"Excessive Height?" Replacing 7 stories with 7 stories

Banker & Tradesman
Centremark Proposes Hub Office Plan
By Thomas Grillo
Reporter


It could become even harder to find parking in Boston’s Back Bay.

Centremark Properties has proposed razing the 6-story garage at 4-6 Newbury St. and replacing it with a 49,000-square-foot, 7-story, terra cotta-and-glass structure with indoor parking. If approved, the building would offer retail on the first three floors and offices on the upper levels. The developer needs city approval to exceed zoning height limits of 65 feet.

“Our intention is to upgrade the building and we’ve tried not to make the building’s height overbearing,” said Richard J. Bertman, principal of CBT Architects in Boston.

But many residents at last week’s public hearing on the project disagreed. State Rep. Martha M. Walz acknowledged that no one would miss the nondescript garage if it were demolished, but she noted that the building’s lack of appeal does not justify making its replacement taller.

“I cannot support the excessive height at this location and I hope you are all here because you agree,” she said to applause.

The garage is located on the first block of Newbury Street opposite the TAJ Boston, formerly the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, and is surrounded by upscale shops. The 41,650-square-foot brick building was constructed in 1980 to provide parking for the Carlton House at 2 Commonwealth Avenue and the Ritz. The garage was sold last summer to Newbury Garage Assoc., a Centremark subsidiary, for $15.9 million.

If the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) gives the project a thumbs-up, the mix of uses would include 28,200 square feet of office, 20,800 square feet of retail and 16 parking spaces. Today, the garage is a monolithic structure with tinted windows. The two garage doors opening onto the Newbury Street would be removed if the project were approved.

But few residents expressed support for the plan at the two-hour session at the Boston Public Library. Jacquelin Yessian, chairwoman of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay (NABB), opposed any change in the height limit for the historic district.

Steven Sayers, a Marlborough Street resident, expressed concern that the project would set a precedent for replacing other buildings with taller ones.

Susan Prindle, a NABB member, said the developer is asking to increase the height by about a third. “This is totally out of whack,” she said. “With mechanicals, the height would be almost 100 feet. The proposal is a lot larger than it should be.”

Still, not everyone was opposed to the project. David Gibbons, TAJ’s general manager, spoke in favor. “We would rather see a new world-class building than a rehab of the ugliest building in the Back Bay,” he said.


‘It Makes Sense’


William Motley, managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle, said the office conversion idea for the garage has been talked about for 15 years. While investors believed the location is ideal, the vacancy rate only recently dwindled to the single digits, making the project viable.

“In a market with a 3.6 percent vacant rate, it will probably lease fairly well,” he said. “There’s only one other office building in the pipeline, and they’re having their own issues. It makes sense to examine alternatives.”

Boston Properties has proposed a $115 million high-rise at 888 Boylston St. But the controversial plan has pitted NABB against the developer. The well-organized group has rallied other neighborhoods to voice their opposition during meetings of the Prudential Project Advisory Committee (PruPAC), a 41-member panel founded to advise City Hall on development at the Pru.

The project, to be built between the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention, has been in the works for years. In 2002, the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) approved the office building at 11 stories. But the 287,000-square-foot high-rise never broke ground. Today, the developer is seeking city approval for a 19-story structure.

Earlier this month, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino told Banker & Tradesman that he would like to see the two sides settle their differences and reach a compromise. But so far Boston Properties has not offered to lower the height and NABB has refused to support a taller building.

Yessian, NABB’s chairwoman, has declined to comment on Menino’s offer for a compromise. But in an op-ed column in The Boston Courant last year, she wrote that while the 11-story building called for in the master plan would be an asset to the Pru, “we strongly oppose any building that would exceed this height.”

Meg Mainzer-Cohen, president of the Back Bay Association and a strong supporter of the building at 19 stories, said she is disappointed that some members of PruPAC have refused to consider a compromise.

“The point of PruPAC is to work together to reach consensus,” she said.

In a recent letter to the BRA, Mainzer-Cohen wrote, “The building proposed at 888 Boylston St. at 19 stories is a better building for the neighborhood and will create another signature building in Back Bay. The building’s architecture will add a modern glass facade to the streetscape and add first-class office space to Back Bay, which is in demand.”

