5 Channel Center Construction

At the community meeting this evening Commonwealth Ventures outlined their plans for the construction of 5,7,9 Channel Center. They will need to re-route Channel Center traffic at different points, but will keep access to all of the buildings. They plan on having construction vehicles will enter and exit on the far side (the entrance closest to Artists for Humanities), but don't own that whole street so are still finalizing that. Equipment and materials are going to be kept next the building on the side opposite Midway.

As residents who were living here in 2008 may remember, when they did the work on the building their office is in, they kept loud sandblasting equipment going on weekends and until past 7pm at night. They were able to get permits for this by claiming the work was indoors (as only the loud equipment was outside; the sandblasting was inside). This blog post from Christmas 2008 has more details.

For this project they will be doing similar sand blasting on the interiors, so will have similar equipment. They are going to try to schedule construction for 7AM - 3PM, but they couldn't guarantee that they would not work later or on weekends. As a reminder, if there problems with this or any construction work, city residents can always call Inspectional Services with issues: 617.635.1010.

Commonwealth Ventures is going to create a website and try to keep the community updated with progress and any issues / inconveniences that come up and welcomed input. It will also have timelines and plans.  They haven't finalized the URL for this new site.

BRA Approves $150m Phase I of Pier 4 Project

====
Private investment /  project cost, phase I: $150 million
Total square footage, phase I: 373,000 square feet
Construction jobs, phase I: 400
Housing, phase I: 383 residential units, 35 on site affordable housing units in phase 1, and 50 on site innovation units

The Innovation District’s momentum continues with the BRA Board’s unanimous approval of phase 1 of the Pier 4 project, a three phase project located at 136-146 Northern Avenue on 9.5 acres.  Phase 2 and 3 will be approved as specific projects are submitted to the BRA Board for review.  The approval of Pier 4 just one month after the approval of 319 A Street answers the call for housing in the area.

Phase 1 is a $150 million project that will transform an existing restaurant, patio, surface parking, and deteriorating pier into a vibrant, waterfront mixed-use complex with 625,000 square feet of residential space, 20,000 square feet of public civic space, and 20,000 square feet of ground floor retail space.  Thirty-five of the residential units created in phase 1 will be affordable, and 50 of the residential units will be innovation housing.  When phases 2 and 3 are submitted to the BRA for review, there will be additional affordable housing.
Pier 4 will enhance the public’s interaction with the harbor by creating new waterfront open space areas, including a one-acre Waterfront Park, Waterfront Plaza, 1,800 feet of Harborwalk, the Water Commons consisting of a water taxi landing area and covered waiting area, public restrooms, and the All-Seasons Gathering Area linking to the civic space.  The deteriorating pier will undergo significant repairs, and the area will house a “touch and go” dock, fish cleaning station and bait and tackle shop.  Additionally, approximately $2 million will be contributed to improved water transportation services in the District.
As part of the District’s development into a 24-hour neighborhood, Pier 4 will bring residential, hotel, retail/restaurant, civic, and commercial uses to the waterfront.  Boston’s waterfront economy will be strengthened, and the Pier 4 project will create a new community on Boston’s waterfront.   Parking will move below ground opening surface area space for pedestrian use.  Community activities in new, open waterfront space will be created, and a pedestrian and vehicular network across the 9.5 acres will be built improving the physical and visual access of the public to the harbor.
The development team includes New England Development LLC, architects ADD Inc, and legal counsel, Goulston & Storrs, P.C.  Phase I will create 400 construction jobs.
The Innovation District is an area on the South Boston Waterfront focused on attracting startup companies and innovation industries.  Over 90 companies and 2,800 new jobs have moved to the Innovation District since the Mayor announced the creation of the district in January 2010.

More details:
http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthoritynews.org/2011/12/15/bra-board-approves-projects-across-boston/

5 Channel Center Construction Mtg, 12/20

A Community Meeting to discuss the construction activity at 5 Channel Center has been scheduled for Tuesday - December 20th at 5:30. The meeting will be held on the 2nd floor of 10 Channel Center. Commonwealth Ventures will be discussing construction plans for 5 Channel Center and other logistics associated with the project.

