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Guesses fill the void of details in Gophers football search - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Posted: 01 Dec 2010 04:05 AM PST

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High hopes hit the wall - Boston Globe

Posted: 30 Nov 2010 10:50 PM PST

From the roof of the Harbor Garage, where I happened to be standing in the late morning sun yesterday, I couldn't help but repeatedly exclaim, "Oh my God.''

You'd do the same if you could see these views — the city skyline and the Greenway on one side, Boston Harbor on the other, boats bobbing, planes alighting, breathtaking views from the Zakim Bridge to the arch of Rowes Wharf.

I was here as part of my mission to broker a meaningful peace between a developer, Don Chiofaro, and a mayor, Tom Menino, who can't stand the sight of each other, their mutual disdain costing this city dearly in terms of jobs, taxes, and aesthetics.

Chiofaro has been pushing to tear down the eyesore that is the garage and build an iconic tower 780 feet high, accompanied by a shorter structure, with an open view of the water. More recently, he has lowered the heights to 615 feet and 470 feet. The city needs the kind of project Chiofaro wants to build.

But officials have repeatedly said that nothing can be built on the property higher than 200 feet and told Chiofaro, in no uncertain terms, publicly and privately, to go pound sand. Who needs construction jobs in this economy?

In the category of news, murmurs have begun emanating from downtown that the irrepressible Chiofaro had quietly, reluctantly prepared a Plan B that would satisfy the city's demand.

I came to learn that Chiofaro and his partner have, in fact, researched a plan to leave the 80-foot-high garage intact and build 12 stories of condominiums and apartments on top of what's already there, bringing it to 200 feet.

They have done what was described to me as "extensive structural analysis'' on the building and determined that, with some work, the foundation and garage can support the extra floors. The plan calls for them to spruce up the garage with some latticework and better retail space on the ground floor, but it would still be the same basic ugly wall running some 270 feet along the Greenway.

I rang up Chiofaro and was told he was out of the country. I got his partner, Ted Oatis, the more diplomatic member of the development duo, who didn't seem particularly eager to talk about the plans.

After some hemming and hawing, he said, "If the Boston Redevelopment Authority says clearly and categorically, forget your big project, then we get the message. Two hundred feet means that the garage stays.''

Here's what Chiofaro and Oatis are not doing. They're not abandoning hopes of building their larger project. They're not making petty threats.

"While it would be a disappointment, we're not politicians, we're developers,'' Oatis said. "We have to deal with facts, not fictions.''

As recently as last month, they asked BRA chief John Palmieri for guidance on what larger structures might be acceptable to the city. He offered none, telling them in a letter, "The BRA does not believe it is an appropriate use of public resources to engage in additional meetings.'' Palmieri's advice: Proceed with the long, multimillion-dollar proposal process on a development that Menino said won't get approved. Nice.

I couldn't reach Palmieri either. He must be conserving his resources.

So up on the roof, Oatis pulled out a glossy artist's rendering of what the garage would look like with residences on top — a glowing horseshoe-shaped design with the opening facing the harbor, 300 units in all, but still, that hulking garage hard against the Greenway.

I reached for the sheet and he nervously pulled it away. "Nobody's seen this yet,'' he said.

"The big project is the right thing to do, but if the city says to forget about it, we have to deal with reality,'' Oatis added.

Suddenly, in the million-dollar views, I was starting to see lost opportunity. The mayor may stand his ground, Chiofaro may be forced into his Plan B, and what does everyone else get? Too few jobs and one massive wall of concrete.

Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. His email is mcgrory@globe.com.

Fiction

Rabu, 01 Desember 2010