On Monday, March 19, the Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA) hosted a public meeting at City Hall to discuss the Parcel 9 – Haymarket Hotel project. The meeting was called specifically to address a key change in the project; an increase in the buildings maximum height, from 65 feet to a maximum of 69.5 feet.
Before jumping into the details of the new amendment, the development team from Olshan Properties and Harbinger Development, an affiliate of CV Properties, updated attendees on the progress that has been made thus far.
The team noted that the hotel site will be a neighborhood line of Hilton hotels, called Canopy by Hilton, and bring approximately 225-guest rooms and 9,600 square feet of retail and restaurant space to the area. The project also includes a one-story, 1,800-square-feet restaurant on Hanover Street and a 1,615-square-feet space on Blackstone Street to be leased to the Haymarket Pushcart Association.
Although significant, these developments are just one piece of the entire project. The developers mentioned they are also committed to restoring the historic area on Blackstone Street and maximizing benefits for the public, as described below:
The building’s height increase was proposed to achieve acceptable floor-to-ceiling heights within the building. The first image below illustrates the initial ceiling heights proposed on each floor, whereas the second image demonstrates the new plan, which would decrease the original height of the second floor to accommodate higher ceilings throughout the rest of the building. Yet even with this change, the development team claims that a 4.5 foot increase is still needed to allow even ceiling heights from floor to floor.
At the end of the presentation, many in attendance voiced their support for the new plans. The proposal still needs to be reviewed by the Massachusetts Historical Commission and the Federal Highway Administration later this Spring, but if all is approved, the development team hopes to move forward with construction this Fall.
The north end is being blocked in with no clean to breathe and nobody seems to care. Keep going higher. The true meaning of the north end is all gone. So sad
Blocked in? The lot is at least 225+ feet from the edge of Cross Street on the North End side.
If you learned a little history, you’d also know that the entire space from the proposed hotel to what remains of the North End were buildings prior to the construction of the elevated highway.
Anything is better than the dumpsters and crumbled pavement currently occupying this space. Hotel looks great. Build it already!
The new developer consortium grabs even more vertical space beyond the original proposal that was approved, but there is no mention of one of the most egregious faults: the parking and transportation issues. As proposed, the demands of the hotel would lead to unacceptable traffic congestion on Surface Road that bounds the Greenway.
Tour buses line Surface Road now. Where do they go? Where do taxis park to load and unload or to queue. They should adopt a solution such as that used by the Millennium Hotel next door and create an area inside the hotel and off public streets to accommodate vehicles associated with the hotel.