The BPDA this week sternly wagged its administrative finger at Millennium Partners for shutting a supposedly public part of its Winthrop Square tower to the public on weekends even though it had promised to keep "The Connector" open every day of the week as part of its conditions for winning BPDA approval to replace a condemned city parking garage with a sleek 21st-century complex of offices, luxury apartments and restaurants. Read more.
Winthrop Square
The BPDA today approved a request from Millennium Partners to chop off part of its now stalled Winthrop Square two-tower complex and to change all of the planned condo units to apartments - a move the company says will let it get loans and resume construction on the currently stopped project, rather than just letting it sit idle for years at a time, like the once festering Filene's Hole that the company famously took over from another developer and got built. Read more.
Millennium Partners yesterday asked the BPDA to let it shave a wing off its unfinished building at Winthrop Square, which would reduce the number of residential units from 387 to 321 - and it wants to rent those units out as apartments, rather than sell them as condos. Read more.
At a Boston Civic Design Commission meeting on Tuesday, Millennium Partners showed off its plans for a re-done Winthrop Square in front of its skyscraper there, in which an oval water fountain replaces the statue of Robert Burns and his faithful companion, Luath, which the company will pay to move back to its original home in the Back Bay Fens. Read more.
The BPDA board today approved Millennium Partners' plans for a $1.3-billion, mixed-use, 55-story tower at Winthrop Square that will include some $160 million in payments to the city based on how well condos in the upper floors sell.
The tower will be built on the site of a recently demolished city parking garage; the purchase payments, which will include specific funds for several city parks (more details in the comments below), are in addition to the taxes the building will generate.
Architect's rendering of two sides of proposed Winthrop Square building
Its first proposal was too tall. Its second proposal was too bland. Millennium Partners hopes its newest proposal for its proposed Winthrop Square skyscraper is just right. Read more.
From a 1920 account of the statue's dedication.
Last week, the BPDA sent a bunch of questions to Millennium Partners about its planned $1.3-billion Winthrop Square tower that ultimately came down to asking what the developer would do to keep the building from going up as the city's blandest skyscraper (the Globe has more).
But at the bottom of the list of questions was a request that the company consider fixing one of the odder things in Boston - that a statue of Scottish poet Robert Burns sits at the center of a square named for John Winthrop. Read more.
Gov. Baker yesterday signed a bit that will let a developer tear down the condemned Winthrop Square garage for a skyscraper that would cast some shadows on Boston Common - but only briefly, and in the winter, the developer says. Read more.
WBUR reports on an agreement among the state, the city and property owners for funding the Greenway in coming years. The city will toss in $5 million for a fund that would make annual payments - with the money coming from the potential sale of the Winthrop Square garage.
Since it doesn't seem to do much of that. Peter O'Connor writes how the Winthrop Square debate once again proves Boston could really use some comprehensive planning, rather than an endless series of one-off debates over every single project: Read more.
Linehan makes his case.
The City Council voted 10-3 to approve a plan in which Millennium Partners would pay the city $153 million to buy the condemned Winthrop Square garage and replace it with a $1-billion tower that could reach 775 feet in height.
The deal - opposed by councilors Jackson, Zakim and Wu - requires an act of the legislature because the building would violate a current state law banning shadows on the Boston Common. Read more.
A divided City Council could vote Wednesday on a plan to let a proposed $1-billion, 750-foot tower rise on the site of a condemned city garage in Winthrop Square in exchange for a $153 million sale price proponents would go to much needed renovation work on Boston Common, in Franklin Park and at the Old Colony and Orient Heights house developments, but which opponents say would open the city to even more problems with developers with lots of money. Read more.
Councilor Bill Linehan (South Boston, South End, Chinatown, downtown) says whatever minimal shadows the proposed Millennium tower at Winthrop Square might so tangentially put on Boston Common is more than made up for by the $150 million the city would earn from the sale of the old garage there. Read more.
The Globe reports Walsh will seek a change in state law to make those shadow issues with the Common go away in exchange for tighter restrictions on other development downtown and in the Back Bay, which future mayors and the BPDA would never, never, never seek to nullify.
At issue is the $153 million the city would earn by selling the now unused Winthrop Square garage to Millennium Partners.
The Globe reports that Boston Common fans worried about shadows from the proposed skyscraper have been joined by Massport, which is concerned the 775-foot tower could cause issues with Logan flights.
Boston Magazine reports that Millennium Partners, the company that gave us its eponymous towers on Washington Street, is trying to will into being a grassroots campaign to support its proposed tower on the site of the old Winthrop Square parking garage - replete with buttons and a hashtag.
The Globe reports city officials have selected Millennium Partners to replace the crumbling Winthrop Square garage with a 55-story tower.
The Boston Business Journal reports the latest on the city's efforts to make some money by letting somebody put up a skyscraper on the 1-acre site.
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