City looking at major overhaul of City Hall, City Hall Plaza and old School Department headquarters

By adamg on Tue, 09/15/2015 - 3:30pm

But first, the city is looking for a company that wants to start running events and other features on City Hall Plaza - when it's not being used for Super Bowl rallies, Boston Calling, Donna Summer disco bashes and the like.

In an RFP issued today, the city says it will pick a company to "program" City Hall Plaza for three years. Any structures have to be temporary to make way for the grand redo of the plaza, City Hall and 26 Court St., the planning for which has just begun.

We will select the partner who has the best combination of a strong team, compelling vision, and feasible plan to work with us to make City Hall Plaza an even better destination for residents and visitors alike. We are also seeking a partner who can accomplish these goals in a manner that is at least revenue neutral for the City. ...

The effort to improve City Hall Plaza outlined in this RFP is one of three inter-related projects that the City is pursuing. The intent of these efforts, together, is to transform City Hall and City Hall Plaza, breathing new civic life into these spaces and reorganizing both spaces around the needs and interests of our constituents.

In addition to letting current events continue, the successful bidder also has to leave space for public protests and at least five TV news trucks.

Neighborhoods:

Free tagging:

Attachment	Size
City Hall Plaza RFP	714.9 KB

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Comments

Good to see

By mg
Tue, 09/15/2015 - 3:50pm

Good for them for explicitly stating there should be room for public protests.

One answer for programming

By adamg
Tue, 09/15/2015 - 3:58pm

@universalhub So they're looking for someone to book events for 3 years until they redo... pic.twitter.com/kNRgfALbsO

— MikeKix (@mike_kix) September 15, 2015

Too bad it's not an RFP to

By anon
Tue, 09/15/2015 - 4:01pm

Too bad it's not an RFP to bulldoze the whole plaza and build some of that transit oriented development the city is always going on about.

You don't need TOD in the

By bgl
Tue, 09/15/2015 - 5:03pm

You don't need TOD in the core of the city - it already is. They need to put the street grid back in place and sell out parcels, not mega blocks, and use it to fund a new City Hall building.

Good point. We need to bring

By anon
Tue, 09/15/2015 - 8:39pm

Good point. We need to bring back Brattle St, Cornhill, and extend Hanover back to Cambridge St.

Mahty

By johnmcboston
Wed, 09/16/2015 - 10:49pm

Wasn't one of his campaign promises to bulldoze the place?

Why isn't the city selling

By anon
Tue, 09/15/2015 - 4:35pm

Why isn't the city selling off 26 Court Street to a developer? It's just an office building.

It's not just an office

By anon2222
Tue, 09/15/2015 - 7:59pm

It's not just an office building. It's the oldest piece of property continuously held by the city.

See: http://www.wbur.org/2015/04/08/boston-old-courthou...

Good thing

By anon
Tue, 09/15/2015 - 5:01pm

they put the unnecessarily huge subway headhouse there first before they made plans for that spot.

Unnecessarily huge?

By SwirlyGrrl
Wed, 09/16/2015 - 8:28pm

Explain.

Remember - it has to have elevators and escalators and access for all.

And again...

By Mjolnir
Thu, 09/17/2015 - 8:29am

As we've discussed before, the glass headhouse contains zero machinery for the elevator or otherwise.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/H8hhxNN.png[/img]

Serve our overlords

By JohnAKeith
Tue, 09/15/2015 - 5:56pm

Fun fact: The Boston Redevelopment Authority actually owns City Hall Plaza.

http://hubmaps1.cityofboston.gov/egis/Map.aspx?Pro...

yes

By cybah
Tue, 09/15/2015 - 6:09pm

but does the federal building get a say at what gets put there?

(re: a hotel that was proposed eons ago and was shot down by the fed)

I believe they do get a say

By anon
Tue, 09/15/2015 - 8:38pm

I believe they do get a say when development has some proximity to a federal building. I can't quite remember the details, but I read something like that in an article about redeveloping City Hall plaza a while back.

Intercollegiate Museum proposal

By Intercollegiate...
Tue, 09/15/2015 - 6:19pm

We've been working on this proposal for a while. New website if you want to check it out -

www.intercollegiatemuseum.com

tl;dr: City Hall is repurposed as a museum displaying rotating exhibits from area universities. Plaza becomes more fully enclosed thanks to new buildings and restored Hanover/Cornmarket streets. One of the new buildings is a new modern City Hall. Sale of land for the other buildings on the now more human-scaled plaza funds the transformation.

Let us know what you think... @ICMuseumBOS

Intriguing

By Daan
Tue, 09/15/2015 - 9:08pm

Given that higher education is one of Boston's major industries it makes sense. It also makes sense that the colleges and universities that call Boston metro their homes also provided the building. A building that hopefully would be better than the glorious ugliness of Boston's newer city hall.

On the other hand I could support this idea of the City Hulk as an intercollegiate museum if it also incorporated a museum which focused on Boston's history. For all the talk of Boston celebrating its history there is not one place that consolidates Boston's history. While the history of the Boston area is celebrated fairly well in piece meal fashion it would be grand to have one place that offers a grand historical celebration of the city from before it was colonized to the present.

Or tear it down.

By Daan
Tue, 09/15/2015 - 9:13pm

When I think about the pride that is mortared into the city halls of San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore I ask how deep was the self loathing of the leaders of Boston when this monstrosity was built? This building is dystopian architecture at its most oppressive.