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Steve Samuels
Title: Chairman and Principal, Samuels & Assoc.
Age: 58
Experience: 37 years
Steve Samuels has put his stamp on the Fenway neighborhood as developer of apartments, the Verb Hotel, office space and now the neighborhood’s tallest residential tower, the 30-story Pierce Boston, which has pre-sold 60 percent of its condominiums. Boston-based Samuels & Assoc.’s recently commissioned a stainless steel and concrete art installation, Plaza (Arcade) by London-based sculptor Alexandre da Cunha, which is designed as a distinctive entrance to the neighborhood. The development firm also is redesigning changes to the Landmark Center redevelopment, including an office and lab building replacing previously-approved plans for a 550-unit apartment complex.
Q: How did you select the da Cunha sculpture?
A: Abby Goodman’s company, Goodman Taft, were curatorial partners. They helped us do an exhaustive search to find the right fit for Pierce. It’s an interesting piece of land, it’s sort of a triangular no-man’s land that was between Brookline Avenue and Boylston Street. There’s a tremendous amount of traffic that comes through there and it’s the Fenway’s Western gateway. We wanted to do something really significant as you came in and looked at this tall thin glass structure with the Pierce. It’s concrete, substantial and beautiful.
Q: Does that give the Fenway a competitive edge over the Seaport, given the criticism of the public realm there?
A: I don’t want to talk negatively about other neighborhoods in the city, but we feel we’re very cognizant of our residents and cultural placemaking. We feel like it’s a critical part to enhance our value: not just the value of our real estate and what kind of rents we get. It’s a feeling of living here and working and hanging out. Fenway’s always had that interesting vibe, interesting people, a diverse population and cultural mix and best-in-class museums. They create a soul of the community.
We could have torn down the (former Howard Johnson’s motel) and done a new building, but we loved that 1950s motel-style real estate. If we were going for highest and best dollars, it would have been another 180-foot-tall building. But we’re looking at a neighborhood and the Verb’s story about the music and publishing industry is more important to our residents than another high-rise condo building.
Q: Was it important to do residential first in the Fenway to lay the groundwork for your office and lab projects?
A: You’re spot on. The whole resurgence of the Fenway has been one step at a time. To prove to people getting in here that the ballpark traffic is not a barrier to entry, that the ballpark is an amenity rather than an obstacle. We had to test each of those uses: first residential, then retail, then office and hotel. Now we’re testing the condo market with the Pierce.
Q: Was the new redevelopment plan for the Landmark Center, with an office-lab building replacing 550 apartments, market-driven or more to do with site constraints?
A: It was complicated with the site constraints and design issues. The original proposal for apartments was a very large-scale re-renovation of that building. A hallmark of it was blowing up the parking garage and putting it below grade. As the marketplace changed, we realized we were much better off saving the parking garage and starting over. It changes the way you can access the site and what parts of it you can work on. Now that I’ve been through the drama of doing it once and planning it a second time, the second plan has turned out to be a better risk profile. You’ve got organic soils below, and it’s even trickier to blow up a parking garage while there’s a million square feet of office space and you don’t want to disturb your customers. It’s a complicated scenario to make that habitable during a very aggressive and ambitious construction schedule, with dynamite or chipping it up one chip at a time.
Q: Which Greater Boston neighborhood has the best potential for a Fenway-like transformation?
A: There’s so many that are on the edges of what was hot the last 10 or 15 years. Many of the neighborhoods – Dorchester, Mission Hill, East Boston, Allston-Brighton for sure. You’ve got all these residents who can’t afford first-generation luxury apartments. All of our housing stock is important and everybody’s looking at these different neighborhoods as the tide rises. It’s all driven by job creation.
Q: What would your pitch be to Amazon for the best site in this region?
A: Amazon is a perfect fit for Boston and we have a great employment base. Everybody’s thinking the same way about growth and technology in this city, as is Amazon, and I hope they land anywhere here.
Samuels’ Five Favorite Live Rock And Roll Performers:
- Bruce Springsteen
- Aerosmith
- Eagles
- Eric Clapton
- Rolling Stones