BC Weighs in Regarding Dorms

BCHeights.com
Mayor has second thoughts on dorms
Published in the Monday, February 25, 2008
Edition of By Heights Editorial Board
The Issue: BC asked to rethink its plan to build on Brighton

What we think: As is, plan puts student formation first

Students want to live on campus; administrators want students to live on campus; Allston-Brighton neighbors also want students to live on campus - as long as that campus does not extend into their living space. At least, this is the complaint being weighed by Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), the group that must review and approve all building projects in the city. On Wednesday, the BRA suggested that Boston College reconsider its plan to build residence halls on Brighton Campus.

The mayor and the BRA suggest that BC move the proposed residence halls onto the existing Main Campus so student living areas will be more centralized and farther from disgruntled neighbors. Such a drastic revision in the Master Plan would compromise the carefully balanced design that both the University administration and Sasaki Associates have tirelessly worked to cultivate for many months. The priority placed on student formation and maintenance of a suburban campus would be jeopardized if BC were to construct high-rise buildings as the neighbors suggest.

We urge our Allston-Brighton neighbors to reevaluate their position regarding residence halls on Brighton Campus. Although there would be over 500 undergraduate students moving into the neighborhood, it would be far more centralized and contained than the current situation in which approximately 50 percent of the junior class floods the area, living next door to families in virtually unregulated apartments and homes. With more residence halls come more students, but with them also come resident directors, resident assistants, and peer ministers, all acting under the Office of Residential Life. In the end, these institutional controls will serve to limit the headaches for neighbors by placing students in living environments where they are held accountable for their daytime and nighttime activities.

We also encourage the BRA and Menino to reconsider their suggestion to redraw BC's plans. BC is one of the finest institutions of higher learning in this country, and its effort to increase housing for students sets an example for other Boston universities. By forcing the BC administration to horse-trade on this issue, the city is damaging an expansion plan that will only bring more prestige to the school and the surrounding area. While it is encouraging to see that the BRA is listening to the suggestions of individual residents, it is unfortunate that BC's housing solution is being mistaken for a problem.

Redrawing plans at this stage of development would hinder the forward progress of this campus expansion and potentially present many unwanted problems during the actual construction process. We want what is best for our school, and we believe that the Master Plan has adequately taken the suggestions and complaints of all parties into consideration. City officials must also realize that the vision of administrators is all-inclusive, and the University should not be forced to sacrifice the quality of this plan.

Moving Charlesview

Charlesview presents housing proposal
By Susan Haverson, Correspondent
Thu Feb 21, 2008, 12:36 PM EST
Allston-Brighton Tab

Allston-Brighton - The developer who will relocate the Charlesview housing complex from its current location to land that includes part of the Brighton Mills shopping center has filed a proposal for the project with the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Both the BRA, as well as an independent neighbors group that is calling for change to the plan, are asking residents to chime in with their opinions.

The proposal filed on Feb. 11, with Community Builders Inc., the developer, provides for 400 residences, including 282 rentals and 118 units available for purchase, and 454 parking spaces, including underground ones. Approximately 75 spaces are available for on-street parking within the site.

The present Charlesview development, at 51 Stadium Way, has 213 housing units and 185 off-street parking spaces. As part of a land swap with Harvard University, the current 4.5-acre Charlesview site will be exchanged for about 6.9 acres at Brighton Mills and in the Telford Street and Soldiers Field Road area, plus the cost of constructing 213 apartments in the new location, to replace the housing lost in the old location.

The existing and proposed developments offer mostly one- and two-bedroom housing units.

The plan includes 42 townhouses, with terraces and roof decks, in the southern part of the site. Proposed buildings increase in height toward the north, reaching six stories along Western Avenue.

The proposed tree-lined development has three play areas, including an outdoor basketball court, pathways that go through the site and are open to the neighborhood, and one floor of multiple-use community space.

The Allston-Brighton North Neighbors Forum distributed fliers calling for changes to the proposal in order to reduce the project’s population density and building height, and to increase the amount of economic diversity among residents. They also requested an increase in the amount of housing available for purchase rather than rental, given the low rate of homeownership in North Brighton and North Allston. More units with at least a few bedrooms, in order to accommodate families, more public open space and more first-floor retail space were also suggested.

What do you think of the plans?
· The Allston-Brighton North Neighbors Forum invites residents to a March 4 meeting at 6:30 p.m. at the Gardner School, 30 Athol St., to offer their opinions.

