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Love-lock fence would have to go: Developer proposes 17-story building with hotel, condos at Mass. Ave. and Boylston Street

By adamg on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 2:46pm
Love locks

Kids would have to express their hardware love elsewhere.

The Peebles Corp. last week told the BPDA to get ready for detailed plans for a proposed 432,000-square foot building over the Massachusetts Turnpike and part of the Hynes T station that would include both a luxury hotel and condos - and money to help spur the renovation of the T station.

In a letter of intent, the developer says its building would have two parts - one 12 stories, the other 17 stories - on the so-called Parcel 13, which is kitty corner from Parcel 12, where another developer is planning a two-building complex over the turnpike.

In addition to working with the T to make Hynes handicap accessible and to create a new entrance on Boylston Street, Peebles says it will help pay for the extension of the Prudential tunnel as it creates "a unique architectural 'cornerstone' for the historic Back Bay neighborhood it abuts."

Peebles is proposing a 200-car garage as part of the project, as well as ground-floor retail space.

The company says it has an agreement with MassDOT for use of the air rights over the turnpike.

Parcel 13 letter of intent.

Neighborhoods: 
Back Bay
Topics: 
Development
Free tagging: 
Boylston Street
Massachusetts Avenue


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Comments

By Anon on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 2:56pm.

I bet you'd need to borrow a nuclear microscope from MIT to find the heart of this icy northeastern burg in 2020.

By Jay on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 3:11pm.

https://goo.gl/maps/vkh7gEd3BWd6aMBB9

By JPNik on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 2:58pm.

How does this get done without impeding the #1 Bus?

By What on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 3:09pm.

It gets done the same way literally every other construction site does without shutting the road? Primarily this one will be loading from Boylston Street which has no bus routes anyway.

By downtown-anon on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 4:13pm.

Looking at the parcel outline it appears that it wouldn't have much affect on the #1 bus. Getting rid of the locks would just be a guy with a bolt cutter and some new fencing (as what is there looks a bit rusted).

By GoSoxGo on Tue, 02/11/2020 - 9:16am.

The 55 runs down Boylston St. through the Mass Ave. intersection.

By fungwah on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 3:21pm.

Cover up an ugly highway with something useful. Let's do it!

By Nate on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 3:26pm.

Parcel map for anyone that had trouble picturing it like me. Parcel 13 stretches all the way to Dillon's.

IMAGE(http://www.bostonplans.org/getattachment/1823c1bc-cd2f-41df-9517-266d85cd6d22)

By bikenerd on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 3:40pm.

Always remember, and never forget these projects are always 10 years away.

By amian on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 8:16pm.

there was another project proposed on this site about 10 years ago.

By Section77 on Tue, 02/11/2020 - 6:59am.

There was a plan for a high, thin tower there. Obviously did not happen.

By Jay on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 3:58pm.

I'm looking at the cc's in the letter and they list the Honorable Stephen Lynch and not Ayanna Pressley in who's district the project would reside. Why is that?

Also, I'm in favor of anything being built over that eyesore of a turnpike that rips through the city. Some public space would be welcomed and maybe we shouldn't have to rely on developer largesse to you know, "fix the T," but here we are once again.

By ScottB on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 4:04pm.

On how long it will take for the new entrance to the Green Line to smell like piss?

By downtown-anon on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 4:08pm.

Was parcel 13 already in planning stages and cancelled, or is this new?
Maybe I am confusing it with parcel 15, which I believe was cancelled.

By downtown-anon on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 4:15pm.

Looks like they went over what they were thinking in 2014.

https://willbrownsberger.com/parcel-13/

By anon on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 4:18pm.

on the south side of Boylston Street across Cambria Street and St. Cecilia Street?

Decade after decade goes by and that remains one of the most stressful, vulnerable intersections for pedestrians anywhere in the city.

Cambria Street (the first street on the south side of Boylston east of the Mass Ave. intersection, which dead-ends at the Hynes loading ramp) gently splits off Boylston at an angle of about 15 degrees, so cars roaring out of the Boylston/Mass Ave. intersection can easily peel off at full speed and without any signal or indication. And there are a ton of oblivious drivers who literally make the turn at the last second, seeing that the parking spaces on the bridge over the Pike are full and then deciding to check for spaces on St. Cecelia or Scotia.

Pedestrians walking east on Boylston basically have to do a 180 to see if anyone is coming.

This is a truly unacceptable mess on one of Boston's most important streets. There was some talk, maybe 15 years ago, that Berklee would revitalize the entire intersection but they never did, aside from their bike parking cage.

Walsh doesn't care about walking people

By Camberville on Tue, 02/11/2020 - 12:55am.

Get rid of that short stretch of Cambria altogether. As you mention, the speeds cars careen off there are way too dangerous, and entirely unnecessary since the following route has a hard left turn onto Scotia right afterward.

They should follow the model of that right from Beacon onto Bay State Rd just after the Bowker underpass, and make it a hard right onto St. Cecilia. Better for all users.

By ElizaLeila on Tue, 02/11/2020 - 9:26am.

Get rid of that short stretch of Cambria altogether.

