This 125-foot tall infill design is almost twice as tall as adjacent brick warehouse rehabs, but uses glass to reduce visual impact. Rendering: Bruner/Cott.
|
Boston's Channel Center is helping to transform the historic Fort Point warehouse district with 14 renovations and four infill sites on 7.1 acres. Beacon Capital Partners' Boston office is developing the $400-million mixed-use plan.
After a year of meetings and community outreach, Beacon won some variances but complied with the Boston Redevelopment Authority's infill height reductions. An office tower was chopped from 300 feet to 150; residential towers, from 150 feet to 125.
"It was worthwhile to stick with the project and settle on some middle ground," says Bob Palumbo, vice president of development for Beacon and Channel Center's project director. The first phase is the hardest, encompassing the bulk of entitlement, 70 percent of the project's total infrastructure and 25 percent of all costs, according to the developer.
Lawrence Cheng, an associate with architect/planner Bruner/Cott of Cambridge, expects to recoup yield because "when you push square footage down in one place, it will pop back up somewhere else." But Palumbo adds, "We can't go any higher, so we would have to pop out sideways" with revised floor/area ratios, lot-lines and interior configurations for future spaces, which are on hold until commercial real estate rebounds.
Advertisement
Related Stories
Land Planning
Helena Habitat for Humanity Aims to Build 1,000 Affordable Homes
A new Habitat for Humanity project in Helena, Mont., aims to deliver 1,000 affordable housing units and outdoor community amenities
Government + Policy
How Eminent Domain May Be Used to Respond to Climate Crises
Eminent domain, which grants the government power to take private property for public use, has displaced thousands of Americans for the sake of infrastructure in the past, but it may be used for a better purpose in a global climate crisis
Q+A
Soil Connect Is Moving Dirt and Building Relationships
Cliff Fetner created Soil Connect so builders and developers could more easily move dirt and other aggregates from jobsite to jobsite, but it has expanded to become something much more