· The Boston Redevelopment Authority will hold public meetings on March 10 and 24 at 6 p.m. in the second-floor cafeteria at New Balance. The PNF is available on the BRA’s Web site and at the neighborhood libraries. Comments can be sent to Jay Rourke at the BRA, 1 City Hall Square, Boston, MA 02201, or e-mailed to Jay.Rourke.BRA@cityofboston.gov. The comment period for the project ends on March 31.

That Stinks

Odor control facility raises new questions on Columbia Point
February 21, 2008
By Gintautas Dumcius
Reporter Correspondent
Dorchester Reporter

A 2.1-mile sewer overflow tunnel being built under William J. Day Boulevard may be hitting a speed bump, as a key Columbia Point landowner is raising a stink over a planned odor control facility nearby.

The Corcoran Jennison Companies, owner of the Bayside Exposition Center, is planning on hitting local neighborhood civic associations with its concerns on the single-story brick structure, known as an odor control facility, set to be built behind the State Police barracks.

The odor control facility, due to be built this summer and fully working by 2010, is at one end of the tunnel the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority is building, with a pumping station at the other at Conley Terminal in South Boston.

Corcoran Jennison officials say the facility can be designed to keep a lower profile, be more environmentally friendly and operate better during peak periods. The company is also asking for state Department of Environmental Protection oversight.

The requests have left MWRA staffers nonplussed, with the quasi-public agency coming out swinging at Tuesday night's meeting of the McCormack Civic Association (MCA).

"This isn't the eleventh hour to bring this up. This is five seconds to midnight," said Jeff McLaughlin, the MWRA's community relations coordinator. "It's a bit surprising to the MWRA that people have this concern."

Corcoran Jennison officials also say they only specifically learned of the odor facility last year, a claim MWRA staffers dispute. Staffers brought with them a collection of press clips on the tunnel project and a timeline of meetings on the project with a number of neighborhood groups and Corcoran Jennison.

"We've been meeting with people all along on this project," McLaughlin said.

They also disagree on whether the facility will generate an odor. Corcoran Jennison said the odor could waft up and throughout the area, while MWRA staffers say there will be no odor at all.

Corcoran Jennison representatives were not able to make the MCA meeting on Tuesday, but their director of community relations, Catherine O'Neill, told the Reporter, "It's a great deal of concern to us. We think it can work better."

The tunnel project, started about two months ago, is now about 20 percent complete. A $10 million boring machine from Japan has recently been installed in a location under Farragut Road. The project is meant to reduce beach closings after heavy rains, which often cause sewage and storm water to get dumped into the harbor and beaches some twenty times a year. The state Department of Conservation and Recreation has had to close beaches eight times every swimming season due to the pollution from the sewage and storm water.

With the tunnel in place, sewage, instead of getting sent into the bay, will be collected and pumped out to Deer Island for treatment.

Heavy electric fans housed in the odor control facility, with 8-foot blades, will draw the air out of the tunnel. The air will then be purified with carbon filters.

If Tuesday night's MCA meeting is any indication, Corcoran Jennison may have an uphill battle on their hands. Members of the civic association had few questions about the project, including whether the fans will be too loud. McLaughlin said he has not heard any neighborhood complaints about a similar facility already in use near Union Park in the South End.

Local politicians have also come out in favor of the tunnel project, pointing to its potential to clean up beaches from Castle Island to Dorchester Bay.

MWRA staffers also acknowledged that an "emission control" facility may be a better name, instead of "odor control," and say the project has gotten the necessary permits, and does not need the DEP oversight that the agency agreed to submit to back in 1999.

MWRA staffers say they're open to design changes and adjustments, but add that the project has never changed, while Corcoran Jennison, responding to the the loss of gate shows at Bayside, have plans to demolish and replace it with a new neighborhood of housing and retail buildings.

"We're doing what we can to appease them," McLaughlin said.

A Plan to Move Suffolk? Not Suffolk's Plan!

Beacon Hill Times
Plan to move Suffolk off Hill gains little traction by Dan Salerno


Veteran developer John Ryan is trying to revive a twenty year old plan to move Suffolk University completely out of Beacon Hill and relocate it downtown, a move which he believes would be equally beneficial for the neighborhood and the university.

“Once they see how much money it would save them, they would be crazy not to,” said Ryan of his plan.

His proposal, first drawn up in 1988, calls for Suffolk University to take over the Hurley-Lindemann building in the Government Center area. Currently owned and used by the state for administrative offices, Ryan said that the state offices could be moved to Reedville.

However, no Suffolk University officials seemed interested in the plan, and no representatives from the state returned calls seeking comment.

