yesterday that if the financial terms changed, they would review their commitments to the project. The state loans and grants have not yet been paid.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
$800m project loses its biggest lender
By Andrea Estes and Thomas C. Palmer Jr.
Globe Staff / December 13, 2007
The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is threatening to stop construction of the $800 million Columbus Center project in Boston because the developer and its major lender have parted ways and the developer is unable to show it has the money to build the massive complex.
more stories like this Turnpike officials have given developers Arthur Winn and Roger Cassin until next month to provide proof that they have the financing necessary to pay for the first phase of the development, construction of a deck over the Massachusetts Turnpike at Columbus Avenue and Clarendon Street.
The bank lending more than $500 million toward construction costs, Dublin-based Anglo Irish Bank, is out of the deal and the developers are looking for another source of funds, according to several state officials who have been briefed on the matter.
It was unclear yesterday why the bank is no longer involved in the project. Bank officials did not return phone calls seeking comment from the Globe. The split has sent Winn and Cassin and their partners on a hunt for new construction financing at a time when credit for large projects is tight, a result of the nation's sub-prime lending crisis.
The Turnpike Authority, which signed an air-rights lease over the highway for the project, has written at least three letters to the developers warning them that it could order work halted because financing is not in place.
If the developers do not provide assurances by Jan. 15, "the Authority reserves the right to require the Tenants, upon written notice from the Authority, to immediately stop all work on the project," according to a Nov. 20 letter sent by the Authority's outside real estate counsel.
The developer did not notify the Turnpike Authority that it had split with Anglo Irish Bank until two weeks ago - after construction had begun, according to one state official.
Alan Eisner, a spokesman for Winn and Cassin's firm, WinnDevelopment, would not discuss the financing problem, which he sought to minimize.
"This is not unusual in a transaction of this magnitude," he said. "Whenever you have multiple parties to a major economic agreement, all of the parties reserve their rights until there is concurrence on all aspects of the capital structure."
As currently planned, the Columbus Center will be a 1.45 million square-foot, six-building complex that includes a 35-story hotel, luxury condominiums, stores, parking, and parks. It will span two city blocks and link the Back Bay and South End neighborhoods by bridging the canyon caused by the turnpike.
Over the years, its price has soared from $300 million to the current $800 million. The controversial project has, on several occasions, appeared doomed by rapidly rising construction costs and neighborhood opposition.
Construction finally began in mid-October. Yesterday, the edges of the turnpike where the deck will be anchored had been cordoned off and heavy machinery was moving earth and boring into the soil. Workers are installing conduits that will house relocated fiberoptic cables, removing concrete structures to make way for construction, and repainting lines on the highway so that traffic can be diverted during later construction.
Turnpike Authority spokesman Mac Daniel also was optimistic the developers will be able to provide the documentation the agency seeks.
more stories like this
"We have not been satisfied as of yet, but we remain hopeful that we will," he said.
Daniel said the Turnpike Authority would have several options if the developers were unable to come up with a satisfactory financing plan, including canceling the lease. But he said the Authority would be inclined to continue extending deadlines in the hope that a new construction lender could be found, "given that we still support and want this project to move forward." One of the project's investors has said that there are several banks interested in financing the project, a state official said.
But it is unclear how easy it will be for the developers to find the money they need in the current tight lending climate.
"Any construction loan over $100 million is very difficult to get today," said John P. Fowler, executive managing director of the investment advisers Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP. "You've got to put a lot of banks together to get it done."
He declined to discuss Columbus Center specifically.
"Last year you would have had a lot more banks interested in doing loans of that size," Fowler said. But he said that was before the subprime credit crisis shook even the commercial lending markets. Today a bank would syndicate, or sell off to other lenders, more of a large loan. Last year, he said, "they would have kept larger pieces of it."
Lenders are also more conservative, and developers cannot borrow as much money on a given project. The percentage of a large project's cost that banks are willing to support has gone from about 75 percent before last summer, to 60 percent now, Fowler said.
WinnDevelopment's partner in the project is a joint venture between the California Public Employees' Retirement System and MacFarlane Urban Realty Co., a San Francisco real estate investment firm.
If they come up with a new financing plan, it could affect loans and grants they have been promised by state officials. As a condition of receiving a $10 million grant from the state's Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development and at least $15 million in loans from MassHousing, the developers needed to provide details of their financing plan.
Officials of both agencies said yesterday that if the financial terms changed, they would review their commitments to the project. The state loans and grants have not yet been paid.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
10 Stories is Too Tall for Allston?
Boston Globe Editorial
December 19, 2007
HARVARD'S new president, Drew Faust, may be proceeding at a more deliberate pace than predecessor Lawrence Summers did on the expansion of the university into Allston. Even so, a milestone was passed late last month when the university agreed to a land swap with the 213-unit Charlesview affordable-housing complex at the Barry's Corner intersection. This acquisition will give Harvard the land necessary to make Barry's Corner the heart of a new campus that is attractive to both students and neighbors.
more stories like this
The university will provide the site and pay for the construction of a new Charlesview complex a half-mile away, and give the developer of that project enough land to build a total of 400 units. The Charlesview move will not be finalized until approvals for the other housing are in place. Since Allston needs extra housing, this might seem to be an easy transaction, but as with all matters to do with the Harvard expansion, it will take time.