Landmark Meeting Tomorrow (12/8) for 346 Congress, 300 Summer

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

The FORT POINT CHANNEL LANDMARK DISTRICT COMMISSION will hold a public hearing:

DATE:                               Thursday, December 8, 2011

TIME:                                5:30 P.M.

PLACE:                             BOSTON CITY HALL, CURLEY ROOM

Subject of the hearing will be applications for Certificates of Design Approval on the agenda below, reviews of architectural violations, and such businesses as may come before the commission, in accordance with Chapter 772 of the Acts of 1975, as amended.  Applications are available for public inspection during normal business hours at the office of the Environment Department.  Sign language interpreters are available upon request. 

Please ensure that all electronic devices are silenced prior to entering the hearing room.

After 5:30 p.m., enter and exit City Hall at the Dock Square entrance on Congress Street (across from Faneuil Hall).

REPRESENTATIVES OF THE APPLICANT ARE REQUIRED TO ATTEND

FORT POINT CHANNEL LANDMARK DISTRICT COMMISSION

David Berarducci, Susan Goganian, John Karoff, Yanni Tsipis, Michele Yeeles

Alternates: B.K. Boley, Kosta Ligris

                                                                APPLICATIONS FOR CERTIFICATE OF APPROPRIATENESS

5:30 PM

Application: 12.488 FPC                      300 Summer Street (continued)

Applicant:                                              Ellen Altman, Artist Building 300 Summer Street Cooperative: Proposal for masonry coating in order to address water infiltration of masonry on rear elevation.

 6:00 PM

Application: 12.591 FPC                      346 Congress Street

Applicant:                                              Martin H. Dykas Jr: Install new elevator and stair headhouses; install new shade structure on roof.

                                               

PROJECTED ADJOURNMENT: 6:30 P.M.

Date posted: November 28, 2011

cc:  Mayor, Inspectional Services Department, City Clerk, Boston Redevelopment Authority, Applicants,

District City Councilors, Neighborhood Services, Property Owners, Law Department, Abutters (from most recent tax list)

For additional information, please contact Fort Point Channel Landmark District Commission staff at 617-635-3850 or caitlin.greeley@cityofboston.gov

Caitlin Greeley

Preservation Planner

Aberdeen Architectural Conservation District Commission

Beacon Hill Architectural Commission

Fort Point Channel Landmark District Commission

City of Boston Environment Department
Boston City Hall, Room 805
Telephone: (617) 635-3850

Fax: (617) 635-3435
Email: caitlin.greeley@cityofboston.gov

Check out our website!

www.cityofboston.gov/landmarks

Fort Point Holiday Stroll This Friday

This Friday, December 2, from 4 to 8 p.m., several Fort Point stores and restaurants will be offering visitors discounts and gifts as part of the second annual event. See the Fort Point Holiday Stroll blog for more information, including a list of participating businesses.

Concert Saturday (12/3), 10 Channel Center

Audain/Graham/Hayleck/Moore Quartet

Betsey Biggs performs "Remember/Wake Up"

Peter Whincop, Forrest Larson, Jed Speare

Saturday, December 3, 2011

10 Channel Center St., Boston

8pm $10 suggested donation

betsey biggs:

Betsey Biggs is a Brooklyn and Providence-based composer and artist whose practice in music, sound, video and installation aims to explore the resonance between sound and image, to actively engage the audience, and to explore the relationships among sound, memory, and geography. Her work has been described by The New Yorker as "psychologically complex, exposing how we orient ourselves with our ears." She has collaborated with musicians and artists including Margaret Lancaster, Evidence, The Now Ensemble, The BSC, So Percussion, Tarab Cello Ensemble, the Nash Ensemble and filmmakers Jennie Livingston and Amy Harrison. Her work has been seen and heard at venues as disparate as ISSUE Project Room, Abrons Arts Center, the Conflux Festival, MASSMoCA, Sundance Film Festival, and on the streets of Oakland, Red Hook, Williamsburg and the Gowanus. Biggs holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from Princeton University and currently teaches a course about art and place at Brown University.

andy hayleck:

Andy Hayleck is an electro-acoustic musician who lives inÊBaltimore, Maryland. He uses a Paia modular synthesizer and microphonesÊin improvisations and compositions, utilizing the resonance

characteristics of a variety of materials. Recordings include: "TwoÊGong/Wire Pieces" (Ehse), "Gong/Wire" (Earlids), "Various RecordingsÊInvolving Ice" (HereSee), and "The Disappearing Floor" (Recorded).