The proposal is not one that the university plans to consider, indicated John Nucci, Suffolk’s Vice President of Community Relations, who said that the University has no plans to alter or abandon expansion projects already in progress, including 20 Somerset Street on Beacon Hill and the Modern Theater complex downtown.

Ryan also sent his plan to the Beacon Hill Civic Association, but the BHCA does not plan to take up the proposal.

According to Ryan, when the plan was first proposed in 1988, it fell through because there was no appropriate location to move the state’s administrative offices. He says his idea of using a site in Reedville for this purpose solves that problem. However, no one from the state expressed interest in the proposal, and calls from the Times turned up no intention to consider Ryan’s plan.

Suffolk’s plan for 20 Somerset Street is to house the New England School of Art and Design, currently located in the Back Bay. In recent weeks, residents and members of the BHCA have expressed some trepidation about the proposal. Suffolk has responded by offering a pledge of future non-expansion in Beacon Hill. Suffolk filed its Institution Master Plan Notification Form in January and is currently waiting on a scoping determination from the Boston Redevelopment Authority that will take into account public comment on the project.

Find Alternatives

Boston Globe
City urges BC to seek other dorm options
Email|Print| Text size – + February 21, 2008 01:35 PM
By Peter Schworm, Globe staff

City officials are urging Boston College to find alternatives to its controversial plan to build dormitories on the former Archdiocese of Boston property, which many Brighton neighbors sharply oppose.

In a report released late Wednesday, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, which reviews and must approve college expansion plans, called on BC to study ways to restrict undergraduate housing to its main Chestnut Hill campus.

The recommendation is a "very clear signal that we have heard the message from the neighbors about the concerns they have, and we are insisting Boston College look at alternatives before we make any decisions," said authority spokesman Jessica Shumaker. "We feel at a minimum BC needs to address why they can’t meet their housing goals on their current campus, and expect a good faith effort from BC to show us other options."

Neighbors who live near Boston College have raised a range of objections to the college's expansion proposal in public meetings this winter, but are most resistant to BC's plan to house 500 undergraduates in dorms on 65 acres it acquired from the Archdiocese, the first dorms slated for the Brighton side of Commonwealth Avenue. Some neighbors also oppose plans to build dorms on Shea Field, which they say would mar the view of the nearby Chestnut Hill Reservoir.

Boston College spokesman Jack Dunn said today that the report is a standard part of the review process and the college would work to address the city's concerns. But he said the Chestnut Hill campus is already "exceedingly dense" and cannot handle 500 additional undergraduates. Building dorms on the Brighton property, he said, is the only way the college can add student housing.

Dunn said neighbors' complaints about the location of student housing, in light of long-standing demands to house more students on campus, amounted to "a question of NIMBYism."

"Everyone wants to see college students live on campus, unless they happen to live close to campus," Dunn said.

Dunn said the city's demand that BC find alternative expansion plans ran counter to Mayor Thomas M. Menino's push for colleges to build more dormitories in response to neighborhood complaints

"We were following the mayor's lead," Dunn said. "We feel confident this plan is in the best interest of the college and the community."

The Redevelopment Authority also urged the college to relocate the proposed site of a recreation center to potentially allow housing there. It also recommended nonresidential alternatives to the Shea field site.

The full development of the former archdiocese property, which the college calls the Brighton campus, would increase the traditional 120-acre campus by more than 50 percent. The Brighton campus would also include an athletic field house, a softball field, and a 500-space parking facility.

Alex Selvig, a Lake Street resident who lives near the Brighton campus, said he was pleased by the BRA review, which he described as rigorous and thorough.

"It's very encouraging and renews a lot of people's faith in the BRA process," he said. "Everything we were concerned about, those questions are being asked."

"Sees No Reason to Compromise"

Banker & Tradesman
Tower Opponents Refuse to Back Down
By Thomas Grillo
Reporter


A week after Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino called for a compromise over a proposed office tower at the Prudential Center, one neighborhood group says it won’t bend.

Boston Properties’ controversial plan for a $115 million high-rise at 888 Boylston St. has pitted the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay against the developer. NABB has organized its opposition among members of the Prudential Project Advisory Committee (PruPAC). The 41-member panel was founded to advise City Hall on development projects at the Pru.

The project, to be built between the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention, has been in the works for years. In 2002, the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) approved the office building at 11 stories. But the 287,000-square-foot high-rise never broke ground. Today, the developer is seeking approval for a 19-story skyscraper.

