Winthrop Center
Update
01/04/18
Revamped Winthrop Square tower would start construction Q2 2018
Millennium Partners has thoroughly redesigned its’ proposed $1.3 billion Winthrop Square tower, shrinking its’ height to 53 stories and 691 feet from 775 feet as originally proposed. Under the new proposal, upper condominium residences have increased from 460 to approximately 500, and office space has increased from 635,000 square feet to approximately 750,000. The tower would also include approximately 31,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space and 21,000 square feet of public meeting space centered about the previously proposed three-story ground-floor Great Hall public space. A previously proposed 14,620 square foot startup accelerator on the tower's second floor has eliminated, though Millennium may consider a similar concept for the project’s final design. A rendering of the project’s latest design is posted above.
Given the increase in condominium count, the Winthrop Square tower would generate up to $166 million in payments to the City of Boston, more than the nearly $153 million the original tower would have generated. Millennium’s deal to acquire and develop the City-owned Winthrop Square Garage, which the tower will replace, consists of a $102 million upfront payment and $100 per sold condominium square foot. Millennium will also create 115,000 square feet of new affordable housing as part of the project, most likely in Boston’s Chinatown in collaboration with the Asian Community Development Corporation. Additionally, Millennium has agreed to pay the Friends of the Public Garden $125,000 per year for 40 years following the project’s completion in order to maintain and enhance Boston Common and the Boston Public Garden.
Millennium began demolishing the dilapidated Winthrop Square Garage in Fall 2017 in order to make way for the proposed tower, and aims to start construction of the tower in the second quarter of 2018 targeting initial occupancy by the first quarter of 2022. Millennium has filed plans for the revised tower with the Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA), who is now reviewing the proposal.