The Boston Redevelopment Authority will review the projects, with plenty of neighborhood input. Some of the neighbors would prefer to see the low-income housing spread out, rather then concentrated in one place. But would Charlesview residents want to be scattered about the neighborhood? A straight land swap seems simplest.
Some neighbors worry that, at 10 stories, one of the buildings in the developer's preliminary plan is too high for the predominantly two- or three-story neighborhood. Community Builders, the developer, hasn't made its finished plan public. Height is not necessarily bad, but the design has to be superb to justify it here. The BRA needs to make sure that whatever is built enhances the neighborhood.
Acquisition of the Charlesview site would give Harvard a strong presence at Barry's Corner, now a jumble of convenience stores and gas stations. Once the university has secured this land, it can devise a comprehensive plan for a series of public spaces, such as a museum or theater, restaurants, community meeting rooms, and shops. Harvard should seek to make the intersection a venue for town-gown mingling.
"I can own a project and look at it in a deliberative way," Faust said recently in a Globe interview. She denied last week that her careful approach to Allston meant that the entire project was being slowed down. And there is no change in the university's plan (subject to a cooperation agreement with the city) to break ground on the science complex long planned for Western Avenue early next year.
The next phases of the expansion will require all of Faust's deliberative planning and diplomatic skills to satisfy the varied constituencies of both the university and the neighborhood. The leadership of Charlesview first met with Summers nearly five years ago to begin negotiations about the land swap. An enlivened, exciting Barry's Corner will be worth the wait.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
December 19, 2007
HARVARD'S new president, Drew Faust, may be proceeding at a more deliberate pace than predecessor Lawrence Summers did on the expansion of the university into Allston. Even so, a milestone was passed late last month when the university agreed to a land swap with the 213-unit Charlesview affordable-housing complex at the Barry's Corner intersection. This acquisition will give Harvard the land necessary to make Barry's Corner the heart of a new campus that is attractive to both students and neighbors.
more stories like this
The university will provide the site and pay for the construction of a new Charlesview complex a half-mile away, and give the developer of that project enough land to build a total of 400 units. The Charlesview move will not be finalized until approvals for the other housing are in place. Since Allston needs extra housing, this might seem to be an easy transaction, but as with all matters to do with the Harvard expansion, it will take time.
The Boston Redevelopment Authority will review the projects, with plenty of neighborhood input. Some of the neighbors would prefer to see the low-income housing spread out, rather then concentrated in one place. But would Charlesview residents want to be scattered about the neighborhood? A straight land swap seems simplest.
Some neighbors worry that, at 10 stories, one of the buildings in the developer's preliminary plan is too high for the predominantly two- or three-story neighborhood. Community Builders, the developer, hasn't made its finished plan public. Height is not necessarily bad, but the design has to be superb to justify it here. The BRA needs to make sure that whatever is built enhances the neighborhood.
Acquisition of the Charlesview site would give Harvard a strong presence at Barry's Corner, now a jumble of convenience stores and gas stations. Once the university has secured this land, it can devise a comprehensive plan for a series of public spaces, such as a museum or theater, restaurants, community meeting rooms, and shops. Harvard should seek to make the intersection a venue for town-gown mingling.
"I can own a project and look at it in a deliberative way," Faust said recently in a Globe interview. She denied last week that her careful approach to Allston meant that the entire project was being slowed down. And there is no change in the university's plan (subject to a cooperation agreement with the city) to break ground on the science complex long planned for Western Avenue early next year.
The next phases of the expansion will require all of Faust's deliberative planning and diplomatic skills to satisfy the varied constituencies of both the university and the neighborhood. The leadership of Charlesview first met with Summers nearly five years ago to begin negotiations about the land swap. An enlivened, exciting Barry's Corner will be worth the wait.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
Biolab Will Open
Menino says biolab ’will go forward’
By Jay Fitzgerald Wednesday, December 12, 2007 Boston Herald General Economics
Mayor Thomas Menino yesterday predicted a controversial anti-bioterrorism lab in the South End will open in about a year - despite a recent blistering report that said a past safety review of the facility was inadequate and border-line incompetent.
“The biolab will go forward,” Menino said yesterday in response to a question after a speech before the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.
“I have no fear of the biolab,” said Menino, who says the planned $178 million facility will attract top scientists from around world to Boston.
He said he was aware of the recent report by the National Research Council, which harshly criticized the National Institutes of Health’s safety review of the proposed biolab being built by Boston University on its medical campus.
Menino said supporters of the biolab have “taken those concerns to heart.”
But he said there’s “nothing we can’t overcome” in order to open the lab in about a year.
The high-security facility, which is 70 percent complete and funded with federal money, will study dangerous germs and other pathogens as part of the nation’s anti-terrorism efforts.
Some have said the National Research Council’s damning report could delay the opening of the lab - and even lead to no highly dangerous “level 4” germs being studied at the facility.
A staff attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation, which is suing to stop the project until a thorough environmental study is conducted, said Menino’s comments yesterday were “deeply irresponsible.”
“I didn’t know the mayor is a scientist and a risk-analysis expert,” said the CLF’s Eloise Lawrence, accusing Menino of “pure posturing” on the issue.
In separate remarks at the chamber event yesterday, Menino said:
He’s still determined to move City Hall from City Hall Plaza to the South Boston Waterfront, freeing up valuable downtown property for future development.
His administration, as the Herald reported yesterday, will launch next spring a new “green collar jobs” initiative that includes a $500 million revolving loan program, which would use private money to encourage property owners to retrofit their buildings to make them more energy efficient.