Elliott Laffer, PruPAC’s vice chairman and NABB’s representative on the committee, said he sees no reason to compromise. “Eleven stories are what’s in the guidelines and 11 stories are what Boston Properties said they would build six years ago,” he said. “I haven’t seen any reason to change it.”

Jacquelin Yessian, NABB’s chairwoman, declined to comment on Menino’s offer for a truce. But in an op-ed column in The Boston Courant last year, she wrote that while the 11-story building called for in the master plan would be an asset to the Pru, “we strongly oppose any building that would exceed this height.”

While Yessian has rejected requests for interviews, she has galvanized the support of other neighborhoods to fight any additional height for the tower. She has coordinated private meetings to convince neighborhood associations represented on PruPAC to join NABB in their opposition.

But Steven Wolf, a PruPAC member representing the Fenway Community Development Corp., a nonprofit affordable housing developer, defended those gatherings, noting that PruPAC business was not transacted at the two sessions.

“It’s hard for me to believe that the developers are not sitting down and talking privately about this project,” he said. “These sessions were intended as educational to build better connections between neighborhoods. I guess I can understand how this would be perceived as something nefarious, but nothing has gone on that anyone can object to.”


‘It’s Not Helpful’


NABB’s efforts appear to be working. Kathleen Emrich, a PruPAC member who represents the Ellis Neighborhood Association, said while the Boylston Street building will not directly impact her South End neighborhood, she is supporting NABB’s opposition to an additional 9 stories.

“We have to stick together,” she said. “This doesn’t directly affect our neighborhood, but we want to be supportive of the Back Bay where it will have the most impacts. There could come a time when a building does impact us and we would seek the support of other neighborhoods.”

Nancy Restuccia, a PruPAC member who represents the St. Botolph Neighborhood Association, said while she is not opposed to 19 stories, she too wants to be supportive of NABB’s position.

Still, Meg Mainzer-Cohen, president of the Back Bay Association and a PruPAC member, said the recent meetings organized by NABB that excluded nonresidential members are contrary to the group’s mission.

“The point of PruPAC is to work together to reach consensus,” she said. “It’s not helpful to have NABB organize resident groups to try to get everyone to walk in lockstep. How would the residential groups respond if the business community did that?”

Wolf explained that neighborhood resistance to Boston Properties for increased height to 888 Boylston St. comes from concerns about the Mandarin Hotel. The 14-story, mixed-use development is scheduled to open this summer next to Lord & Taylor on lower Boylston Street.

“People feel they got burned last time around,” Wolf said. “Lots of people are saying the Mandarin ended up being too big in relation to the street. It was technically approved at 150 feet, but mechanicals on the roof can add another 20 feet. I don’t know if anyone actually checked the height to see if they are in compliance.”

Jessica Shumaker, a BRA spokeswoman, noted that the Mandarin was approved by the city following a “lengthy public review process and support from PruPAC.”

Michael A. Cantalupa, senior vice president of Boston Properties, said he would not comment on Menino’s suggestion until he had a chance to speak with the mayor. But in public meetings last fall, he said a lower height would not work given rising construction costs.

Walter Salvi, the PruPAC representative of NSTAR, an electric and gas utility company based at the Prudential Center, said a compromise on height makes sense. “NABB has a very specific point of view on keeping the height at 11 stories and I respect their opinion,” he said. “But if alliances are being formed among neighborhood on PruPAC, it takes ‘not in my backyard’ to a new level. That said, from a political standpoint, the mayor is seeking a compromise so everyone walks away a winner.”

Anthony Gordon, the PruPAC member who represents the Boylston Street Association, a group of merchants along the retail district, said while he supports 19 stories, a compromise is likely.

“A tall tower is good for business and won’t have any detrimental effects on the neighborhood because the building is set back,” he said. “If Boston Properties hadn’t taken over the Pru, it would still be in chaos and we would not have the revitalized mall. The Pru is in good hands and I believe they’re capable of finishing off the center in front of Boylston Street.”

Dainty Dot = "Too Tall"

Boston Globe
Home / Business
Design panel approves plan for Dainty Dot site
Commissioners still harbor reservations
By Thomas C. Palmer Jr.
Globe Staff / February 7, 2008

The Boston Civic Design Commission this week reluctantly approved a developer's controversial proposal for a 27-story residential tower over the old Dainty Dot building on the edge of Chinatown.

