Will Boston ever surpass 800 feet? How about 1,000? (Worcester, Cambridge: wedding, square footage)

[timberline742]

Wow, yeah, loads of housing being built, no doubt.

[Boston Shudra]

Originally Posted by lrfox

but it's a shame it's such a deadzone in the middle of one of the country's most urban cities.

This is what really kills me about the neighborhood. In a city that often feels like it’s bursting at the seems, the West End is wasting so much valuable space.

[timberline742]

What are the neighborhood definitions of the West End?

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by timberline742

What are the neighborhood definitions of the West End?

Officially - Cambridge Street to the South, the River to the North/West, Beverly Street/ I-93 to the North/East (the Eastern edge of N. Station/the Garden is a boundary), and New Chardon St. to the South/East. This would include the TD Garden/North Station, much of the Bullfinch Triangle, the Lindeman and Hurley Buildings, Nashua Street Jail, and the Boston section of the Museum of Science.

However, when I think of the West End, I mostly think of the area boxed in by Cambridge St, Staniford Street, Lomasney Way/Martha Rd, and Storrow Drive. I consider the Bullfinch Triangle/North Station to be a separate neighborhood, and Lindemann/Hurley to be an extension of Government Center. I don't think I've ever considered Nashua St. part of a neighborhood since it's so segregated by roads and highways and waterways. The "Last Tenement" is right there though, so it's definitely part of either the West End or North Station areas.

[timberline742]

Ah, ok, thanks, so I guess my Causeway Office is on the fringe of it. It is a odd section to be sure.

[Mr. Joshua]

Originally Posted by MrsRosencranz

Lots of youngsters here who don't remember what happened when the Hancock went in.

Trinity Church began to sink.

Boston is swamp land and back fill. There's no bedrock under ground. Manhattan is almost solid bedrock.

You'll never see a building higher than 600 ft. The ground can't support it.

Manhattan has an area between downtown and uptown that is not suitable for large buildings, that's why there is a gap in supertalls between roughly the Empire State and the area of Wall St.

Boston is bedded with Cambridge Argillite and Roxbury Conglomerate. They are both slightly metamorphosed sedimentary formations that can handle tall buildings.

Sorry, its the geologist in me.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by Mr. Joshua

Manhattan has an area between downtown and uptown that is not suitable for large buildings, that's why there is a gap in supertalls between roughly the Empire State and the area of Wall St.

Boston is bedded with Cambridge Argillite and Roxbury Conglomerate. They are both slightly metamorphosed sedimentary formations that can handle tall buildings.

Sorry, its the geologist in me.

Bedrock is not the reason there is a gap in supertalls in New York. The reason there are no skyscrapers between City Hall(ish) and the Empire State Building is because, historically, this area was full of tenements and factories. Rents weren't ever high enough to justify building tall there until recently (and they are building tall in this space now). Bedrock at the World Trade Center site (tallest in Manhattan) is actually further below the surface than in most of those "low rise" neighborhoods. And while skyscrapers are slowly creeping south in Manhattan, neighborhood groups there are behaving similar to how neighborhood groups here are - fighting high-rise development tooth and nail.

But New York is just one example here. Miami has buildings that are taller than anything in Boston has built, essentially, on a swamp with bedrock well over 150 feet below the surface. The Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, is built on shifting sand on top weak, porous limestone. All of Chicago is built on mudflats and some skyscrapers are anchored to bedrock and some are not. Houston and other cities with weak, porous, or very deep bedrock build foundations that "float" like a raft to support the building above (read about the Mat Foundation in Houston). Sometimes this fails famously, see Millenium Tower, San Francisco.

So if the economics are right for it, the FAA will allow it, and neighborhood opposition doesn't kill it, something in the 800-1,000 foot range could be built here (and has been proposed in the past). But I doubt we'll see it any time soon.

[KoNgFooCj]

I don't know. If Boston keeps rising steadily on the national and global level like it is now, and we keep getting more companies, I don't doubt a developer will propose a 1000 footer in Boston to cement the company's and the city's status. This could be a possibility before 2025. I'm sure they could find space in the Back Bay or the West End. If a powerful enough company can fend off San Francisco NIMBYs, I'm sure they can do it in Boston.

[scorpio516]

Originally Posted by Bbobsully94

I don't know. If Boston keeps rising steadily on the national and global level like it is now, and we keep getting more companies, I don't doubt a developer will propose a 1000 footer in Boston to cement the company's and the city's status. This could be a possibility before 2025. I'm sure they could find space in the Back Bay or the West End. If a powerful enough company can fend off San Francisco NIMBYs, I'm sure they can do it in Boston.

Can't happen unless Logan closes. There is only a sliver of Boston that allows up to 1000' (1001' is no go though). It's a triangle from the intersection of Starrow and Fairfield, to Starrow and Mass Ave, to Mass Ave and Belvidere. A building on the west side of Mass ave can only be 525' tall though.
If you draw an arc centered on Logan and just hit the nearest point of the common, ending at the Charles and a straight line from Mass @ Belvidere to Logan, everything outside that arc to the Charles can be 800' to 1000' tall. AKA Back Bay and Beacon Hill are the only places in the city that the Feds allow buildings over 800'

http://www.massport.com/media/1545/b...rspace-map.pdf

[inquisitive2]

Originally Posted by MrsRosencranz

Lots of youngsters here who don't remember what happened when the Hancock went in.

Trinity Church began to sink.

Boston is swamp land and back fill. There's no bedrock under ground. Manhattan is almost solid bedrock.

You'll never see a building higher than 600 ft. The ground can't support it.

And remember when the Prudential center was losing windows and foundation cracking?

Boston is landfill. Not made to handle today's massive construction.