By Jay Fitzgerald Wednesday, December 12, 2007 Boston Herald General Economics
Mayor Thomas Menino yesterday predicted a controversial anti-bioterrorism lab in the South End will open in about a year - despite a recent blistering report that said a past safety review of the facility was inadequate and border-line incompetent.
“The biolab will go forward,” Menino said yesterday in response to a question after a speech before the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.
“I have no fear of the biolab,” said Menino, who says the planned $178 million facility will attract top scientists from around world to Boston.
He said he was aware of the recent report by the National Research Council, which harshly criticized the National Institutes of Health’s safety review of the proposed biolab being built by Boston University on its medical campus.
Menino said supporters of the biolab have “taken those concerns to heart.”
But he said there’s “nothing we can’t overcome” in order to open the lab in about a year.
The high-security facility, which is 70 percent complete and funded with federal money, will study dangerous germs and other pathogens as part of the nation’s anti-terrorism efforts.
Some have said the National Research Council’s damning report could delay the opening of the lab - and even lead to no highly dangerous “level 4” germs being studied at the facility.
A staff attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation, which is suing to stop the project until a thorough environmental study is conducted, said Menino’s comments yesterday were “deeply irresponsible.”
“I didn’t know the mayor is a scientist and a risk-analysis expert,” said the CLF’s Eloise Lawrence, accusing Menino of “pure posturing” on the issue.
In separate remarks at the chamber event yesterday, Menino said:
He’s still determined to move City Hall from City Hall Plaza to the South Boston Waterfront, freeing up valuable downtown property for future development.
His administration, as the Herald reported yesterday, will launch next spring a new “green collar jobs” initiative that includes a $500 million revolving loan program, which would use private money to encourage property owners to retrofit their buildings to make them more energy efficient.
Be Careful: Shirley Kressel and Marty Walz support this!!!
South End News
City Streetsby Shirley Kressel
On December 4, 2007, the State legislature’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on bills that would allow eminent domain taking only for “public use,” i.e., schools, parks, libraries, roads, etc.The fifth amendment of the US constitution was written to say: “…nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” Taking for other than public use was inconceivable. But the meaning of “public use” was transformed during the urban renewal era, when cities expanded the notion to include “public purpose” and then “public benefit.” Eliminating “blight” (i.e., demolishing poor neighborhoods) was itself considered a proper public purpose. Then, replacing these neighborhoods with more profitable uses and wealthier people became the “public purpose.” Redevelopment and increased tax growth are now considered sufficient “public benefit” to take people’s homes.The US Supreme Court’s 1954 Berman vs Parker urban renewal ruling legitimized the conception of eminent domain for economic development, expediting the widespread urban displacement of the 1960s and 1970s. The people victimized were invariably poor, black and/or immigrant. Former BRA urban design director Homer Russell once explained that real estate interests and politicians of the 1950’s, envying Europe’s war-ravaged cities, pursued urban renewal to get a clean slate for massive construction projects in America, to jump-start the post-war, post-depression economy. The bitter irony is that this use of eminent domain did not heal our cities. On the contrary, it destroyed thousands of small business, and laid to waste huge areas of valuable housing stock, creating the roots of the current housing shortage, impoverishing millions and depriving us of historic buildings that would now be worth billions of dollars. In his 1964 book, The Federal Bulldozer, economist Martin Anderson calculated the enormous waste of public subsidy money and loss of tax revenues by federal, state and local governments, as vast acreages of previously tax-paying urban land across the nation lay empty for years. Indeed, many acres still lie fallow in Boston’s renewal areas, needlessly leveled in the name of economic development. Herbert Gans’s book, The Urban Villagers, told the world about the destruction of Boston’s West End in 1958, to the profit of a politically connected developer. Archives of this rueful story are now in the West End Museum, housed in the last of the redevelopment buildings finally built in 1997 — 50 years later! Of 7500 residents evicted from that neighborhood by urban renewal — which originally required re-housing of every displaced person — about 25 have been able to get affordable units in the West End. Photos before demolition show architecture exactly like that of the historic North End, Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and South End — some of the most valuable real estate in the country, and essential to our tourist economy.One of the most notorious urban-renewal fiascos was the 1981 Poletown decision, in which the Michigan Supreme Court allowed the City of Detroit to uproot 4200 people to make way for a General Motors plant. In the end, GM fell 3500 jobs short of its promise to create 6500 new jobs, displacing more people than it employed, and a sweetheart deal cost taxpayers over $300 million subsidies for GM. The Michigan Supreme Court overturned Poletown in August 2004 — just after the March 2004 Connecticut Supreme Court, relying on that precedent, upheld economic development takings in Kelo v. City of New London. Yet the US Supreme Court followed in the State’s footsteps on June 23, 2005.