Harbor Towers Residences Engage Architect as Advisor

Harbor Towers, the 43-year-old pair of Boston waterfront buildings with more than 1,100 residents, has engaged George Thrush, Professor and Director of the School of Architecture at Northeastern University, for advice on proposed redevelopment plans for the Harbor Garage.

Thrush and a team of architects and urban planners was invited this month by the Trustees of Tower I and Tower II, at 85 and 65 India Wharf Row, to guide Harbor Towers leadership in assessing a recent proposal by the Chiofaro Company to replace the 43-year-old garage with a mixed-use complex made up of two towers, 660 feet and 550 feet high, and totaling 1.3 million square feet.

“George and his colleagues will help us determine what is in the best long-term interest of the neighborhood and Boston as a whole on this site of a little more than an acre,” said Lee Kozol, Chairman of the Harbor Towers Garage Committee, appointed by the five trustees in each of the two towers.

“Don Chiofaro and his partner, Prudential Real Estate Investments, bought the garage in 2007 with plans to redevelop the property.”

Thrush and his team will study the City, the Waterfront, the neighborhood, and its history, current conditions, and context, as well as similar waterfront landscapes and configurations in other great cities, to help assess an objective way what would be desirable for Boston’s future as a replacement of the eight-story garage immediately between the HarborWalk and seawall of Boston Harbor on one side, and the Rose Kennedy Greenway on the other.

“The key issues here are the ones that affect all of us in Boston, like the view of the city from the Harbor, and the relative height and bulk of the proposed buildings from the streets,” said Thrush. “And, perhaps most of all, the connections that are made from the downtown to the Waterfront.”

Kozol noted that, while Harbor Towers has clear legal rights regarding parking, mechanical equipment and other issues, those are specifically not matters that Thrush has been asked to address.

Rather, Thrush and his team will concentrate on assessing whether the current proposal is appropriate for the location in size and scale. And he will examine what kind and volume of development would best serve the neighborhood, the public, and the future of Boston including both residents and visitors.

“George is experienced and knows this territory well, and we think Mr. Chiofaro, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and the new administration will be interested in his views on this important issue so important to the public,” said Kozol.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority, under the direction of the new administration of Mayor Martin J. Walsh, is conducting a two-year process of revising what is known as the Municipal Harbor Plan for this portion of Boston’s waterfront. The Municipal Harbor Plan is Boston’s customized version of the Commonwealth’s strenuous Chap. 91 statutes protecting waterfront property against redevelopment and preserving it for public use.

The outcome of that process, expected early next year, will have a significant influence on whether the Chiofaro Company will be allowed to go forward with a development that greatly exceeds what current state and Boston zoning rules would allow.

The Chiofaro proposal is similar to one he proposed about four years ago that was rejected, and it is of significantly more mass and height than anything along the waterfront in Boston. He has maintained that it will require that much new development, of office, hotel, residential space, to offset the cost of demolishing the existing garage and putting its 1,400 parking spaces underground.

The Trustees of Harbor Towers have formally opposed the current proposal, saying it is too large and would overwhelm the site so close to Boston Harbor and immediately on the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

A petition for the responsible redevelopment of the Harbor Garage and in opposition to the Chiofaro Company redevelopment proposal is being circulated throughout Harbor Towers, the Waterfront and the North End.

The petition reads: “We, the undersigned, want responsible redevelopment of the Harbor Garage. We oppose the Chiofaro/Prudential Insurance current proposed plan because we believe the proposed redevelopment is much too massive at 1.3 million square feet on a 1.3 acre parcel, would overwhelm the entire waterfront neighborhood and cause serious problems such as major shadows, wind and traffic on all of the waterfront. We urge the BRA and Mayor Walsh to have the Chiofaro/Prudential Insurance parcel owners design a plan that reflects the size of the parcel and one that truly provides open space for the public and also protects the investments in the Rose Kennedy Greenway.”

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