City: New Boylston Street building doesn't need new approval even with changes

Hey, if Kenmore can be paved with slick marble pedestrian crosswalk "lines" combined with asphalt crosswalks and sandstone pavers for a street, then by God, we can just lay a few blocks of polished marble around the Garden in time for the winter fun!

Funny. The Heritage on the Garden is to your left and that's Arlington Street going off to the left. That's Boylston Street on the upper right. The church is the church at the corners of Boylston and Arlington streets. As Adam says, you're getting the birds-eye view from inside the Public Garden. The ice cream truck you see in the summer would be at the corner of the park, left side.

You can also make out the middle-of-the-road divider that goes down Boylston Street in front of the Heritage on the Garden, at the left of the photo. Does this help? Maybe you were just being funny, dunno.

It's a bit of an artist's rendering; the greenery at that corner of the Garden has been cut down.

Oh, I think that's an entirely fair critique. Architectural renderings rarely correspond directly to the finished product, and in this environment, a measure of value-engineering is a virtual certainty. And yeah, the design is undistinguished. There's nothing terribly memorable about this structure, and that's a shame.

But memorable almost always means controversial, and with the approval and permitting processes presently in place, I well understand why developers most often opt for corporate-bland structures. Besides which, the purpose of the review and approval process isn't to produce a beautiful building. In my book, there are four critical questions that need to be asked during review:

1) Does the new structure enhance the street-level life of the city?
2) Does its mass, height, or weighting threaten some particularly valued attribute of the area?
3) Does it increase density, so critical for urban vitality, and if so, is it properly sited in an area that can support higher density?
4) Is the structure an egregious offense to the existing fabric of the area?

Two of those criteria are aesthetic, and two practical. This building is in a dense, walkable area, and along major transit routes. It features extensive street-level retail, with open and inviting glass frontage. Those criteria are worth rigorously enforcing. As for the aesthetic concerns, I think the review process ought only be used in extraordinary circumstances. It's not particularly tall, and there's nothing egregious about the design.

In fact, my primary objection to this design is that it's too small, and too short. Boston is an expensive city, both residentially and commercially, and few areas are more expensive than those adjacent to the downtown parklands. There are tremendous hurdles to the erection of new structures, making the process time-consuming and expensive. So it seems to me that there's an absolutely compelling interest in erecting large, tall buildings - thus making the maximal increase in the amount of space, and easing demand. Density is the friend of urban life. And, to the extent new developments are encouraged to achieve tremendous density, it alleviates the pressure elsewhere on historic structures, small-scale neighborhoods, and relatively affordable areas. I'd like to see this design double in height.