Proposed: Hayward Place

[atlrvr]

Hayward Place got approval yesterday from the BRA. The building will go where the large surface lot is on the corner of Washington St. and Lafayette, across from the new Ritz Towers. Millineum Partners is the developer, so my guess is these will be pricey, seeing as they don't do cheap projects.....it will include about 270 units.

[Cotuit]

Hopefully that will bring that end of Lower Washington and Chinatown to life. Millennium really turned it's back on Washington in favor of the Common.

[atlrvr]

Hopefully it will...it will include 19,000 sq. ft. of ground floor retail. Between the Millenium towers and the Swissotel (now Hyatt), there are some big blank areas there, with Felt being the only draw.

[atlrvr]

There was a backhoe out there this morning, tearing up a small section of the parking lot. There were still cars parked elsewhere on the lot, so they are probably preparing to do some soil tests, but at least it's a sign of progress. This lot NEEDS to go.

[atlrvr]

There was an article in today's Globe that was pretty cynical about this whole development. Bailey implies that Millenium won't built until 2013, after they've miled the surface lot for all possible parking revenue.

http://www.boston.com/business/taxes/artic...pensive_lesson/

How ridiculous is this? Boston's development agency is making payments in lieu of taxes to the city on a choice downtown site it auctioned off four years ago. The city, in effect, is paying taxes to itself. Meanwhile, the developer who won the auction hasn't built anything there yet, instead taking in millions of dollars parking cars there and paying exactly nothing in property taxes.