Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Saturn64
This is coming along quite nicely. Although it is quite odd that a city so dense has skyscrapers spread so far apart.
I had a question about Boston's skyscrapers I thought someone here might be able to answer. If they FAA didn't interfere with what Boston builds, how tall would the tallest building in the city be now?
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The skyscrapers are spread apart in the "high spine" Back Bay but much more densely populated in the financial district. The city is also very filled in, as illustrated by the pics below. (found on flickr) This building is U/C on the far right in the first one from last month.
If the FAA didn't interfere, there is a chance the Winthrop Square Tower, currently proposed at 702', would be closer to 900' or 1000'. However, there are actually areas of Boston that CAN be built upwards of 1000', and others in the 800'-900' range. Unfortunately, shadow laws and NIMBY's have kept most of them shorter than they could be. There are a lot of taller buildings on the way, in at least the 500'-700' range, and many neighborhoods are constructing "area talls" 200'-300'+ which are adding up to making the city feel much larger overall.
The current, pro-development mayor just won his second term, giving him a "mandate" of sorts to kick the construction boom (yes there's been a boom) into overdrive. There are many impact projects either coming along or in the immediate pipeline, so within a few years it's going to look like Boston took some steroids. However, any new tallest will likely have to wait until the next boom. There's a specific area where ~850' seems feasible and maybe it will get pushed through.
However, to answer your immediate question, I think the current tallest building would still be the 790' John Hancock Tower, but there would be a much bigger likelihood of something like SF's Salesforce Tower, the scale of which will never be built due to FAA.
Hover Boston-22 by
Ricky Rosales, on Flickr
The Four Seasons isn't in either of the next 2 pics, which are to illustrate the above point about skyline's density. However, I will make up for that in a moment.
Boston from the air by
harryb3md, on Flickr
Financial District, Boston MA by
Andy Moran, on Flickr
This one's from last year but you can see the crane from Four Seasons on the left.
Helicopter Over Boston by
Nicholas Tenhue, on Flickr