Developers vying for the rights to build new signature projects along Boylston Street in Boston are emphasizing the power and control they have – or would need – to make their potential towers, residential and retail spaces a reality.
Representatives of The Chiofaro Co., Carpenter & Co. and a team of Samuels & Associates and Weiner Ventures last night presented plans at a public meeting for what could be built above the Massachusetts Turnpike near the intersection of Boylston Street and Massachusetts Avenue.
The firms are trying to convince the Citizens Advisory Committee, comprised of mostly community stakeholders, that their projects have the best mix of uses, are the most economically feasible and best for the area overall. The committee will make a recommendation to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT), which controls air rights parcels above the MassPike.
Chiofaro’s plan calls for a 377-foot, 29-story office tower with more than 30,000 square feet of retail space and 250 parking spaces. It would be built on decking atop the Pike at the corner of Boylston and Dalton streets, on air rights parcel 15.
Carpenter’s project would have 200 hotel rooms in a seven-story building along Boylston Street, with 13,500 square feet of retail on parcel 14, which consists of a small traffic island at the corner of Boylston and Cambria streets and parcel 15. A 300-foot office or residential tower would be built on the site of the public parking garage that the Bukowski Tavern is attached to on Dalton Street. The garage would likely be demolished and another built in its place, as long as a deal with the garage’s owners could be reached, according to Carpenter representatives. The company has made an offer to buy the garage but would not share details of the offer.
The Weiner/Samuels properties would encompass parcels 12, 14 and 15. The parcel 12 piece would have a backwards L-shaped property with two stories of retail along Massachusetts Avenue above the Pike, and an eight-story, 111-unit residential portion along Boylston Street pointing toward the Back Bay Fens. On parcels 14 and 15, the team would build a 32-story, 398-foot hotel and residential tower with retail on the first two floors.
The Weiner/Samuels team owns a small piece of green space at the corner of Cambria and St. Cecilia streets on which the tallest, densest piece of the project would be built, without using the Pike air rights for that portion. That is significant because it would cut costly decking that would need to be constructed above the Pike out of the equation for that piece, said Adam Weiner of Weiner Ventures. The project would not include the garage, just air rights parcels and land owned by the team.
Chiofaro would be using just air rights parcel 15. But that parcel is immediately adjacent to air rights space above the Pike that Prudential Financial owns. The entirety of these two exposed parcels is bounded by Boylston, Cambria and Dalton streets. Don Chiofaro, head of The Chiofaro Co., said at the meeting that he recently received a letter from Prudential saying that the financial firm had no interest in partnering with anyone else to develop the site and would not sell it. He described his company’s proposal as the only one that can fill the hole.
"We’re going to be partners in the long run on that property," he added.
A source close to the process, however, who asked for anonymity, said he is under the impression that Prudential will cooperate with whichever company is designated as the preferred developer.
"The land has no real value unless it’s developed," the source told Banker & Tradesman.