At the urging of the city's new director of planning, Kairos Shen, the five commissioners present at a meeting Tuesday night gave "conditional approval" to the condo project at Essex Street and the Surface Artery. Shen had argued the project needed the commission's approval before it could move forward in the permitting process and further improvements could be made.

No further vote by the commission is required, but changes made by the developer, Ori Ron, in collaboration with Boston Redevelopment Authority planners, will be shown to the commission. Now, building plans call for about 180 units and some ground-floor retail space at the former Dainty Dot hosiery company site.

Many in the Chinatown and Leather District neighborhoods support the project, while some neighbors and other critics say it is too tall for the relatively low-rise Chinatown community and would impose too much on the adjacent Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway park. They also worry the new building would set a precedent for more towers in the area.

While voting as Shen recommended, some commissioners expressed reservations about aspects of the project, including its height, as well as the predicament they said the BRA put them in by pushing for their approval at this incomplete stage of development.

Appointed by the mayor, the 11 professionals on the commission assess the design quality of new developments and whether they fit well into existing neighborhoods. With the Dainty Dot proposal, the BRA was asking the commission - over strong objections from some neighbors - to approve a building that is three times the height allowed under the current 100-foot zoning.

"The present proposal is a series of compromises with a lot of pressures," said commission member Andrea Leers. "It should be a better project."

Critics say the Dainty Dot process epitomizes the problem with the approval process in Boston, where zoning regulations have built-in flexibility and where the BRA has discretion to determine height on a proposal-by-proposal basis.

"It's a sham," said Lawrence Rosenblum, a Leather District resident and critic of the project. "The BCDC has abdicated its responsibility to be a design reviewer for the city."

"The project . . . was basically recommended by the BRA," he said. With its vote, the commission "put it back in the hands of the very people who approved it in the first place, completely contrary to zoning."

On Jan. 8, following an emotional discussion of the project, the commission postponed its vote for a month. Member David Hacin said on Tuesday he remains concerned about the building's height, floors of above-ground parking, and the manner in which the 119-year-old building's facades would be incorporated into the base of a modern glass tower.

"For me, there are a couple of strikes against the project," he said, adding: "This is a very difficult position we're in."

Shen said the BRA would seek to eliminate some of the above-ground parking and reduce the proposed 150 parking spaces.

But Shen made no suggestion that the proposed glass tower would be reduced in height - the primary objection of opponents.

He defended the building's height, calling the site a "transitional" location between the Financial District, with its taller buildings, and Chinatown, where buildings are more modest in scale. Currently, the building is proposed to be 299 feet high, plus one level of rooftop mechanical equipment. It would be located across Essex Street from 37-floor State Street Financial Center, which is about 500 feet high.

Shen, Ron, and many in the Chinatown community argue that the project's advantages far outweigh its drawbacks. Those advantages include 47 affordable housing units on a nearby Chinatown site that Ron, of Hudson Group North America LLC, is subsidizing.

"We have been viewing those two projects in combination," Shen said. Some design commission members observed that that approach forced members to consider issues like economic feasibility and size - which are outside their normal design considerations.

Based on community comments, Ron has already reduced the building's footprint and height by two floors, removed most of the traffic from busy Essex Street, and added about 2,000 square feet to the adjacent Greenway park.

Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at tpalmer@globe.com.

Nor Shall NABB Compromise

Banker & Tradesman
Menino Calls for Tower Compromise
By Thomas Grillo
Reporter


Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino wants the two sides debating over a proposed 19-story office tower for the city’s Prudential Center to settle their differences.

“If something could be worked out – a compromise – I’d like to see if there are opportunities to make it happen,” the mayor told Banker & Tradesman after listening to neighbors’ concerns.

But even if the high-rise is downsized, the plan may fall short of winning residents’ support.

At issue is Boston Properties’ proposal for a 439,000-square-foot building at 888 Boylston St., between the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center. During packed public hearings last fall, many Back Bay residents said the 19-story, glass-and-steel office tower is too tall, while others expressed fears of the impact on the historic neighborhood.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) approved the Boylston Street office building in 2002 at 11 stories. But the 287,000-square-foot high-rise was never built. Today, the developer is seeking city approval to add 8 stories to the design.
But the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay (NABB) has rejected any increase in height. Jacquelin Yessian, NABB’s chairwoman, declined to comment on Menino’s offer for a compromise. But in an op-ed column in The Boston Courant last year, she wrote that while the 11-story building called for in the master plan would be an asset to the Pru, “we strongly oppose any building that would exceed this height.”

