Boston’s zombie towers are stirring again amid an epic development boom, but whether any will finally leave the land of undead projects and take shape in steel and concrete remains to be seen.
Texas developer Hines is looking at resurrecting plans for its long-delayed South Station skyscraper, buried under years of dashed hopes and false dawns.
“Tommy’s Tower” – former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s plan for a thousand-foot, sky-line topping skyscraper – is also slowly emerging from the land of undead projects, though this time the Big Apple-style proposal has been cut down to a still-lofty 740 feet.
And Boston Properties has even found a way to work with ever-demanding Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs on plans for a trio of towers at the Garden, a challenge a long line of developers ultimately failed to meet.
Who knows, maybe we’ll even see the second coming of former Big Dig chief Matt Amorello’s proposal for a 700-foot tower over a tangle of highway ramps off Kneeland Street – though, on second thought, even with Boston’s super-heated development market right now, there’s a fat chance of that ever happening.
You can defy the odds and many other things, but common sense is not one of them.
Still, while these zombies are shaking off the dirt and, at least in the case of the Garden tower plan, looking closer to joining the living once again, it’s not yet time for a welcome back party, either.
After all, those signs of progress mean nothing unless they result in construction crews finally starting work, always an elusive prospect when it comes to proposals that have been kicking around for years – and even decades.
So which zombie projects have the most life in them at this point? Here are my picks, from most to least likely to finally succeed.
The Garden Towers
If I were going to bet on any of them escaping from the undead, it would be Boston Properties and its billion-dollar plan to build a trio of towers on land next to the Garden. This huge project features hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space, a 306-room hotel, 500 residences and a supermarket.
Jacobs and his Delaware North, which owns the Garden and the Bruins, has been promising to build out the ratty lots around the Garden since the early 1990s and to date, nothing has happened. One developer after another teamed up with Jacobs, floated grand plans, and then quietly faded away.
Cross your fingers, but just maybe this time will be different. After all, Boston Properties picks its projects carefully and has a long track record to prove it, from the development of Russia Wharf to its acquisition of Boston’s two iconic towers, the Prudential and Hancock, not to mention some of the top office towers in New York, Washington and San Francisco. Led by media mogul Mortimer Zuckerman, BXP is no pushover.
But there are also some troubling signs. BXP rushed to get all its permits lined up for the project in the waning days of Menino’s administration, including a nice tax break. Not sure what Mayor Marty Walsh thought of that last-minute flurry of activity, but nearly a year after getting a green light from City Hall, a groundbreaking has yet to be scheduled.
South Station Tower
On paper, Hines’ plan to build a condo and office tower over South Station makes a lot of sense. Transit-orientated development is all the rage, and you can’t get much more transit-orientated than putting a skyscraper atop New England’s largest rail station. Hines is looking at its plans again – likely a mix of condos/apartments and offices.
That said, the South Station tower idea has been kicking around since the 1980s. Hines has found itself at odds with the MBTA and Amtrak, which perceive the tower proposal as a potential complication to their plans to expand and revamp the station. Hines will have to broker some sort of deal with the railway gang. Over the years, even the FAA has gotten into the act, claiming the tower would pose a hazard to flights out of Logan and forcing a haircut. On top of all that, South Station is right around the corner from the Fort Point Channel, which makes it subject to the state’s strict Chapter 91 waterfront building restrictions. In order to get an exemption, Hines will likely have to devote months to the so-called harbor planning process. This tower may eventually get built, but it could take another decade of haggling to get there.
Tommy’s Tower
OK, it was never officially Menino’s tower. But after Menino surprised hundreds of top Boston business executives one winter’s afternoon back in 2006 with a rendering of the proposed 1,000-foot-high tower to replace a crumbling city parking garage on Federal Street, The Boston Herald quickly dubbed it “Tommy’s Tower” and the name stuck. The man behind the project, however, was a wealthy Boston travel business entrepreneur named Steve Belkin.
Frankly, it’s not clear what Menino or Belkin was thinking at the time. A monster of a tower, the original proposal would not just have been the tallest building in Boston by far, but it would have also put another million square feet on the market in the Financial District, which had yet to recover from the dot-com implosion. To fill his tower, Belkin would have had to vacuum up corporate tenants from across downtown Boston, emptying out other towers. Now that Menino has retired and it’s just Belkin pushing this plan, questions remain, including the fact that Belkin has never built an office building, let alone a tower.
Sorry, but I’m betting this zombie may be around for some time to come.
Hope For Other Zombies
Of course, we have only scratched the surface when it comes to zombie projects in Boston. There are so many more out there, from the idea of selling off City Hall to moldy old plans to build a sports arena at Suffolk Downs for the Celtics (or any other takers). And with a new tower going up on every corner, anything seems possible, which should only encourage the hair-brained schemers out there. And don’t forget Columbus Center – that epic mess of a Pike air-rights proposal in the South End that dragged on for years before finally going belly up should also be on the zombie alert list.
Be on the lookout – the zombie projects and their long-frustrated developers are on the prowl again.
Email: sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com
