Residents Cry Foul Over Pru Expansion

Boston Courant

Back Bay residents expressed deep misgivings at a public meeting last week over the height of a pair of buildings proposed for the Prudential Center.

The meeting was the first for the public since Boston Properties (BP), the Pru’s owner, submitted plans to the city last month for a 19-story office tower off Boylston Street and a 30-story residential building on Exeter Street.

The Prudential Project Advisory Committee (PruPAC), a city-formed group composed of neighborhood residents and business representatives, has been meeting with the developers for the past month to discuss specific issues raised by the expansion plan.

Until a recent change in policy, PruPAC meetings were closed to the press and public.

For many residents, however, it appears that the devil is not in the details but the bigger picture. Filling a conference room at the Boston Public Library to capacity, they lamented that the height for the proposed towers was excessive and out of character with the neighborhood.

“We went through a long, arduous process on height limits,” said Tom High, a member of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay, referring to meetings going back to the late 1980’s on a master plan for the area. “Now we’re looking at major claustrophobic canyonization of Boylston Street.”

The zoning height limit for the Pru complex is 155 feet, established in 1990 as a result of the master plan process. The proposed height of the office building is 265 feet; the residential building would be 340 feet high. The height of the Mandarin Oriental hotel under construction is 155 feet.

Because the complex is within a Planned Development Area, there is greater flexibility to exceed height and density restrictions. PruPAC’s consent would be key for the developer to deviate from the master plan, as it was when the group voted to allow the luxury Mandarin to occupy the bulk of a site slated for residential use.

Rodney Sinclair, Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) project manager for the Pru expansion, said that the proposed height of the buildings would be evaluated based on contemporary realities. “I don’t know what happened in 1986,” he said. “I was 7 then.”

Should PruPAC and the BRA support the height variance, the plan would ultimately have to be approved by the Boston Zoning Commission.

Michael Cantalupa, BP senior vice president of development, said the height of the buildings, in particular the Boylston street office tower, “creates the opportunity to do some really special things with the building and plaza that we otherwise would not be able to do.”

The proposed office building has a curved glass façade that would be visible from the Cambridge side of the Charles, and would be fronted by a landscaped courtyard.

In response to the design, State Rep. Marty Walz, who is a member of PruPAC, said “I don’t think we should be left with a choice between a grand entrance for extra height. We should insist on 155 feet, with a beautiful entrance,” she said to applause.

In light of the excess height, several attendees asked if the developers intended to go to extra lengths to compensate the neighborhood for the impacts the buildings would have.

Cantalupa said the project would generate roughly $4.3 million in community benefits. More than $3 million of that money would go toward jobs and housing linkage payments mandated by the city. A $320,000 community benefits fund and a $400,000 Boylston Street improvements fund would also be established, according to BP’s project filing. In addition, the document estimates that the expansion would lead to the creation of 600 permanent jobs, and nearly $5 million in annual property tax revenue.

“I think the benefits here are commensurate with that of other projects,” Cantalupa said, adding that the expansion would “contribute to the economic vitality of the city.”