BOSTON | Four Seasons Hotel and Residences | 755 & 306 FT | 61 & 26 FLOORS

[NYguy]

http://www.boston.com/businessupdate...o6K/story.html

Carpenter & Co. will build tower at Christian Science Plaza





By Casey Ross, Globe Staff
1/23/2013

A prominent local developer will build two towers next to Boston’s Christian Science Plaza, shaking up a signature open space with what will be one of the tallest buildings to hit the city skyline in years.

One tower will rise up to 50 stories, containing a hotel, condominiums, stores, and restaurants. The other will be about 20 stories and include apartments and additional retail space. The city has already approved the broad outlines of the project, and construction could begin by the end of this year.

Developer Carpenter & Co. of Cambridge was selected to develop the property, at Belvidere and Dalton streets, by the First Church of Christ, Scientist, which has been working to bring new buildings to its sprawling Back Bay campus for several years. Although the project will fill in open space used by the public and a parking lot, the triangular plot is separated from the main plaza and is something of a dead zone between a church-owned office building and the Prudential Center complex. So far, little opposition to the proposal has emerged.

“Our goal is to create some very significant architecture that will frame the plaza, which is one of Boston’s most precious resources,” said Richard L. Friedman, president of Carpenter & Co. “This project will enliven the area, and I think the plaza will benefit from having a tall building between it and the Prudential.”

The new buildings are part of a broader plan approved by Boston regulators in 2011 to redesign the 14.8-acre plaza, including its iconic reflecting pool. It allows for three towers containing more than 950,000 square feet of space, as well as public lawns and stores.

Final plans for the reflecting pool are still being devised and will need approval from the Boston Landmarks Commission, which has granted protected status to the pool and plaza. Additional public meetings will also be held on the design of the new towers.

Carpenter & Co. has won the right to build two of the three buildings around the plaza; the church has not yet selected the developer of the third building, along Huntington Avenue. Carpenter has hired New York-based Pei Cobb Freed & Partners and Cambridge Seven Associates as architects.

The new towers will extend the commercial spine of the Back Bay, which drops off precipitously as it approaches the church’s property. The cochair of a city panel that reviewed the project, George Thrush, said the new buildings will bring more activity to the area without fundamentally altering the character of the plaza.

“It’s hard to imagine another spot where you could have fairly large-scale development with so few negative impacts,” said Thrush, who is also director of Northeastern University’s School of Architecture. “This is a rare case where more development is clearly in the public interest.”

“This kind of project has been very successful in other cities,” said Friedman, who is still trying to get funding for the buildings next to the Christian Science Plaza.