“Public purpose” and “public benefit” takings have continued and broadened, as local governments have come to claim all types of property on behalf of private businesses — to put the land to better economic use. Of course, there is always theoretically a “better” use for any property — but remember, the better user can simply buy it from the owner, not have it taken for him. There is no more evidence today than there was in 1964 that city-building by private-use eminent domain is more economically effective than by the workings of ordinary land markets. Note that Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market (the BRA’s “Exhibit A” proof of its indispensability) was not an urban renewal project, and no eminent domain was involved, as attested by Jane Thompson, one of the project’s initiators. Also, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (another cynically exploited poster-child of private-use eminent domain), a community land trust that got eminent domain power in a Ch. 121A affordable housing agreement to help stabilize a devastated neighborhood, in reality ended up simply negotiating agreements with most of the private landowners, enforcing its eminent domain power for only a couple of properties. The 121A expired and takings are no longer part of DSNI’s strategy.Nor does taking meet with standards of fairness on which this country prides itself. In eminent domain for private gain, the corporate powers have the advantage of money and political influence. Small property owners can rarely afford legal fees to protect their homes and businesses. If private-use eminent domain is not an effective economic tool, nor a moral social contract, why allow it?America boasts of its free-market capitalism and exports it worldwide. If developers or corporations want land, they can buy it at fair market value, as they’d want to sell their own property. Why should the government buy it for them forcibly, distorting the competitive land market and favoring some businesses over others?As to public nuisances and neglected properties, eminent domain is the wrong weapon; zoning and building code enforcement and tax foreclosure are the proper remedies. And if whole neighborhoods are in trouble, comprehensive city planning is needed to treat the underlying problems; that’s what urban renewal taught us. The Kelo decision didn’t change anything; it simply confirmed the status quo. But the US Supreme Court (probably sensing the potential for profound damage) explicitly encouraged state legislatures to enact their own protections. Rep. Martha Walz’s bill, House 1770, closes the “blight” loophole, and protects both private and public property, safeguarding City land from the rapacious BRA, the only urban renewal agency in America that takes City property (and without compensation). We should get H1770 passed now. And at the next Constitutional Convention, the legislature must enact an equivalent constitutional amendment to avoid future legislated exceptions
City Streetsby Shirley Kressel
On December 4, 2007, the State legislature’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on bills that would allow eminent domain taking only for “public use,” i.e., schools, parks, libraries, roads, etc.The fifth amendment of the US constitution was written to say: “…nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” Taking for other than public use was inconceivable. But the meaning of “public use” was transformed during the urban renewal era, when cities expanded the notion to include “public purpose” and then “public benefit.” Eliminating “blight” (i.e., demolishing poor neighborhoods) was itself considered a proper public purpose. Then, replacing these neighborhoods with more profitable uses and wealthier people became the “public purpose.” Redevelopment and increased tax growth are now considered sufficient “public benefit” to take people’s homes.The US Supreme Court’s 1954 Berman vs Parker urban renewal ruling legitimized the conception of eminent domain for economic development, expediting the widespread urban displacement of the 1960s and 1970s. The people victimized were invariably poor, black and/or immigrant. Former BRA urban design director Homer Russell once explained that real estate interests and politicians of the 1950’s, envying Europe’s war-ravaged cities, pursued urban renewal to get a clean slate for massive construction projects in America, to jump-start the post-war, post-depression economy. The bitter irony is that this use of eminent domain did not heal our cities. On the contrary, it destroyed thousands of small business, and laid to waste huge areas of valuable housing stock, creating the roots of the current housing shortage, impoverishing millions and depriving us of historic buildings that would now be worth billions of dollars. In his 1964 book, The Federal Bulldozer, economist Martin Anderson calculated the enormous waste of public subsidy money and loss of tax revenues by federal, state and local governments, as vast acreages of previously tax-paying urban land across the nation lay empty for years. Indeed, many acres still lie fallow in Boston’s renewal areas, needlessly leveled in the name of economic development. Herbert Gans’s book, The Urban Villagers, told the world about the destruction of Boston’s West End in 1958, to the profit of a politically connected developer. Archives of this rueful story are now in the West End Museum, housed in the last of the redevelopment buildings finally built in 1997 — 50 years later! Of 7500 residents evicted from that neighborhood by urban renewal — which originally required re-housing of every displaced person — about 25 have been able to get affordable units in the West End. Photos before demolition show architecture exactly like that of the historic North End, Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and South End — some of the most valuable real estate in the country, and essential to our tourist economy.One of the most notorious urban-renewal fiascos was the 1981 Poletown decision, in which the Michigan Supreme Court allowed the City of Detroit to uproot 4200 people to make way for a General Motors plant. In the end, GM fell 3500 jobs short of its promise to create 6500 new jobs, displacing more people than it employed, and a sweetheart deal cost taxpayers over $300 million subsidies for GM. The Michigan Supreme Court overturned Poletown in August 2004 — just after the March 2004 Connecticut Supreme Court, relying on that precedent, upheld economic development takings in Kelo v. City of New London. Yet the US Supreme Court followed in the State’s footsteps on June 23, 2005.