75 Morrissey Boulevard

Developers Pitch Residential Towers at 75 Morrissey Boulevard

The owners of several key Morrissey Boulevard parcels floated a plan for two 20-plus-story towers at the former Channel 56 site at the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association’s planning commitee meeting Tuesday. 

Center Court Partners purchased the 2.23-acre site from car magnate Herb Chambers in June 2017 for $14.5 million. The group has since acquired two adjoining parcels and now owns all the property between the Hub 25 buildings and the site of the Boston Globe’s former headquarters, including the Star Market parcel and the Beasley Media Group building.

Citing restrictions on long-term leases that would stop them from fully controlling the Beasley site until at least 2032 and the Star Market site until 2040, the Center Court group proposed a 23- and 26-story tower on the one parcel they can move forward on: 75 Morrissey. The Reporter first published a story on their preliminary plans for the site in September 2018.

Developer and architect David Raftery said he and his team are “trying to stay within the spirit of the master plan,” pointing to the 2011 BPDA-published Columbia Point Master Plan, drawing from two years of work from a local task force looking to envision growth around the Point.

Near the JFK/UMass station, the land-use plan envisioned buildings as tall as 17 stories. Building heights would drop as they moved south, down to around four stories at the Globe site, which is adjacent to the residential section of Savin Hill and the environmentally sensitive Patten’s Cove.

Several at the meeting noted that the master plan is still a valuable guide, but represents an era prior to the sprawling Bayside Expo center deal and the five-story Hub 25 building built next to the T.

Raftery said their concept for around 750 units is “a highly residential program here to complement essentially what’s happening at the BEAT next door.” 

The BEAT is the innovation campus, office space, and brew hall planned for the former Globe site. Owners Nordblom Co. opted not to include residential as part of that plan, keeping the bones of the existing Globe structure. “We think it’s a great opportunity to kind of migrate residential to this,” Raftery said as disapproving muttering began filling the room’s edges.

Michael Binette, with The Architectural Team, presented some conceptual images to the assembled civic members. He, too, referenced the master plan, calling for a break-up of the area’s “super blocks” into more of an orderly neighborhood grid including large amounts of residential units.

“We think there’s still a way to maintain that kind of vision of a vibrant mixed use community within this parcel,” Binette said. To “amenetize” the site, Binette said, calls for density. 

The early plans, which have not been filed with city officials, show a 23-story residential tower over 3,800 square feet of retail and a 26-story tower over 7,600 square feet of retail. Multi-story parking garages would sit beneath each building, for a parking ratio of about 0.5 to the total unit count, which Binette said seemed “reasonable given the trends” toward using transit and reduced driving.

The reception to the conceptual plan was mixed. 

Planning committee chair Eileen Fenton politely echoed some of the aesthetic objections, asking if the group had similar height plans down the line from the other parcels. “That looks weird to me right now,” she said of the lone towers.

Though some felt that 300-plus parking spaces were inadequate and worried about traffic flows into Savin Hill, Paul Nutting wished the team had banked more on the nearby T.

More destiny was “called for at JFK station,” Nutting said. “They could walk downstairs, take the elevator downstairs to the train, as opposed to all I’m hearing here about driving and circulation and Howard Stein Hudson. This should really be more transit-oriented and focused on that.”

Columbia-Savin Hill civic president Desmond Rohan noted that the Red Line is already often overburdened. With around 20 stories also planned for the nearby Mary Ellen McCormack development, Rohan wondered, “How’s the Red Line going to handle that?”

Don Walsh, who led the master plan task force, asked the Center Court team to think down the line, to try to work with the civic association and city to create a cohesive area. They got on board with density in the master plan because there were promised community benefits, he said, “and I’m not seeing any of that right now.”

“It seems like we’re coming full circle,” Walsh said. “We started the Columbia Point master plan with four, five, six projects going about their merry way by themselves. Now we’re back at where we started before: the Globe doing its thing, you’re doing your thing, 20 acres at Mt. Vernon, UMass is expanding and expanding… everybody is dealing by themselves.”

Bisette said they have reached out to some of the other landowners like Nordblom and they are trying to “think about how they’ll all work together even if they don’t all work together today.” Next steps are to meet with the BPDA to see if it is appropriate timing-wise to file a Letter of Intent to get the city process underway.

via Jennifer Smith, News Editor - Dorchester Reporter

The owners of the former Channel 56 property on Morrissey Boulevard are weighing the concept of razing the old television studio building and erecting two towers housing 758 apartments in its place. The buildings — if the plan proceeds— would add a dramatic new look to the Dorchester skyline, rising 22 stories and 25 stories in height respectively, over the Southeast Expressway.

According to preliminary plans reviewed by the Reporter, the buildings would be built over two underground garages with a total of 374 parking spaces over three levels. A surface street would separate the buildings, which would each have retail space in the lobby area.

The property is owned by Center Court Partners, which purchased the 2.25 acre site from car magnate Herb Chambers in June 2017 for $14.5 million.

Last month, Center Court added to its Morrissey Boulevard holdings, buying the Star Market building, the next-door Beasley Media Group Boston buildings, and adjacent land for a combined $56 million. Both the supermarket and radio station building are under long-term lease agreements, which Center Court’s David Raftery has said will be honored.

Center Court was also in talks to buy the former Boston Globe building, but that deal— worth a reported $80 million— was never consummated. The Globe has since been sold to a different company— Nordblom— which is advancing its own plan to renovate the old newspaper plant to house a mix of high tech businesses.

Representatives from Center Court Partners have briefed a select number of public officials on their concept for 75 Morrissey, but have not yet formally submitted any plans to the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA), the city of Boston’s planning arm that would have direct oversight over a building project of this scale.

The height and density outlined in the current Center Court proposal would be taller and denser than anything that has been previously envisioned for the Columbia Point peninsula. But, it does conform in most ways to existing planning documents created in the last decade by city and community leaders.

In 2011, the BPDA published a “master plan” that synthesized the work of a task force that had met over two years to anticipate and guide future growth on the peninsula, including the stretch of Morrissey Boulevard from the JFK-UMass Red Line station to the Boston Globe parcel.

The land-use plan envisioned buildings as tall as 17 stories rising from the northern edge of the boulevard— closer to the T station— and cascading down to a smaller height, perhaps four stories, at the Globe site, which is adjacent to the residential section of Savin Hill and the environmentally sensitive Patten’s Cove.

While the 2011 master plan is considered a general guide for redevelopment in the area, it has not been adhered to closely. Hub 25, a five-story, 278-unit apartment complex built on two acres next to the T station and completed in 2015, was considerably shorter than the 17 stories outlined as the community’s preference in the 2011 plan.

via Dorchester Reporter

Center Court Properties and POB Capital acquire 2.25-acre Dorchester parcel for $14.5 million

Center Court Properties of New York, who recently backed out of a deal valued at upwards of $80 million to acquire the 16.5-acre Boston Globe headquarters in Dorchester, has acquired the 2.25-acre parcel at 75 Morrissey Boulevard, located adjacent to the Globe's site, in partnership with POB Capital of Chicago for $14.5 million. The sale amounts to nearly $6.5 million per acre. The site's seller is automotive dealer Herb Chambers, who had proposed to construct a new Jaguar-Land Rover dealership on the site. Chambers acquired 75 Morrissey Boulevard for $3.8 million, or around $1.7 million per acre, in 2011. Center Court is the developer of Archer | Donahue in Beacon Hill, a luxury residential development that is expected to break ground this year.