It's not so much that the building plans for the Lovejoy Wharf development, approved Thursday by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, are particularly big, though they are nothing to sneeze at. The plans call for rehabilitating the nine-story building at 160 North Washington Street (and adding an additional floor) to house 187,000 square feet of office space (presumably for shoe giant Converse) and 45,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, including a 300-seat cafe-style restaurant.
At the same time, the rundown building at 131 Beverly Street will be done away with, superseded by a new 14-story building, with approximately 100 apartments as well as a 10-story link to 160 North Washington. (Until the B.R.A.'s unanimous vote Thursday, the wharf was to be all residential.) There will also be 315 parking spaces. So, yes, the building plans are big.
Lovejoy Wharf also includes a rehabilitation of the existing wharf itself and a concomitant extension of the Harborwalk. We're talking floating docks, public water transportation facilities, and a 2,000-square-foot visitor's center; all totaled, 42,619 square feet of new open space along the waterfront. As an executive with one of the developers, the Beal Companies, told Greg Turner of The Herald, "Lovejoy Wharf is one of the few privately owned wharfs in the city of Boston, not being open to the public. That will no longer be the case."
· Lovejoy Wharf Project Change Approved [B.R.A.]
· BRA Board Approves Lovejoy Wharf Project [Herald]
· Clarendon Developer Has 14-Story Plans for Lovejoy Wharf [Curbed Boston]
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