Boston : Proposal for Harbor Garage site, Massachusetts

[LindbergMTL]

 

Developer floats alternate proposals for a $900 million tower project on Boston’s waterfront

It’s not the best economic climate for building office space. But Don Chiofaro, a Boston-based developer seems unfazed. He is moving fast and furious to get approvals for a 1.5 million sq ft mixed -use project for Boston’s waterfront, betting the market will change by the time the project goes into construction.

 

In January he proposed a two-tower scheme for the site, a prime location between the New England Aquarium and the City’s new Greenway. But when that scheme was met with little enthusiasm, Chiofaro unveiled yet another design last week, this three-tower scheme designed by New York architect Kohn Pederson Fox. While this scheme is reportedly the developer's favorite, he has an arsenal of ten different designs that he is prepared to launch on the public until one sticks.

 

The current scheme, which has been likened to a "matched set of furniture" by Boston architecture critic Robert Campbell, features three tall slender glass towers framed with terra cotta walls. Pederson told the Boston Globe that the intent was to create a high rise that made sense in Boston, a city that has an architectural pedigree of brick townhouses and warehouses. “In both types you have long masonry bearing walls at both sides with large openings in the front and rear” said Pederson.

 

The two "bookend" towers will be occupied while the middle tower is intended as sculpture and has no program. One tower will hold a 200-300 room hotel topped by approximately 120 condos. The second one will contain 850,000 sq ft of office space. The lower floors of the entire complex will contain 70,000 sq ft of retail space.

 

Sharon McHugh

US Correspondent

 

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