HYM Investment Group’s proposal for Winthrop Square includes a new freestanding St. Anthony Shrine and Ministry Center flanked by pedestrian paths, a public school and new public plaza.
The two largest development proposals for Boston’s Winthrop Square have starkly different visions for an overlooked corner of the Financial District.
Both developers Steve Belkin and Thomas O’Brien propose 725-foot-tall towers with a substantial allotment of luxury condominiums, reflecting the current market’s hottest category. But their approaches diverge in satisfying the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s requirements for an innovative economic development strategy and new downtown public spaces.
Belkin’s Trans National Properties envisions some of the city’s largest office floor plates, spanning over an acre, in a 586,000-square-foot podium that includes coworking space and short-term leases. It’s a bet on tech employment growth in a neighborhood where growing startups have shown willingness to occupy both modern towers and century-old bank buildings.
“We’re creating what I would argue is the best mixed-use and the most diverse uses of the proposals,” said Justin Krebs, president of Trans National Properties. “Those are designed to transform downtown and be an economic catalyst for change.”
HYM Investment Group’s O’Brien, a former director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, doesn’t plan any office space at all. Instead, he sees the garage site as a new public plaza, home base for the St. Anthony Church, Friary and Ministry and a new public school to serve the downtown’s growing residential population. The rest of the development would begin later – 2020 at the earliest – with a 60-story tower containing 574 luxury condos and apartments rising on the church’s current half-acre Arch Street site.
Six developers submitted mixed-use proposals for the 1-acre municipal garage site at 115 Federal St. The BRA will hear presentations from them in coming weeks with a goal of designating a developer by the end of June. That would set the stage for a review under the BRA’s Article 80 process for large developments later this year.
The complexity and expanded scope of the Belkin and O’Brien proposals reflect tie-ins to nearby parcels. Belkin’s incorporates his neighboring 133 Federal St. parcel, which contains a 12-story office building that would be demolished.
Trans National Group proposes 1-acre floor plates for office space in a 1.7-million-square-foot mixed-use development at 115 and 133 Federal St. in Winthrop Square.
Public Benefits First
Moving the tower project off the garage parcel and building a public plaza would have far-reaching benefits, O’Brien said. The church and school would be built first, with a portion of revenues from a new underground garage going to St. Anthony’s and the school department only responsible for equipment purchases in the new building.
A 16,000-square-foot public plaza at 115 Federal St. would create one of the most significant new parks downtown since Post Office Square was built in the late 1980s, O’Brien said. And it would open up new pedestrian connections between Downtown Crossing, the Financial District and the Greenway currently blocked by current street grids and large office blocks.
“It really does offer the opportunity to make this a great pedestrian zone and make something that outlives all of us,” he said.
O’Brien is familiar with the St. Anthony’s parcel dating back to the previous real estate cycle, when he worked for developer Tishman Speyer on a tower proposal that would rise above the church.
The Franciscan order has 29 friars and 32 full- and part-time lay staff, said Rev. Thomas Conway, its executive director. Since 2000, it’s expanded its social services programs to include funerals for the homeless, LGBTQ counseling and a grocery distribution service for 450 needy families.
But the 109,150-square-foot church wasn’t designed for its evolving role, Conway said. A basement auditorium, once used for Mass, now houses the grocery program and senior citizen programs. A custom-designed site at 115 Federal St. would enable the religious order to run its programs more efficiently.
“We have enormous difficulty moving a lot of a food around. The idea of having a loading dock that you could back a tractor trailer up to is very appealing,” he said.
Financial details haven’t been discussed in detail, Conway said, and a final decision would be up to leadership of the Holy Name Province in New York. The 100 Arch St. property is assessed at $22.6 million.
As to the public school proposal, O’Brien said he hasn’t had any discussions with Mayor Martin Walsh or school department officials. But the idea reflects the residential building boom in the downtown and Seaport District that has added thousands of new multifamily units in the past decade. It could offer a new option in the long-running debate over adding an upper school to the Josiah Quincy School in Chinatown.
BRA spokesman Nicholas Martin said the school department would be consulted as part of the process. A Boston Public Schools spokesperson did not reply to requests for comment.
A Question Of Timing
Timing is critical in real estate and in a mature market, the BRA has indicated it wants the selected developer to be ready to move quickly. Because of the phasing required for the church to relocate to 115 Federal St., construction of the Arch Street portion wouldn’t begin until 2020, according to HYM’s submission.
Trans National could break ground quickly on its 1.7-million-square-foot project, Krebs said, having already performed engineering studies on its neighboring site and completed a draft environmental notification form. And it can start to fill the office space with Trans National employees currently based at 133 Federal and 2 Charlesgate West in the Fenway, who occupy a combined 175,000 square feet.
The office space allocation, Krebs said, reflects hundreds of hours of discussions with all of the city’s major commercial real estate brokerages about potential future requirements. And Trans National’s economic analysis estimates up to $15 million more in annual tax benefits to the city than the other proposals.
“We think that’s extremely powerful,” he said.
