The Filenes site on lower Washington near Downtown Crossing at
Hayward Place will soon restart construction. Initially, the
location was proposed to be the site of a massive construction
effort for Filenes however three years ago it was put on hold and
this subsequently left a large vacant plot that has been extremely
unattractive, many residents have classified it as an eye sore.
New York and Boston seem to agree on one thing, at least outside
of the sports arena. This is because New Yorks Vornade Realty Trust
and Boston based firm Millennium Partners have partnered up with
hopes of building not only a store that will thrive and help revive
the Downtown Crossing area, but that will be a beautifully designed
staple of Boston for years.
As a now two hundred million dollar project designed by Handel
Architects also of New York, the plans that were proposed in 2008
called for much more than a Filenes Basement establishment.
Offices, residential units, a hotel and other retail spaces were
initially the idea that would have set developers back seven
hundred and fifty million dollars. Despite this decrease in scale
of the project, due to the recent stalemate the large plot of land
has endured, the plans nonetheless are ones to get very excited
about for Filenes, the Downtown Crossing, and Boston as a
whole!
More Information: BizJournals.com