Mr. Chiofaro, it's Barry Bluestone for you on line 2

By adamg on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 7:21am

Brian McGrory reports this morning that Don Chiofaro's latest plans for the Aquarium garage would keep the garage in place (no word on the stupid red ribbon) and stick 12 stories of condos and apartments on top of it. That would keep the thing at the 200-foot level Mayor Menino insists is the tallest anybody can build along the Greenway (and a far cry from the 48-story complex Chiofaro proposed a couple months back).

But here's an idea:

Just yesterday, Barry Bluestone proposed a multi-university student village in Downtown Crossing aimed at grad students. And City Councilor Mike Ross marveled at Harvard at Trilogy, which provides housing for Harvard types who want to be near the medical area in one of the city's more successful recent residential projects.

Now where could you find the land for a place to house a few hundred grad students in Downtown Crossing? Yep. Why not get Bluestone, Chiofaro and Ross in a room with the BRA to work out a land swap: the Filene's Memorial Hole for what will become the Menino Memorial Park Next to the Other Park. Bonus for Chiofaro: Bluestone's proposal calls for some luxo-units for rich foreign students.

Then again, this is Don Chiofaro and Tom Menino we're talking about. The city would take ownership of the garage and then the BRA would promptly enact emergency regulations barring any projects taller than two stories along Washington Street.

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Comments

matastasizing educational non-profits

By John-W on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 8:41am.

Now there's already been some discussion on "non-profit" universities and their non-tax paying ways, as well as the housing deal, so maybe I should gripe about this over there, but what's the deal with every university growing like god-damned bacteria in a petrie dish?

I understand that we have the Baby Boom's obnoxious little echo starting to fill the dorms (and drain their parents' savings), but how do these schools plan to fill the classrooms, given that education has been gradually pricing itself out of the market for so many Americans?

All I have to say is if you thought the "town and gown" tussles and class conflict between snooty college students and brawling townies (hey, Matt and Ben launched their careers on it) just wait until the entire town looks like the BU campus. The xenophobic and racist attacks on pampered foreigners coming to school in the Hub will go through the roof as that will probably be the only market out there to sustain the obnoxious growth that our institutions of higher earning are going through from the Ivies to the artsy schools, to the working (wo)man schools (that don't actually lease property to Northeastern) and Institutes, to the Community Colleges.

I mean if they're not gearing up to take on students from the Mideast, South America, India, China and Japan, then there is going to be a serious over-supply far outstripping local demand in the near future.

(And can't we just stuff Menino and Chiofaro in a wrestling match and let them have it out and spare us more angsty articles from Brian McGrory making himself the protagonist in everything. Alan Lupo, he's not.)

Paul McMorrow brought this up in Sept

By JohnAKeith on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 9:22am.

Paul McMorrow talked about this idea in Sept.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinio...

Living . . .

By Chris Dowd on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 3:10pm.

. . . next to the garage in question- and being someone whose view would be effected by Chiofaro's initial proposal (it would have blocked my view of the Custom House Tower for example) I actually kinda liked his plan at first look.

If I were to make a suggestion to Chiofaro- it would be to hire a good PR firm because calling out the Mayor- any Mayor- like that . . . is just . . . well ... not gonna win you any friends.

My middle child negotiating skills are available by the way.

Great....

By bos_guy on Thu, 12/02/2010 - 10:22am.

Another park next to the Greenway for nobody (except for a few homeless people) to use, that's what the city needs in the heart of the financial district. Heaven forbid someone lose their view of the Custom House. (not that you were complaining chris...but you're one of the few harbor towers people who weren't).