“Public purpose” and “public benefit” takings have continued and broadened, as local governments have come to claim all types of property on behalf of private businesses — to put the land to better economic use. Of course, there is always theoretically a “better” use for any property — but remember, the better user can simply buy it from the owner, not have it taken for him. There is no more evidence today than there was in 1964 that city-building by private-use eminent domain is more economically effective than by the workings of ordinary land markets. Note that Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market (the BRA’s “Exhibit A” proof of its indispensability) was not an urban renewal project, and no eminent domain was involved, as attested by Jane Thompson, one of the project’s initiators. Also, the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (another cynically exploited poster-child of private-use eminent domain), a community land trust that got eminent domain power in a Ch. 121A affordable housing agreement to help stabilize a devastated neighborhood, in reality ended up simply negotiating agreements with most of the private landowners, enforcing its eminent domain power for only a couple of properties. The 121A expired and takings are no longer part of DSNI’s strategy.Nor does taking meet with standards of fairness on which this country prides itself. In eminent domain for private gain, the corporate powers have the advantage of money and political influence. Small property owners can rarely afford legal fees to protect their homes and businesses. If private-use eminent domain is not an effective economic tool, nor a moral social contract, why allow it?America boasts of its free-market capitalism and exports it worldwide. If developers or corporations want land, they can buy it at fair market value, as they’d want to sell their own property. Why should the government buy it for them forcibly, distorting the competitive land market and favoring some businesses over others?As to public nuisances and neglected properties, eminent domain is the wrong weapon; zoning and building code enforcement and tax foreclosure are the proper remedies. And if whole neighborhoods are in trouble, comprehensive city planning is needed to treat the underlying problems; that’s what urban renewal taught us. The Kelo decision didn’t change anything; it simply confirmed the status quo. But the US Supreme Court (probably sensing the potential for profound damage) explicitly encouraged state legislatures to enact their own protections. Rep. Martha Walz’s bill, House 1770, closes the “blight” loophole, and protects both private and public property, safeguarding City land from the rapacious BRA, the only urban renewal agency in America that takes City property (and without compensation). We should get H1770 passed now. And at the next Constitutional Convention, the legislature must enact an equivalent constitutional amendment to avoid future legislated exceptions
Banker & Tradesman's negative point of view
Proposed Pru Center Project Faces Towering OppositionTenants in Trio of Luxury Apartment Buildings Start Petition Drive to Stop Office Facility Plans
By Thomas GrilloReporter
Nancy Sonnabend, a resident of the Fairfield at the Prudential Center, led a petition drive to stop plans for a pair of towers outside her window.
Opposition to a pair of proposed towers at Boston’s Prudential Center is mounting.
Tenants in the three luxury apartment buildings at the Pru voted overwhelmingly last Thursday to fight plans for a 19-story glass office tower on Boylston Street and a 30-story residential high-rise on Exeter Street.
“The revolution has begun,” said Celia Sniffin, who has lived at the Pru for nearly 40 years. “There will be a lot more to come and this is just the opening skirmish in a long war. We intend to organize and get the facts out about this proposal.”
Boston Properties and Avalon Bay Communities have filed a controversial proposal with the Boston Redevelopment Authority that calls for a 438,993-square-foot building at 888 Boylston St., between the Mandarin Oriental Boston Hotel and the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention. The second project, Avalon Exeter, would be a residential tower on Exeter Street, across from the Boston Public Library.
Nancy Sonnabend organized a tenant petition drive to prevent construction of the two buildings. In a packed meeting of the Prudential Center Residents Association (PCRA) late last week, the longtime resident of the Pru’s Fairfield complex presented 157 signatures in opposition to the development. The letter demands that plans for the Exeter building be withdrawn and that the Boylston Street tower be limited to 11 stories.
“No. No. No. These buildings are too big for the small site they’re on,” said Sonnabend. “They will cast big shadows on Boylston Street, exacerbate an already traffic-choked section of the city and destroy the light and the views.”
Sonnabend is one of 1,100 residents in three high-rise buildings adjacent to the Prudential Center. The towers, named Gloucester, Boylston and Fairfield, were purchased in 1998 by AvalonBay, a publicly traded real estate investment trust, for $129 million. The buildings at 770, 780 and 790 Boylston St. contain 781 units.
Anthony Selvaggi, PCRA president, did not return a call seeking comment.
Warren Markarian, a member of the association, declined to say how he voted, but acknowledged that there is growing unease about the development.
“The office tower was approved years ago at 11 stories, but now Boston Properties wants 19 stories,” he said. “The apartment building is a harder sell because people live next door. At first, people questioned whether the Exeter building should be 30 stories; now some tenants don’t want anything built there at all.”
The vote is pivotal for Markarian, the tenants’ representative on the Prudential Project Advisory Committee (PruPAC). Former Mayor Raymond Flynn established the 41-member group in the 1980s to advise City Hall on development projects at the Prudential Center. Mayor Thomas M. Menino has told Banker & Tradesman that he intends to take seriously the panel’s recommendation before the project moves forward.
Later this month, PruPAC subcommittees are expected to make recommendations to the full panel on whether to support the project.
“I don’t know how I will vote at PruPAC,” Markarian said. “It’s clear that there was overwhelming opposition to both buildings among the tenants who attended the meeting. But PruPAC is still gathering information about the project and I haven’t decided which way to vote.”
But Sonnabend insisted that Markarian must reject the project when it comes to a vote at PruPAC.
“He represents the Prudential tenants and he must vote according to our wishes,” she said. “The mandate is in.”
‘Already Impassible’
State Rep. Martha M. Walz, a Back Bay Democrat, said she has heard from many Pru Center residents who have expressed strong opposition to the proposed office tower at 888 Boylston St.
The Boylston Street office building originally was approved by the BRA as a 287,493-square-foot, 11-story tower at the site. But Boston Properties has said that it needs more height to make the project economically viable. The developer is seeking to add 8 stories to the design and needs city approval.
Walz has asked Boston Properties to justify the reasons for the increase in height. Without the added density, the company has said, the developers cannot afford to design and build a plaza.
“The developers said they need additional height to do Class A office space,” she said. “But Ron Druker plans to build a 120-foot-tall Class A office building on the very same side of the very same street.”
