Boston Common and Public Garden
City and state legislators are likely to pave the way for a massive new mixed-use tower in Downtown Boston by allowing it to cast shadows onto the Boston Common and Public Garden.
Millennium Partners has proposed a $1 billion, 775-foot tower on a city-owned parking garage site in Winthrop Square. Such a project would cast shadows over the Boston Common and Public Garden and would therefore be in violation of state laws that dictate the nearby building’s impact on sunlight for the historic green space, according to the Boston Herald.
On Monday, the Boston Planning & Development Agency began its lobbying efforts for special legislation that would exempt Millennium Partners’ project from the state law, the newspaper reported. For city and state officials, the deal sounds too good to give up.
The sale of the one-acre public lot would fetch the city $153 million, according to reports. Millennium Partners has pledged $28 million for Boston Common and Franklin Park improvements, $11 million for the Emerald Necklace and $35 million to Boston Housing Authority projects, according to the newspaper. The project is also expected to generate as much as $15 million in property taxes each year.
Millennium Partners’ plan included 460 residential units, office space, retail space, restaurants and a three-story public space with removable 20-foot glass panels. It would also cast shadows over the parks in excess of the allowable amount of 282 days per year. Prohibited shadow durations would average 37 minutes long and would come before 9:30 a.m., according to the developer’s estimates.
To accommodate those shadows, the city and its planning agency is proposing a slew of other restrictions that will curb more shadows over Downtown public spaces. Proposed legislation would eliminate loopholes for buildings in the Midtown Cultural District, therefore limiting height of future buildings in the area. The city also wants to make zoning rules concerning shadows on Copley Square Park into state law so variances can’t be approved as easily, much like what was done for Boston Common and Public Gardens in the early ’90s.
Photo by lauren2525 [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