NABB has galvanized the support of other neighborhoods to oppose any added height. The group has coordinated private meetings to convince neighborhood associations represented on the Prudential Project Advisory Committee (PruPAC) to join them in opposition. The 41-member panel was established by former Mayor Raymond Flynn in the 1980s to advise City Hall on development projects at the Pru.

Elliott Laffer, PruPAC’s vice chairman and NABB’s representative on the committee, acknowledged that the neighborhood groups have met and excluded corporate representatives such as the Back Bay Association. “If the meetings are for community organizations, why would we invite any other entities?” he said.

NABB’s efforts have paid off. Kathleen Emrich, a PruPAC member who represents the Ellis Neighborhood Association, said while the Boylston Street building will not directly impact her South End neighborhood, she is supporting NABB’s position.
“We have to stick together,” she said. “This doesn’t directly affect our neighborhood, but we want to be supportive of the Back Bay where it will have the most impacts. There could come a time when a building does impact us and we would seek the support of other neighborhoods.”

Meg Mainzer-Cohen, president of the Back Bay Association and a PruPAC member, said meetings that exclude nonresidential members is contrary to the group’s mission.
“The point of PruPAC is to work together to reach consensus,” she said. “It’s not helpful to have NABB organize resident groups to try to get everyone to walk in lock step. How would the residential groups respond if the business community did that?”
On a compromise solution on the height, Mainzer-Cohen said she would be willing to consider it.

“I believe a 19-story tower would be a great addition to the Back Bay,” she said. “But PruPAC’s goal is to seek what’s in the best interest of not just the neighborhood, but Boston’s economy, too.”

Michael A. Cantalupa of Boston Properties could not be reached for comment.

More on Boston College

Neighbors fight college for open space
By Susan Haverson, Correspondent
Thu Jan 31, 2008, 11:39 AM EST
Brighton -

Brighton - Will Boston College take away their open space and recreational opportunities, college neighbors worried just days before the deadline for residents to send comments to the city regarding Boston College’s proposed 10-year institutional master plan. A group of neighbors voiced its concerns this week to fellow community members on the Boston College community task force.

Resident Michael Pahre told the group that Allston-Brighton has just 4.8 acres of open space for every thousand people, which is less than the city average. The seminary land contains 58 percent of the neighborhood’s unprotected, private open space, he said.

Neighbors worried that land protected as part of a 10-year plan would lose its protection once those years passed.

When Charlie Vasiliades said that zoning is a problem, and buffers should have conservation restrictions on them to make sure they really are preserved, his fellow neighbors responded with applause. Other residents suggested similar restrictions for the playing fields and the seminary’s green space. Resident Sandy Furman agreed that open space needs to be protected by “legal restrictions with teeth.”

Neighbor Leland Webster said, “The reservoir is the last great piece of public open space in our area.” He hoped it could be preserved in its entirety. If that were impossible, he hoped the buildings in the area would be for academic use.

Eva Webster, like other neighbors, wanted adequate buffer zones and setbacks. “We can’t count on an institutional campus to be a public park,” she said.

Wilma Wetterstrom of Oak Square said, “Open space does a lot.” It lowers the temperature in the summer and supports wildlife, she explained. On the other hand, she said, artificial turf doesn’t support life except that of the bacteria that gets on it via users’ sweat and drool.

Along with artificial turf on the playing field, a fenced-in athletic area was objected to. Shelby Marshall, a resident, requested having enough open space around the fenced-in area to let community members walk around.

Heijung Kim, a resident and member of Allston-Brighton Green Space Advocates, said, “The BC community seems to want to close itself off from the rest of the communities around it.”

Resident Ann LaRosee urged neighbors to write to the mayor. “One person is in charge of the city of Boston,” she said. She exhorted people to tie up the mayor’s telephone for hours. Otherwise, she warned, no progress would be made.

While the Boston College Task Force will send the BRA a written summary of input received at the January community meetings, people are encouraged to send their own letters to the BRA. No special forms are required.

Two Buildings Planned for Charlestown

Charlestown Patriot Bridge
January 31, 2009
by Dan Murphy

A pair of high-rise buildings planned for Rutherford Avenue has raised many questions regarding future development in the neighborhood and how the project has changed since it was first proposed 20 years ago.