In September, Banker & Tradesman was the first to report that The Druker Co., which owns the former Shreve, Crump & Low building across from the Boston Public Garden, planned to replace the 5-story mid-rise with a new building. Earlier this month, Druker told the BRA that he intends to build a 120-foot building totaling 221,000 square feet at 330-360 Boylston St.
“Druker’s proposal completely undercuts Boston Properties’ argument,” Walz said. “How can Boston Properties say they can’t build at 155 feet when, a few steps away, Druker says he can do high-end office space at 120 feet?”
At a packed public hearing at the Boston Public Library last month, many residents of the city’s Back Bay neighborhood said the 19-story glass office tower proposed for Boylston Street is too tall. In addition, they argued that 180 parking spaces are not enough for the 1,600 employees expected to fill the skyscraper. Meanwhile, others pleaded for more time to study the consequences of another tall building that would overlook the historic neighborhood.
So far, none of the developers are talking. Michael A. Cantalupa of Boston Properties declined to comment. Michael Roberts, vice president of development at Avalon, declined to comment. Druker did not return a reporter’s call.
Sonnabend said the fight has just begun.
“Boylston and Exeter Streets are already impassible,” she said. “The area is looking more and more like [New York’s] midtown Manhattan.”
By Thomas GrilloReporter
Nancy Sonnabend, a resident of the Fairfield at the Prudential Center, led a petition drive to stop plans for a pair of towers outside her window.
Opposition to a pair of proposed towers at Boston’s Prudential Center is mounting.
Tenants in the three luxury apartment buildings at the Pru voted overwhelmingly last Thursday to fight plans for a 19-story glass office tower on Boylston Street and a 30-story residential high-rise on Exeter Street.
“The revolution has begun,” said Celia Sniffin, who has lived at the Pru for nearly 40 years. “There will be a lot more to come and this is just the opening skirmish in a long war. We intend to organize and get the facts out about this proposal.”
Boston Properties and Avalon Bay Communities have filed a controversial proposal with the Boston Redevelopment Authority that calls for a 438,993-square-foot building at 888 Boylston St., between the Mandarin Oriental Boston Hotel and the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention. The second project, Avalon Exeter, would be a residential tower on Exeter Street, across from the Boston Public Library.
Nancy Sonnabend organized a tenant petition drive to prevent construction of the two buildings. In a packed meeting of the Prudential Center Residents Association (PCRA) late last week, the longtime resident of the Pru’s Fairfield complex presented 157 signatures in opposition to the development. The letter demands that plans for the Exeter building be withdrawn and that the Boylston Street tower be limited to 11 stories.
“No. No. No. These buildings are too big for the small site they’re on,” said Sonnabend. “They will cast big shadows on Boylston Street, exacerbate an already traffic-choked section of the city and destroy the light and the views.”
Sonnabend is one of 1,100 residents in three high-rise buildings adjacent to the Prudential Center. The towers, named Gloucester, Boylston and Fairfield, were purchased in 1998 by AvalonBay, a publicly traded real estate investment trust, for $129 million. The buildings at 770, 780 and 790 Boylston St. contain 781 units.
Anthony Selvaggi, PCRA president, did not return a call seeking comment.
Warren Markarian, a member of the association, declined to say how he voted, but acknowledged that there is growing unease about the development.
“The office tower was approved years ago at 11 stories, but now Boston Properties wants 19 stories,” he said. “The apartment building is a harder sell because people live next door. At first, people questioned whether the Exeter building should be 30 stories; now some tenants don’t want anything built there at all.”
The vote is pivotal for Markarian, the tenants’ representative on the Prudential Project Advisory Committee (PruPAC). Former Mayor Raymond Flynn established the 41-member group in the 1980s to advise City Hall on development projects at the Prudential Center. Mayor Thomas M. Menino has told Banker & Tradesman that he intends to take seriously the panel’s recommendation before the project moves forward.
Later this month, PruPAC subcommittees are expected to make recommendations to the full panel on whether to support the project.
“I don’t know how I will vote at PruPAC,” Markarian said. “It’s clear that there was overwhelming opposition to both buildings among the tenants who attended the meeting. But PruPAC is still gathering information about the project and I haven’t decided which way to vote.”
But Sonnabend insisted that Markarian must reject the project when it comes to a vote at PruPAC.
“He represents the Prudential tenants and he must vote according to our wishes,” she said. “The mandate is in.”
‘Already Impassible’
State Rep. Martha M. Walz, a Back Bay Democrat, said she has heard from many Pru Center residents who have expressed strong opposition to the proposed office tower at 888 Boylston St.
The Boylston Street office building originally was approved by the BRA as a 287,493-square-foot, 11-story tower at the site. But Boston Properties has said that it needs more height to make the project economically viable. The developer is seeking to add 8 stories to the design and needs city approval.
Walz has asked Boston Properties to justify the reasons for the increase in height. Without the added density, the company has said, the developers cannot afford to design and build a plaza.
“The developers said they need additional height to do Class A office space,” she said. “But Ron Druker plans to build a 120-foot-tall Class A office building on the very same side of the very same street.”
In September, Banker & Tradesman was the first to report that The Druker Co., which owns the former Shreve, Crump & Low building across from the Boston Public Garden, planned to replace the 5-story mid-rise with a new building. Earlier this month, Druker told the BRA that he intends to build a 120-foot building totaling 221,000 square feet at 330-360 Boylston St.
