Big site needs big plan

OP-ED | Paul McMorrow

Modest redo for Herald plant falls flat

June 17, 2011|By Paul McMorrow

The Boston Herald sits on a mammoth 6-acre parcel in the South End. (David L. Ryan/Globe Staff )

FIGHTS OVER development in Boston usually pit overreaching builders against neighbors clawing at dense structures. It’s rarely the locals’ job to urge builders to show a little more initiative. So it’s a measure of just how unambitious the plans for the redevelopment of the Boston Herald’s headquarters are that the newspaper’s South End neighbors aren’t complaining about shadows or traffic. They’re comparing it to something you’d find in the suburbs.

The scheme to build an apartment and retail complex at the corner of Harrison Avenue and Herald Street landed with a thud inside City Hall last week. The Boston Redevelopment Authority hasn’t officially commented on the Herald proposal, but word is that it caught the agency off guard. And the last thing any Boston developer wants to do is surprise the BRA.

The Herald redevelopment bid was unexpected because its backers had recently been told that what they’re selling won’t fly with their South End neighbors. It’s routine for developers to feel out abutters before filing anything formal at City Hall, and when project co-owner National Development showed their preliminary designs around the neighborhood, they were told to go home and do more work.

For the past year, a BRA panel has been laying the groundwork for a dramatic rezoning of the Harrison Avenue and Albany Street corridors. The BRA wants to strengthen pedestrian activity and take full advantage of development opportunities. The Herald site represents one of the biggest redevelopment plays the panel has been weighing. The mammoth 6-acre parcel could extend the South End’s recent building boom to a marginal end of the neighborhood.

If done right, the project could also undo the scars of urban renewal. The Herald currently sits on top of blocks once known as the New York Streets. The tenement-lined blocks were leveled in one of Boston’s earliest experiments with slum clearance. The project, conceived in 1952, consolidated 14 city blocks into five, in the name of growing industry along the Southeast Expressway.

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