At a Charlestown Neighborhood Council Development Committee meeting last Thursday, CNC representatives and a small number of concerned residents and abutters discussed Bridgeview Lofts, a $70 million residential development planned for the area north of the Bunker Hill Community College Athletic fields.

The project would consist of two buildings — one 20 stories and 250 feet in height, the other 14 stories and 181 feet tall. The development’s 180 one- and two-bedroom loft-style units, described as affordably priced and with little finish work (e.g. granite countertops), could be marketed as rentals or condos, depending on the market. A three-level garage would also provide 280 on-site parking spaces at grade and in two underground levels, and retail space would likely be available on the first level. The project could be completed in three years, with proper funding in place, according to the developers.

The developers are Byron Gilchrest, president of Gilchrest Associates, Inc. of Boston, and Jack Millerick, executive director of the Life Focus Center, Inc. (The Life Focus Center is a City Square-based non-profit that assists the mentally handicapped and provides other social services). Jack French, president of Monument Square’s Neshamkin French Architects, Inc., is designing the project.

Development Committee co-chair Judy Brennan questioned the new designation of the site as a for-profit residential complex, since the Boston Redevelopment Authority granted development rights of the parcel to the Life Focus Center in 1988 for the sum of $1. Under this agreement, the parcel was designated for a new Life Focus Center facility.

Millerick said the Life Focus Center originally hoped to build a new facility at the site, but a sluggish economy made this plan unfeasible at the time. The latest and third proposal that now comes before the CNC is “literally an extension” of the original plan, he said.

Earnings from the development would be used to establish an endowment for the Life Focus Center, which Millerick said was essential to the non-profit’s survival in light of recent cutbacks. The Child Focus Center, a daycare service operated by the Life Focus Center, also plan to expand from its current home at the Community College to Bridgeview Lofts, Millerick said.

In addition, Millerick said the developers would be required to renegotiate the terms of its deal with the BRA and would likely pay more for the parcel rights, given the different nature of the new proposal.

The project’s partnership between a non-profit and a private developer still presented a quandary for some: As Dave Whelan of the CNC said, “You might want to vote for the non-profit, but not for the development.”

Brennan described the height of Bridgeview Lofts as “the other elephant in the room,” pointing out that one of the buildings, at 250 feet, would surpass the 221-foot Bunker Hill Monument as the tallest building in Charlestown.

French countered that the site of the development would be located outside the center of town.

This came of little consolation to the abutting homeowners in attendance, 17 of whom signed a petition against the project. While the name “Bridgeview Lofts” implies that each unit would offer a view of the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge and downtown Boston, residents of Essex and Lyndeboro streets fear they will find themselves living in its shadow.

“At the end of my day, I sit down and watch the sun set,” Essex Street resident Patricia Kelly said. “Please don’t take that away from me.”

Others wondered what kind of precedent the height of Bridgeview Lofts would set for future development along Rutherford Avenue and in Sullivan Square.

“Height is a major issue for a lot of people today,” CNC Chairman Tom Cunha said to the developers. “You have an opportunity to decide what gets built on the rest of Sullivan Square

Some suggested future development should be postponed until the implementation of the city’s Rutherford Avenue Corridor Study, which aims to facilitate traffic flow in the area by reconfiguring the roadway.

“Let’s slow development down until the traffic situation on Rutherford Avenue can be addressed,” said Precinct 7 CNC representative Mike Charbonnier during a phone interview after the meeting, “That’s what I’ve been hearing from my constituents for over a year.”

Gilchrest said the project wasn’t being planned in conjunction with the traffic study or other development planned for the neighborhood.

“If you wait for something to get done, nothing gets done,” Gilchrest said. “We could be out here six years from now waiting for the planning to be done.”
For the time being, Bill Lamb, chairman of the Charlestown Preservation Society Design Review Committee, urged the Neighborhood Council to put a moratorium on Bridgeview Lofts until the completion of the traffic study, which he said would “set guidelines for the area to insure coherent, attractive, safe and economically feasible construction.”

Lamb said, “If Bridgeview is approved, we’re putting action before thinking.”
The Neighborhood Council voted six to three in favor of a motion from Cunha stating that the developers would take part in ongoing meetings and revise its proposal based on input from the community and the CNC. The motion also requests that BRA representatives participate in future meetings.

A second motion, put forward by Bill Galvin of the CNC, called for a moratorium on all future development in the vicinity of Rutherford Avenue and Sullivan Square for one year or until the time that the traffic study is completed. Six voted in favor of this motion, while three abstained.