“Druker’s proposal completely undercuts Boston Properties’ argument,” Walz said. “How can Boston Properties say they can’t build at 155 feet when, a few steps away, Druker says he can do high-end office space at 120 feet?”
At a packed public hearing at the Boston Public Library last month, many residents of the city’s Back Bay neighborhood said the 19-story glass office tower proposed for Boylston Street is too tall. In addition, they argued that 180 parking spaces are not enough for the 1,600 employees expected to fill the skyscraper. Meanwhile, others pleaded for more time to study the consequences of another tall building that would overlook the historic neighborhood.
So far, none of the developers are talking. Michael A. Cantalupa of Boston Properties declined to comment. Michael Roberts, vice president of development at Avalon, declined to comment. Druker did not return a reporter’s call.
Sonnabend said the fight has just begun.
“Boylston and Exeter Streets are already impassible,” she said. “The area is looking more and more like [New York’s] midtown Manhattan.”
"New Approach to Development"
Menino says BRA will adopt new approach to development
Boston Business Journal - by Eric Convey Journal staff
The Boston Redevelopment Authority -- the agency that oversees city planning -- needs to be revamped so it can take a more proactive roll in guiding what's built and where with an eye toward stimulating key industries, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino said Tuesday morning.
"Our new BRA director, John Palmieri...and I share the conviction that today's global competition demands that we reorient our planning and economic development," Menino told a breakfast hosted by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce at the Westin Boston Waterfront hotel.
"Boston must become more proactive in envisioning and creating economic growth. City government must reach out to business and support you," he added.
The work needs to expand beyond the development to also include more assistance for existing companies, he said.
Specifically, he said, the city needs to do more to help the state's financial services industry, which he said employees 80,000 people, occupies 20 million square feet and generates half a billion dollars of annual state income tax.
"It's critical to our economy," he said.
In January, Menino said, he will convene business school deans and top executives to find ways "to provide added value for financial services firms and to solidy Boston as a global center for years to come." Part of that will include finding ways to better-train Bostonians for jobs in the industry, he said.
Menino also turned to a topic he first raised a year ago -- his controversial proposal to move City Hall from its current location at Government Center to a new site on the South Boston waterfront.
Noting that some critics had panned the proposal, he said Tuesday morning that some "facts" are beyond debate: "We have a costly, inefficient building that needs millions of dollars in maintenance, and we have a geographically small city with a large, underutilized site right in its center."
In an interview following the speech, Menino told the Boston Business Journal that he continues to pursue the possibility of splitting City Hall operations between a new waterfront location and a neighborhood-oriented facility in a building the city purchased in Dudley Square.
"We've got to move some of our operations there," said Menino. "We have to have a center in the city close to the public."
But with the Internet, he said, many City Hall operations would work fine from the Seaport District.
In a question-and-answer session -- the questions were filtered by the Chamber of Commerce -- Menino said the city will "address concerns" so the Boston University biolab can be built in the South End.
Boston Business Journal - by Eric Convey Journal staff
The Boston Redevelopment Authority -- the agency that oversees city planning -- needs to be revamped so it can take a more proactive roll in guiding what's built and where with an eye toward stimulating key industries, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino said Tuesday morning.
"Our new BRA director, John Palmieri...and I share the conviction that today's global competition demands that we reorient our planning and economic development," Menino told a breakfast hosted by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce at the Westin Boston Waterfront hotel.
"Boston must become more proactive in envisioning and creating economic growth. City government must reach out to business and support you," he added.
The work needs to expand beyond the development to also include more assistance for existing companies, he said.
Specifically, he said, the city needs to do more to help the state's financial services industry, which he said employees 80,000 people, occupies 20 million square feet and generates half a billion dollars of annual state income tax.
"It's critical to our economy," he said.
In January, Menino said, he will convene business school deans and top executives to find ways "to provide added value for financial services firms and to solidy Boston as a global center for years to come." Part of that will include finding ways to better-train Bostonians for jobs in the industry, he said.
Menino also turned to a topic he first raised a year ago -- his controversial proposal to move City Hall from its current location at Government Center to a new site on the South Boston waterfront.
Noting that some critics had panned the proposal, he said Tuesday morning that some "facts" are beyond debate: "We have a costly, inefficient building that needs millions of dollars in maintenance, and we have a geographically small city with a large, underutilized site right in its center."
In an interview following the speech, Menino told the Boston Business Journal that he continues to pursue the possibility of splitting City Hall operations between a new waterfront location and a neighborhood-oriented facility in a building the city purchased in Dudley Square.
"We've got to move some of our operations there," said Menino. "We have to have a center in the city close to the public."
But with the Internet, he said, many City Hall operations would work fine from the Seaport District.
In a question-and-answer session -- the questions were filtered by the Chamber of Commerce -- Menino said the city will "address concerns" so the Boston University biolab can be built in the South End.
"The Pru is as appropriate as any place in the city for height"
Residents of Trinity Place join forces with the Neighborhood of Back Bay.
According to Steve Baily of The Boston Globe, "Pity the poor urban millionaires of Trinity Place. Things have gotten so bad over at the swank Copley Square condo tower that the owner of the double penthouse unit, priced at $15 million, the highest in Boston condo history, had to take it off the market after it sat there, unwanted, for six months. Instead, reports the Boston Condo Blog, the owner is offering one of the units - 11 rooms, five full baths, two fireplaces - at the bargain price of $7 million.
