For the first time in its 97-year history, Filene’s Basement shoppers won’t have to go downstairs for bargains. The storied retailer – where brides clash twice a year for discounted gowns – will move upstairs when construction begins next year in the cellar of the historic building.
The move is only one of the expected changes for Boston’s Downtown Crossing, the area that comprised the former Filene’s complex. Last week, a team of developers and architects detailed their plans for One Franklin, a $600 million project that will contain a 38-story tower including 1.2 million square feet of space for retail, hotel, office and condominiums.
“This is very exciting for its location and for the opportunity to continue Downtown Crossing’s revitalization,” said Robert Maloney, senior vice president of Gale International, a New York-based global commercial real estate developer and investor. “We are creating something special that will rejuvenate arguably the most critical block downtown.”
In October, Gale and Vornado Realty Trust, a New York-based real estate trust, signed a joint agreement to redevelop the Filenes’s site. Vornado purchased the buildings from Federated Department Stores Inc. for $100 million.
Expected to open in 2010, the project will be the largest historic renovation in the city’s history. The venture comes on the heels of a 28-story Washington Street rental tower that boasts Boston’s first luxury high-rises in a quarter-century. Archstone-Boston Common contains 420 units and an array of amenities, including an aerobics studio, indoor heated pool and a massage room. Rents range from $2,210 for a studio to $4,890 for a three-bedroom, two-bath unit.
Under the plan submitted to the BRA, the team will restore the original 1912 department store at Washington and Summer streets. That building, designed by Daniel Burnham – who also created Union Station in Washington, D.C. – was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
A second Filene’s property at Hawley and Franklin streets designed by Jones, McDuffie & Stratton in 1905 also will be restored. A pair of buildings at Franklin and Washington streets and Hawley and Summer streets built between 1950 and 1970 will be razed to make way for the tower.
‘Vital and Active’
Maloney said the project is expected to deliver lots of benefits to the city and to Downtown Crossing including office space, 250 hotel rooms, 130,000 square feet of new retail and 132 housing units.
“We will bring new office space at a time when the downtown office market is tightening up. Tenants who need large blocks of space downtown are starting to have a difficult time finding it and there are no new projects under construction,” Maloney said. “With the success of the new convention center, booking a hotel room during the week is very difficult.”
Under the proposal, Filene’s Basement will be refurbished starting in June of next year. The discount store will move to the first three floors of the original Filene’s building. Later, about a dozen retailers are expected to fill that space. Maloney declined to say which retailers, if any, have signed leases, but no one has been excluded, he said.
“We believe that the mix of uses will bring vitality to the area, making it a busy district from 18 to 24 hours a day, which is exactly what keeps neighborhoods vital and active,” Maloney said.
Based on the turnout at the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s public meeting on the project last week at Suffolk University, it is likely the development will sail through the permitting process. Of the more than four-dozen persons who attended the session, only one voiced any objection to the project.
Shirley Kressel, cofounder of the Alliance of Boston Neighborhoods, a citywide group that promotes public process in planning, zoning, development, licensing and transportation issues, pointed out that at 495 feet, the tower exceeds the zoning by nearly 300 feet.
“Right now, this project is illegal,” she said. “I’m shocked that preservationists are not more concerned about the impact of the new tower on the surrounding historical buildings. This new tower could set off a speculative frenzy.”
Robert S. Tullis, the project’s architect from Elkus/Manfredi Architects in Boston, told the crowd that the Boston Redevelopment Authority has applied for and received a Planned Development Area designation for the site. Under a PDA, a developer has more flexibility in terms of zoning.
“We petitioned the BRA for a PDA, making the argument that this is the tool that gives us the ability to financially justify the project,” Tullis said. “The PDA has been approved and, as of now, there are no height limits.”
The Boston Zoning Commission gave the green light to the PDA last Wednesday.
State Rep. Martha M. Walz, a Back Bay Democrat, said Kressel’s criticism should be taken seriously.
“Maybe there’s something to Shirley’s argument that if you take the lid off of zoning – as the city does whenever it feels like it – then maybe it will create an incentive to tear down older buildings and put up high-rises, ” Walz said. “We need to consider the policy implications of what we’re doing and not just do spot zoning. No one at the BRA that I’m aware of is taking that larger view of what are the long-term implications for our immediate decision-making. You want flexibility, but you want the zoning law to have some meaning.”
Richard Shaklik, the deputy director of zoning, said Walz is taking a very narrow view of zoning. The PDA provision is part of the zoning code that allows for more flexibility to meet the city’s goals for complicated mixed-use projects. He denied that the Filene’s site was an instance of spot zoning, where an area is zoned for the benefit of a particular developer.
“When underlying zoning is enacted, it is somewhat broad-brushed,” Shaklik said. “It does not examine every parcel individually, and it’s not evaluating all the possibilities. It’s all part of the regulation and not as simple as some people would like it to be.”
Sarah D. Kelly, executive director of the Boston Preservation Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group dedicated to protecting the city’s historic architecture, said while her agency will pay close attention to the impacts of the proposed new building, she is supportive of the project so far.
“Removing the height restriction could have some real benefits for Downtown Crossing by increasing the volume of people and activity in the area,” she said. “The most important thing is to have good stewards of those two historic buildings and to find a use that’s appropriate, one that will do no harm.”
Edward Chapin, who lives on Washington Street, praised the development, calling it the right mix for the neighborhood. “I am very happy with this project because of the amazingly complex uses that will fit into a Rubik’s Cube-like development,” he said. “This takes a tarnished jewel and turns it into a wonderful bright shiny jewel that I will see out my living room window.”
Gregory Selkoe, a property owner at 435 Washington St., told the developers, “I don’t care how tall you build it. Just build it as soon as possible.”