It looks like that is one of the loading docks to the Hynes, although there appears to be another entry from Dalton St. So maybe Cambria gets closed to cars unless they are entering for Hynes show set up? Convention Center would have to build a gate and guard shack to cover it. Google maps street view shows it to be in pretty gross shape, so , another way to get them to clean up their building.

By blues_lead on Tue, 02/11/2020 - 11:55am.

There aren't any curb cuts there either, even on the median/island but that has a bus stop. And the curbs are especially high there for some reason.

Because fuck anyone using a wheelchair, I guess?

By anon on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 4:45pm.

Is not enough. They need to drastically improve the SPEED of the green line above and below ground. A rickshaw moves faster than green line trains.Amd this wasn't always the case. My impression management and technocrats insist they move S.L.O.W.L.Y. One of the more bizarre things they do are only allow one train at a time inside stations (minus Park).

By Terrapin on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 8:52pm.

This seems out of scope of this particular project.

By anon on Tue, 02/11/2020 - 4:30pm.

Love talking up mass transit and how mass transit will mitigate more traffic on the streets.

By SamWack on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 4:52pm.

Sounds like something - an episode title, perhaps - from a Netflix SF series that is trying too hard.

By SharpWave on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 4:57pm.

Something I've always wondered -- why can't we use the other entrance to Hynes station (the one on Boylston) ?

By bikenerd on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 4:59pm.

I've seen it used once/year - during the Boston Marathon its opened....but that's not an answer.

By Old Timer on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 5:54pm.

The last time I remember that Boylston Street entrance ever being in use was in the very early 70s at the latest. I have no idea why it stopped. The station was still "Auditorium" back then. (Full disclosure, I still call it Auditorium).

By tape on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 9:38pm.

I remember using it once in the late 90s. (It wasn't marathon-related.)

The other night the gate on Boylston St. was actually open, but the door into the station itself was locked.

By Gary C on Tue, 02/11/2020 - 8:21am.

Sometime in the last 30 years it was open on a non-Marathon day because I was shocked to use it.

By anon on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 9:45pm.

as I remember using it as a middle/high school student, in the setting of weekend excursions to Newbury Comics and Tower Records, as one did...

By mg on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 9:58pm.

Old habits die hard.

By Anon on Tue, 02/11/2020 - 7:27am.

Reptile from Mortal Kombat is at the bottom. You'd have to fight him if you want to get to the train.

By blues_lead on Tue, 02/11/2020 - 11:56am.

It's always open for Anime Boston.

By Luke Warmer on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 5:13pm.

build all your tall glass square bullshit buildings over top of I-90 and other interstates in the bean. this way the entitled nano-transients who inhabit such things can really have their finger on the pulse, and you can stop destroying space that the middle class, with just a slight attitude adjustment, will be able to rent for their own purposes.

By anon on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 5:16pm.

I moved to the Boston area in 1993 and left in 2014. In 21 years, nothing was built on these parcels, despite lots of plans and ideas. I bet in another 21 years there will still be nothing on these parcels.

By Sock_Puppet on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 5:50pm.

Oh yeah, right here.

https://www.universalhub.com/2016/love-locks-fence-mass-ave-would-disapp...

http://www.thegollingerteam.com/condo/viola-back-bay/

Is it the same? Different? Also doomed?

By Lee on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 5:52pm.

... more hotels and luxury housing. Throw in a bank retail space and this project could win a Nobel Prize.

By fungwah on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 8:09pm.

I mean, yeah, I'd prefer some low-income housing but given that its currently empty space over a highway, I'll take what I can get.

By Anon on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 9:32pm.

For $100? And don’t you dare say no, now that you’re demanding developers build something that costs them seven figures a unit and give it away for not a penny over $150,000.

By APB on Tue, 02/11/2020 - 8:48am.

How could you forget our dearth of nail salons?

We all need at least two for every finger and toe.

By Friartuck on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 6:11pm.

While every T line is going to be under construction, let's also proceed with shutting down parts of the Pike?

Charlie Baker is going to be transportation guru the rest of the country will emulate

By bannedinboston on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 7:08pm.

Anything to get rid of that blight of locks.

By anon on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 7:28pm.

Why did that become a thing? And in such a drastically unromantic looking area of the city to boot. I will say however, that back in the late 70s/early 80s I used to go by there and there was always this one, lonely lock. I never gave it much thought. Without looking too closely I thought it actually had some function there. I wonder if that long ago pioneering couple is still together?

By Section77 on Tue, 02/11/2020 - 7:10am.

They have a beautiful pedestrian bridge over the Seine. We have a sidewalk over the pike, near some greasy pizza.

By Gary C on Tue, 02/11/2020 - 8:25am.

There is a famous bridge in Paris where couples write their names on a lock, lock it to the bridge and throw the key in the Seine as a tribute to their "never-ending" love. It's pretty cool, actually. When my kids were little, we went to a Parisian hardware store and bought the cheapest locks they had, wrote their names on them and locked them to the bridge. They loved it!

By Ron Newman on Tue, 02/11/2020 - 2:13pm.

It actually caused a piece of one bridge's fence to fall into the Seine.

By anon on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 7:17pm.

Here comes the big bulldozer. AND THAT'S THE WAY LOVE GOES!!

By MC Slim JB on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 10:33pm.

am I going to commemorate my next 13 instances of undying love?