Tough times at the seven-year-old Trinity Place, indeed. But it gets worse, much worse.
Now Boston Properties wants to build an ugly 30-story apartment building at the Prudential Center that will block the views and cast shadows over their ugly 18-story Trinity Place. The urban millionaires are beside themselves.
"To approve their project as is would be nothing short of criminal to those of us who live in this neighborhood," William F. Thompson, a founder of Boston Ventures, fumed in a letter to the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Wrote Davida Stocklan, whose husband, Martin, is a Smith Barney executive: "It should not be difficult to understand that residents of Trinity Place are not interested in having the basic nature of their investments destroyed by diminished light and obstructed views."
And on and on. The Trinity millionaires have launched a letter-writing campaign in hopes of blocking Boston Properties' proposed 200-unit apartment building on Exeter Street over the Prudential garage and just beside the Lenox Hotel. They worry about traffic. They worry about shadows and wind. They worry about their property values. They worry about the character of their neighborhood.
"I am very concerned with the overdevelopment of the Back Bay," wrote Khalid Nooruddin. "This building will no doubt not only be an eyesore, but will also present major traffic problems, unwanted additional shading and dangerous wind tunnels."
In addition to the apartment building, Boston Properties wants to build a glass office building at the Boylston Street entrance to Pru Center. Together with the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and Residences, now nearing completion though tens of millions over budget, the construction would finally "complete" the Pru Center, or so says Boston Properties.
The company has approval to build an 11-story office building, but now insists it needs 19 stories. It is just getting started on the process for the apartment building. The two projects are drawing heavy fire from many of the usual suspects in the Back Bay who are ever vigilant - and appropriately so - about their neighborhood.
Tom Menino never met a big building he didn't like. The mayor's reasoning is straightforward enough: Big buildings pay more taxes than small buildings. Menino has spent years systematically killing the character that makes Boston so special by planting big, ugly buildings everywhere. Now there is a "shooting" in their own neighborhood, and the good people of Trinity Place are shocked. What a shock.
The Pru is as appropriate as any place in the city for height, and there remains ample room for compromise on both buildings. Should the apartment building be 30 stories? Or would 20 stories be better, given its historic neighbors, the Lenox and the Boston Public Library? One plus: Boston Properties promises 25 percent of the units will be set aside as affordable in the building or elsewhere at the Pru. At Trinity, "affordable" means a one-bedroom condo listed at $750,000. ttp://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/11/23/trouble_in_paradise/
According to Steve Baily of The Boston Globe, "Pity the poor urban millionaires of Trinity Place. Things have gotten so bad over at the swank Copley Square condo tower that the owner of the double penthouse unit, priced at $15 million, the highest in Boston condo history, had to take it off the market after it sat there, unwanted, for six months. Instead, reports the Boston Condo Blog, the owner is offering one of the units - 11 rooms, five full baths, two fireplaces - at the bargain price of $7 million.
Tough times at the seven-year-old Trinity Place, indeed. But it gets worse, much worse.
Now Boston Properties wants to build an ugly 30-story apartment building at the Prudential Center that will block the views and cast shadows over their ugly 18-story Trinity Place. The urban millionaires are beside themselves.
"To approve their project as is would be nothing short of criminal to those of us who live in this neighborhood," William F. Thompson, a founder of Boston Ventures, fumed in a letter to the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Wrote Davida Stocklan, whose husband, Martin, is a Smith Barney executive: "It should not be difficult to understand that residents of Trinity Place are not interested in having the basic nature of their investments destroyed by diminished light and obstructed views."
And on and on. The Trinity millionaires have launched a letter-writing campaign in hopes of blocking Boston Properties' proposed 200-unit apartment building on Exeter Street over the Prudential garage and just beside the Lenox Hotel. They worry about traffic. They worry about shadows and wind. They worry about their property values. They worry about the character of their neighborhood.
"I am very concerned with the overdevelopment of the Back Bay," wrote Khalid Nooruddin. "This building will no doubt not only be an eyesore, but will also present major traffic problems, unwanted additional shading and dangerous wind tunnels."
In addition to the apartment building, Boston Properties wants to build a glass office building at the Boylston Street entrance to Pru Center. Together with the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and Residences, now nearing completion though tens of millions over budget, the construction would finally "complete" the Pru Center, or so says Boston Properties.
The company has approval to build an 11-story office building, but now insists it needs 19 stories. It is just getting started on the process for the apartment building. The two projects are drawing heavy fire from many of the usual suspects in the Back Bay who are ever vigilant - and appropriately so - about their neighborhood.
Tom Menino never met a big building he didn't like. The mayor's reasoning is straightforward enough: Big buildings pay more taxes than small buildings. Menino has spent years systematically killing the character that makes Boston so special by planting big, ugly buildings everywhere. Now there is a "shooting" in their own neighborhood, and the good people of Trinity Place are shocked. What a shock.
The Pru is as appropriate as any place in the city for height, and there remains ample room for compromise on both buildings. Should the apartment building be 30 stories? Or would 20 stories be better, given its historic neighbors, the Lenox and the Boston Public Library? One plus: Boston Properties promises 25 percent of the units will be set aside as affordable in the building or elsewhere at the Pru. At Trinity, "affordable" means a one-bedroom condo listed at $750,000. ttp://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/11/23/trouble_in_paradise/
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