carver audain:

Carver Audain (b 1981) is a sound artist who focuses on creating immersive sonic environments. He produces work comprised of his own instrumental and environmental recordings, resulting in an array of textured fields. In live performances he integrates a variety of pre-recorded source material for the use of spontaneous arrangement, live sculpting, and sampling. He has presented works at venues such as The Red Room, Zebulon, Pyramid Atlantic, Mirkwood Estates, The Bank, Studio Soto, and ISSUE Project Room, and has performed as a part of the Sonic Circuits Festival, and the Floating Points Festival. In 2009, he was the recipient of ISSUE Project Room's Emerging Composer's Commission grant care of the Greenwall Foundation.ÊHe lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

forbes graham:

I am a performer and a composer of music and sound. MyÊmain instruments are trumpet and laptop computer. I was born in SilverÊSpring, MD, grew up there and currently reside in the suburbs ofÊBoston. I have been playing music for almost 24 years. I explore aÊvariety of themes in my work including numerology, water, poetry,Êrhythm, and noise.ÊFestival appearances include High Zero, Festival of New Trumpet,ÊVision Festival, and The WireÕs Adventures in Modern Music.

stephan moore:

Stephan Moore is a composer, performer, audio artist, sound designerÊand curator based in Brooklyn and Providence. His creative workÊcurrently manifests as electronic studio compositions, improvised solo

performances, sound installation works, scores and sound designs forÊcollaborative performance pieces, and sound designs for unusual

circumstances. Evidence, his long-standing project with ScottÊSmallwood, has performed widely and released several recordings over

the past decade. He has created custom music software for a number ofÊcomposers and artists, and has taught workshops and numerousÊcollege-level courses in composition, programming, sound art and

electronic music. He curates the annual Floating Points Festival atÊIssue Project Room in Brooklyn, where he also serves on the ArtÊAdvisory Board. From late 2004 to mid-2010, he performed over 250

concerts with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, serving as theirÊsound engineer and music coordinator, and as a touring musician.

peter whincop:

Peter Whicop is from Napier, New Zealand. He currently teaches Electronic Music Composition at MIT, and received degrees in Music Theory and Composition from University of Otago and Harvard University. Formerly a pianist, he now performs under the name anonymous-°, also a nexus website for free dissemination of his work (under construction). He also paints and draws, incorporating the processes into video work, which ultimately is a project in making Òdocumentals.Ó These document the fringes of Òacceptable sanityÓÑthough the project itself is quite conservative, lacking the flights of fancy that it documents.

forrest larson:

Composer, violist and electronic musician Forrest Larson has composed both instrumental and electronic music. His work includes both strictly composed music and live improvised electronic music. ÊInstrumental works include music for string orchestra, wind ensemble as well as pieces for unaccompanied violin, viola and cello. He has had a life-long love of old pre-digital analog electronic instruments, and of collecting Òfound soundsÓ from both natural as well as urban landscapes. ÊAnalog devices such as oscillators, stomp box filters and shortwave radios are of particular interest. Some of his works combine electronic sounds and live acoustic instruments such as cello and tuba. ÊOther work includes electronic scores for abstract films and for solo dancer. ÊHis music has been performed locally at various venues in the Boston area such as Mobius, MIT, Brandeis University, and at the experimental music series CTRL+ALT+REPEAT in Providence, RI. Other performances have been at Carnegie-Mellon University, Washington and Jefferson University (PA), Mansfield University (PA), Southern Oregon University, in Ithaca NY and in Iceland. As a violist, he has played in the New England Philharmonic, Boston Chamber Ensemble, and other chamber groups. ÊHe also played violin in the Commonwealth Vintage Dance Orchestra, performed traditional Scottish fiddle music and was the musician for the Middlesex Morris Dancers.

jed speare:

Jed Speare is an artist working in a variety of media and settings. He has presented sound, video, performance and multidisciplinary work, locally, nationally, and internationally in Canada, Ireland, Poland, Belarus, Croatia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, and Taiwan. In 1978 he studied at the Sonic Research Studio of the World Soundscape Project, in Burnaby, British Columbia, an experience that led to his extensive work in field recordings and his advocacy about the sound environment.

