"Plan for harbor towers wins fresh look at City Hall" by Casey Ross | Globe Staff June 25, 2014
Revived plans to build a pair of skyscrapers along Boston Harbor are finding a newly receptive audience in City Hall, signaling a possible end to a long-running real estate feud that has for years stalled the redevelopment of prime waterfront.
Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s administration said Wednesday that it is open to tall buildings on the site of the Harbor Garage, as long as developer Donald J. Chiofaro’s plan also provides adequate open space and public access to the water.
The 600-foot-tall complex of buildings proposed by Chiofaro includes a 70-foot public arcade that would give visitors the rare opportunity to walk down steps directly into the harbor. And the arcade would have a retractable roof allowing for lush landscaping in summer and ice skating in the winter.
“We are confident that the unprecedented benefits we can provide will more than offset the impacts,” Chiofaro told a waterfront planning committee Wednesday afternoon.
His $1 billion proposal would demolish the hulking Harbor Garage on Atlantic Avenue and move its 1,400 parking spaces underground. He would replace it with two towers — one 600 feet tall, the other 550 feet, both far higher than the property’s recommended height limit of 200 feet. The towers would contain up to 300 hotel rooms, 120 luxury condominiums, and three levels of retail and restaurants.
Wednesday’s meeting was the first step in a revival for Chiofaro, one of the city’s most colorful developers, and his highly ambitious project. His previous versions — with taller towers, one reaching 780 feet — had been blocked by Thomas M. Menino, the former mayor. The two men became locked in an unusually public feud over the project.
But the Walsh administration is striking a different tone, saying it would consider building proposals that exceed the area’s recommended height limit if they provide the open space and waterfront access required by law....
The project must clear a number of hurdles before construction could begin. Although Chiofaro’s proposal drew considerable praise Wednesday, neighbors and members of the waterfront planning committee questioned the density of the development, impacts on traffic, and the shadows it would cast on surrounding property and the water.
Any new buildings would need to be approved by the BRA and state environmental officials who enforce requirements that waterfront developments devote half of the site to open space, among other rules....
--more--"
Related: Fishing Around
