A development team of Samuels & Assoc. and Weiner Ventures is an advisory committee’s favorite to develop a high-rise hotel, residences and retail space on air rights parcels above the Massachusetts Turnpike in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood.
The Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC), comprised of mostly community stakeholders, has decided to recommend the Samuels/Weiner plan for parcels 12, 14 and 15 to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT), which controls air rights parcels above the MassPike.
The Samuels/Weiner team spent years in competition with developers The Chiofaro Co. and Carpenter & Co. for the opportunity to build mixed-use projects on the air rights at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston Street. But Carpenter recently announced it was pulling out of the running, and the CAC has opted for the Samuels/Weiner project instead of Chiofaro’s, according to committee co-chair Fritz Casselman. Don Chiofaro, head of The Chiofaro Co., could not be reached for comment. MassDOT has the final say on who is designated to develop the air rights.
The Weiner/Samuels plan calls for the parcel 12 piece to have a backwards L-shaped property with two stories of retail along Massachusetts Avenue above the Pike, and an eight-story, 111-unit residential portion along Boylston Street pointing toward the Back Bay Fens. On parcels 14 and 15, the team would build a 32-story, 398-foot hotel and residential tower with retail on the first two floors.
The Weiner/Samuels team owns a small piece of green space at the corner of Cambria and St. Cecilia streets on which the tallest, densest piece of the project would be built, without using the Pike air rights for that portion. That is significant because it would cut costly decking that would need to be constructed above the Pike out of the equation for that piece, said Adam Weiner of Weiner Ventures. The project would not include the garage, just air rights parcels and land owned by the team.
Community stakeholders have long wanted open spaces above the Pike to be filled in. Casselman said that one part of the decision came because Samuels/Weiner’s plan is to build atop all three parcels.
"They have a lot of experience developing mixed-uses areas and in historic neighborhoods of Boston," Casselman said. "Their use is consistent with the civic vision."
When asked is Chiofaro’s plan was not consistent with that vision, Casselman said it was "complicated" and declined to elaborate.
Chiofaro’s plan called for a 377-foot, 29-story office tower with more than 30,000 square feet of retail space and 250 parking spaces. It would have been built on decking atop the Pike at the corner of Boylston and Dalton streets, on only air rights parcel 15.
