Image courtesy of CBT Architects
Back Bay condominium owners are appealing a Superior Court decision that backed developer Skanska’s plans for a 26-story office tower on an adjacent property.
A dozen residents of the Clarendon at 400 Stuart St. say the Boston Planning & Development Agency improperly approved the 625,000-square-foot project at 380 Stuart St. exceeding the city’s recommended height limit.
Suffolk Superior Court Justice Debra Squires-Lee approved a motion to dismiss the case in November, but the plaintiffs filed for an appeal on Dec. 4.
The lawsuit claims that the BPDA approved a planned development area allowing additional building height so that John Hancock Life Insurance would “maintain its substantial corporate presence in the city of Boston and not move its operations and employees elsewhere.”
In 2015, John Hancock sought approval to redevelop the 380 Stuart St. property by replacing a 9-story office building with a 26-story, 625,000-square-foot tower. But the company reconfigured its local office space in 2019 and put the property on the market.
Skanska USA Commercial Development acquired the property in December 2020 for $177 million and received BPDA approval in March 2022 for a potential speculative office development. The size and height of the building was unchanged, but Skanska redesigned the building exterior by adding a series of outdoor terraces and a tapered roof.
The complaint notes that the condominium owners live in units located above the roof line of the existing office building, and will experience diminished property values and privacy as a result of the tower’s construction.
“The [BPDA] and the Boston Zoning Commission have once again discarded comprehensive planning in favor of a one-off approval of a massive project that does not comply with zoning,” attorney Jeffrey Pyle of Prince Lobel Tye LLP wrote in the complaint.
In the November decision, Justice Squires-Lee said the complaints over privacy and density are not protected under zoning.
The lawsuit also challenged the approval of a planned development area, a zoning mechanism in Boston that allows additional density on sites that are a minimum of 1 acre, for 380 Stuart St. The approval allowed construction of a 390-foot-tall tower, compared with 356 feet under the neighborhood zoning.
Squires-Lee noted that the PDA was approved in 2015 and the deadline to challenge the decision had expired.
Skanska declined to comment and the BPDA did not immediately return a request for comment.
Editor’s note: The caption has been updated to clarify that CBT Architects designed the current 380 Stuart St. building plan.
