Boston developer Donald Chiofaro is going back to the drawing board on his proposed waterfront skyscraper project to see if he can make it work under the city’s new guidelines, Boston Mayor Martin Walsh said.
Chiofaro has sought to build two towers totaling 1.3 million square feet on the 1.3-acre Milk Street property where the eight-story Harbor Garage currently stands. A consultant to the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) last month recommended no more than 900,000 square feet of development.
Chiofaro has not commented publicly on whether he will submit a new proposal that meets the city’s guidelines. But he spoke with Walsh on the phone and seemed optimistic, Walsh said Thursday. The Boston Globe first reported on the conversation.
“He was very grateful,” Walsh said following a groundbreaking ceremony in the Seaport District. “He said to me he’ll go back now and see what he can do with 900,000 square feet. His previous proposal was for 1.3 million square feet, and he had a business plan for that. And when you cut back 400,000 square feet off the building, that’s a potentially different business model. So I think he’s looking to see what could work better.”
Walsh said the 900,000-square-foot limit was a firm figure.
“I would say that is the maximum,” he said.
The Chiofaro Co. bought the 1,400-space Harbor Garage in 2007 for $150 million. Chiofaro originally proposed a 1.5 million-square-foot development during the Menino administration but made little progress with city regulators.
The latest plans called for two towers containing 700,000 square feet of office space, 120 residential units, a 250- to 300-room hotel and three levels of retail. A 27,000-square-foot public plaza called Harbor Square would be built between the 615- and 538-foot-tall towers, forming a new pedestrian corridor between the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway and Boston Harbor that is currently blocked by the garage.
Chiofaro has not commented on whether a financially feasible project is achievable under the new limits. In a prepared statement, he said he appreciates “all of the effort that the Walsh administration, the BRA staff and the people of Boston have put into the planning process. Though we still have a lot of wood to chop, we’re hard at work exploring the possibilities for achieving this common objective.”
The trustees of the Harbor Towers condo complex and the New England Aquarium have publicly gone on record in opposition to the current proposal.
The project needs waivers from the BRA and state regulators because Massachusetts law limits the height and density of structures built on tideland properties.
