The Globe reports the owners of the Filene's Memorial Hole plan to put the negative space up for sale, as city officials prepare to revoke its building permits after two years of being nothingness.
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Filene's
By Cynic - 9/11/10 - 9:37 pm
The Grey Lady takes note of the giant hole at One Franklin Street. But it would be nice if at some point in her three years as the Boston Bureau Chief, the Times' Abby Goodnough had figured out that the shorthand for Filene's Basement is The Basement. Instead, the Times promises its readers that soon we will have "a new Filene’s for the bargain hungry." That would be something.
But that pales in comparison to this memorable passage:
By adamg - 8/3/10 - 9:19 am
The Herald reports that Mayor Menino rejected an idea from developer John Hynes to rebuild Filene's Basement - and add a parking garage - on the crater off Washington Street, but that Menino said that wasn't good enough.
As the Herald almost comes out and says, Hynes's scaled-back plan was half-baked - it assumed the state would kick in $25 million - but Menino wants a tax-generating tower there, not just a discount store and a garage.
By adamg - 3/8/10 - 9:12 pm
Vincent Price as ruined landmark: Before the remains were Christoishly covered up.
Steven Roth, the New York real-estate mogul who gave us the Hole, told an audience of Columbia architecture students last week that he deliberately pulled a similar stunt in New York in the hopes of gaining concessions from the city:
Why did I do nothing? Because I was thinking in my own awkward way, that the more the building was a blight, the more the governments would want this to be redeveloped; the more help they would give us when the time came.
And they did.
Of course, nothing gets Tom Menino's Boston up quite like a New York developer pulling stuff like that. The Globe reports Hizzonah has directed the BRA (which, remember, can do pretty much anything it wants) to start looking at taking the whole site over by eminent domain. Sure, the city's supposed to at least have some pretense it's taking the land for some greater good - maybe they can finally build that downtown swimming hole. Wonder what Roth's Boston partner on the deal, John Hynes, thinks?
By Cynic - 12/8/09 - 1:54 pm
In his first major speech since his election to a fifth term, Mayor Thomas M. Menino issued a rousing call for new ideas - apparently including such out-of-the-box notions as actually building something (anything!) on the old Filene's site, reviving the proposal for a Business Improvement District in Downtown Crossing, and improving the quality of public education.
By adamg - 10/29/09 - 7:58 am
Floon journeys to Downtown Crossing today to use The Hole as a backdrop for their call to force developers to put up performance bonds before they start digging.
Seems the majority owner of the Hole is sitting on $2.8 billion in cash and is looking for good investments, which apparently Boston isn't.
By adamg - 10/14/09 - 2:21 pm
Wait, what's that? That's not a Christo installation? It's just the developers trying to mollify an outraged city and protect what's left of the old Filene's buildings after more than a year of leaving them exposed to the elements at the giant hole in the middle of Downtown Crossing?
Oh, never mind.
By adamg - 9/26/09 - 10:19 am
Matthew I shows there's still some life in the old retail district.
Copyright Matthew I. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.
By adamg - 9/20/09 - 10:16 am
The Globe asked local designers to come up with alternatives for the Filene's Hole and other vacant construction sites around town. "A vertical algae-powered bioreactor?" Sure, why not?
By adamg - 9/3/09 - 8:45 am
Well, not poor, exactly, but the local developer tells the Boston Business Journal he's tired of bearing the brunt of anger and jokes over the Filene's Memorial Hole, since that whole mess is almost entirely owned by Vornado Realty Trust and JPMorgan & Chase Co. out of New York, and his development company only has a small piece of it.
By adamg - 7/9/09 - 11:23 am
That's what they did in Wellesley, which has its own giant hole in the ground (where the Wellesley Inn got torn down for condos that never materialized). The Swellesley Report notes the developers actually agreed to do something to keep part of the town from looking like London after the Blitz:
... We'll miss seeing the tumbleweeds blowing across the vacant lot, but I guess we can't have it all. ...
By adamg - 5/8/09 - 9:11 am
The Globe details John Hynes' latest possibility for the giant negative space: Fewer floors, more apartments could dramatically reduce costs and make the project more attractive to the lenders who aren't giving him money now.
By adamg - 4/30/09 - 4:09 pm
Tobyjug doesn't explain why he was at Downtown Crossing at 3 a.m., but no matter: He asks:
... [A]s I was walking by the crater, I started to hear Johnny (or is it Edgar) Winter's "Frankenstein". Strobe lights were going off all over the broken open parts of the building. Fog was rising out of the pit. Little "Enchanted Village" figures twirled in the windows. Did anyone else see/hear it?
By adamg - 4/6/09 - 1:01 am
Councilor and mayoral candidate Michael Flaherty says the developers behind the BRA Memorial Hole on Washington Street are actually sitting on a large sum of money, so the least they can do is fill in the damn hole already:
... In the spirit of returning and improving the vitality of this central downtown neighborhood, the developers should be ordered to make the graded site available to the Boston Public Market Association (www.bostonpublicmarket.org).
Given that Vornado and Gale have shown no signs of resuming construction before Fall of 2009, the former Filenes site is a perfect location to temporarily host the Boston Public Market. Located in the heart of the bustling financial district, accessible by the various MBTA stations and to the numerous area employees, residents and tourists, a public market offering organic produce will serve as a significant asset to the neighborhood. The Boston Public Market Association offers locally grown, healthy and affordable fresh food and is a refreshing alternative to the various fast food restaurants in the area. This is an interim solution that will seek to reinvigorate the suffering neighborhood and address the serious concern of the existing blighted site. ...
By adamg - 3/27/09 - 7:50 am
A Proper Bostonian submits a proposal that would both fill the hole and solve the South End's problems with the BU Biolab.
By adamg - 3/26/09 - 7:48 am
Donovan Slack at the Globe shows how the city let the developer of the Gaping Maw skirt the city's own zoning codes in an attempt to revive Downtown Crossing.
By adamg - 3/16/09 - 9:18 am
Paul Demers shows just how much somebody misses the old Filene's.
Czsz, meanwhile, discusses how sad the Financial District was on a Sunday walk:
... Not a single car drove by, and not a single other person walked down the sidewalk. Granted, it was Sunday, but what a wasted space this felt like.
I turned the corner to Franklin St. The Boston Stock Exchange was boarded up. The London Harness Company was shuttered for the day only, but signs announced it was going out of business.
Even the Propagation of the Faith Store is giving up.
By adamg - 2/25/09 - 4:56 pm
Ed. Note: The BBJ has apparently unpublished the story, so whether it's accurate or not, I don't know.
The Boston Business Journal reports that the one company actually interested in leasing space in One Franklin Place - the tower that's supposed to replace the hole - is now backing away from the idea, in part because it's been unable to negotiate a lease with the hole's owner.
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