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Developers behind the proposed Winthrop Square skyscraper thought they had their hands full when parks activists started hollering about the shadows it would cast a quarter mile away on Boston Common. But that was before they met their would-be Financial District neighbors.
Millennium Partners spent much of the past year fending off efforts by opponents to use an arcane state law limiting new shadows on Boston Common and the Public Garden to torpedo its hopes of building a 691-foot tower.
But the development giant now faces an even more daunting challenge much closer to home: Winning over the abutting high-rise owners and other neighbors of its proposed Winthrop Square tower, which include some of the deepest pocketed real estate players in the city.
And from the feedback Millennium is getting so far, it looks like the developer, which has been behind some of the city’s most expensive condominium towers, has its work cut out for it.
Those neighboring Financial District property kings have submitted to City Hall a litany of grievances that would put even the most vocal neighborhood NIMBY to shame.
Height, massing, density, traffic, even the solar glare the new tower will reflect on nearby buildings, you name it – it’s all there in voluminous letters and filings to the Boston Planning and Development Agency.
The complaints make for rather rich reading, with high-powered office building owners throwing out the same old objections that inevitably greet any new project proposed in Boston and its densely-packed suburbs.
And mind you, this is after the redesign by Millennium of its now 1.6-million-square-foot office and luxury condo tower, a redesign that brought it down to 691 feet from 775, while lessening the “shadow impact” on Boston Common and the Public Garden.
Scott Van Voorhis
First up: Steve Belkin, travel company mogul and one-time Atlanta Hawks owner. Belkin owns the 133 Federal St. office building that abuts the recently demolished city parking garage where Millennium wants to build its massive tower.
Belkin also just happens to be the aspirant developer behind one of the late, great Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s sillier schemes: Building a skyline-topping, 1,000-foot-tower right where Millennium now wants to build.
Belkin was all in on this daffy scheme – nicknamed “Tommy’s Tower,” it would have been a good 300 feet above what the FAA’s Logan flight paths would allow – pushing plans for what would have been the tallest tower ever built in Boston.
But these days Belkin apparently isn’t such a fan of height, at least when it’s someone else building on a site he tried – and twice failed – to secure for his own development plans.
“This 34.5 FAR is even more detrimental to good urban planning as this is a MidBlock site with existing 350 ft. and 400 ft. towers on each side,” Belkin writes.
A Big, Flat Mirror
Next up: KNH Realty Trust, the owner of two mid-rise office buildings at 155 Federal and 10 High St. that are 130 feet from where Millennium plans to build its 48-story skyscraper where a derelict, city-owned parking garage was recently demolished.
KNH’s big beef? Solar glare from the side of the proposed tower facing its buildings, which act like “one big flat mirror,” writes John Power, the firm’s trustee.
KNH is apparently worried the reflective glass Millennium plans will give a new meaning to the old apartment ad old cliché touting “sun filled” rooms for companies that rent space in its Federal and High Street buildings.
“This will affect our cooling needs and will negatively impact our tenants’ ability to be comfortable and to use computer screens when the sun’s reflection is directed toward their windows,” Power writes.
KNH is also peeved by the proposed Winthrop Square tower’s “massing” – code for a developer’s attempt to cram as much square footage onto a particular site as possible.
“The resulting design is, in our estimation, a graceless form which negatively impacts the neighborhood and lacks functional and esthetic merit,” Power contends.
Other neighboring office building owners have their own beefs.
Rockpoint, a multibillion-dollar private equity firm that owns 2 million square feet of office space in downtown Boston, gripes about massing, density and traffic. Rockport is particularly concerned about the impact of Millennium’s tower on the “cityscape,” including its adjacent 75-101 Federal Street high-rise.
“The project’s midblock location demands an especially sensitive massing solution,” Rockpoint’s general counsel writes. Sensitive indeed – wouldn’t want to spoil the natural beauty of the Financial District with too much office space!
As for the owners of 100 Summer St., they have a different concern – a potentially sinking tower. The 32-story mid-rise could sink up to 1.7 inches due to the planned excavation work for the new Millennium tower, which will take place 8 feet from its foundation, according to a letter Equity Office Properties.
Corporate NIMBYism – who knew?
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