He has been associated with San Francisco industrial culture as the creator of the record album Cable Car Soundscapes (1982) on Smithsonian Folkways Records and as a founder of the group, Research Library, who performed with Joan Jonas and recorded on Subterranean Records. During this time, he was also active creating numerous sound, collaborative, experimental theater, movement, and multidisciplinary performance works in San Francisco, New York, and Amsterdam, where he taught at the Theatreschool Mime Opleiding in 1986 and 1987. The double album, Sound Works 1982 - 1987, (2008) on Family Vineyard Records, includes several longer-form works from that period. In 2008, Wire Magazine called him Òa pioneer of multimedia presentation," and since then has been performing in solo and group contexts. He has been a member of the Mobius Artists Group since 1995 and is the Director of Mobius and Studio Soto.

Barrington Coffee Opening on Congress St.

Barrington Coffee, a coffee roaster, is opening a cafe at 346 Congress St which is  close to opening:

http://www.barringtoncoffee.com

@BarringtonCoffe

Units at 300 Summer Available

LIVE/WORK ARTIST UNITS at 300 Summer Street, Fort Point, Boston.  

 

 The Artist Building at 300 Summer (limited equity building, prices lower than market) is seeking visual artists to add their name and contact info to the Applicant Pool if interested in purchasing a space in our 47 unit cooperative building in Fort Point. Units come up for sale approximately once or twice a year. To sign up, go to www.300summer.org and click Applicant Pool and follow the instructions.

__,_._,___

Election outcome: Linehan and Lee, District 2 Councilor race

From Christine Vaillancourt.  Thanks to everyone who got and and voted.  It was a close race, with only 87 votes making the difference!

---
10,084 voted in Precinct 2 (our Ward 6, Precinct 1 is only part of District 2)

Bill Linehan:   5065 total votes

Suzanne Lee :  4978 total votes

Difference of 87 votes

In our Ward 6, Precinct 1(Fort Point, plus Fan Pier down to Design Center approx.) there are 2928 registered voters.  

433 voted:   227 for Bill Linehan and 203 for Suzanne Lee.

PLEASE VOTE TOMORROW! - 7AM-8PM, Condon School

7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
MUNICIPAL ELECTION
Condon School
200  D Street, South Boston

Bill Linehan is currently our District 2 City Councilor.  He is being challenged by Suzanne Lee. There are 2 candidates challenging the present At Large seats.

Boston City Council has four at large councillors who are elected to represent the entire city; in addition there are nine district city councillors who represent specific portions of the city.			President, At-Large Stephen J. Murphy
At-Large Felix G. Arroyo	At-Large John R. Connolly	At-Large Ayanna Pressley	D1 Salvatore LaMattina
D2 Bill Linehan	D3  Maureen E. Feeney	D4 Charles C. Yancey	D5 Robert Consalvo
D6 Matt O'Malley	D7 Tito Jackson	D8 Michael P. Ross	D9 Mark Ciommo

319 A St. - BRA meeting Wed., 311 Summer St.

Project Name:    319 A Street (Rear)
Project Proponent:  BWH II Realty LLC

Project Description: The Proponent is proposing to change the previously approved project by reducing the number of floors from 21 to 20; decreasing the residential square footage from up to 212,610 to up to 201,110 square feet; and increasing the number of residential units from 184 to approximately 202 units.

Meeting Date/ Place: 6:30 PM,  Wednesday, November 9, 2011 at the ADD Inc Office, 311 Summer Street, Boston, MA
Close of Comment Period: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 

MAIL TO:  Geoff Lewis

BOSTON REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY
ONE CITY HALL SQUARE, 9TH FLOOR
BOSTON, MA 02201

FAX TO:  617-742-7783
PHONE:   617-918-4297
EMAIL TO:  geoffrey.lewis.bra@cityofboston.gov

Seaport Square Dev Update Tomorrow

SEAPORT SQUARE DEVELOPMENT UPDATE 

Seaport Square Developer John Hynes

to visit the Fort Point Community

TUESDAY OCTOBER 25^TH

6:30 PM

MADE IN FORT POINT 

12 FARNSWORTH STREET

 

THIS COMMUNITY MEETING IS SPONSORED BY THE FPAC & FPNA, with the Support of Senator Jack Hart