Children’s Hospital is facing community discontent over plans to build an 11-story clinical tower, a 211,170-square-foot office and retail building, a 526-space parking garage and more parking in the Longwood Medical Area and Audubon Circle neighborhood of Boston.
The hospital recently filed plans with the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) to build a 445,000-square-foot tower on what is now a 25,000-square-foot park used largely by Children’s Hospital patients and employees at the area’s institutions. The hospital is considering building its own cogeneration plant to power the property in the basement of the structure.
That would help the hospital make all new rooms single-occupancy, said Charles Weinstein, the hospital’s chief of real estate planning and development, which is is required by today’s pediatric hospital construction standards.
But residents aren’t pleased by plans to build on the park.
Fredericka Veikley, the leading force in the creation of the Fenway neighborhood’s Ramler Park, said she was offended that the hospital would just "skirt over such a huge issue," assuming that it was all right to destroy the park in the name of real estate development.
The hospital is also hoping to build the 211,170-square-foot office and ground floor retail space at 819 Beacon St., which the hospital has owned for 17 years and operates as surface parking. The large parking garage will support the new office building.
Children’s currently leases more than 100,000 square feet of space at the Landmark Center, also in the Fenway neighborhood. That lease expires in 2019, and Weinstein said the hospital is anticipating the building will be ready for a smooth transition to the planned garage at 819 Beacon St. that year.
All four projects are now in the midst of the 30-day public comment period that ends Nov. 13. The BRA will hold a public meeting at Fenway Health, 1340 Boylston St. in Boston, on Wed., Oct. 24. Another meeting is planned for Oct. 30, location to be determined – it may be held in the Audubon Circle neighborhood after residents expressed wishes for a project presentation on their home turf.
