Samuels & Associates hosted HREC for a walking tour of their Parcel 12 development project.
HREC members enjoy the views from the 16th floor of Parcel 12's office building.
A group of a dozen Harvard Real Estate Club members at the GSD joined developer Samuels & Associates on Friday, November 18, for a walking tour of their Parcel 12 project in downtown Boston. Built over the once-empty space above the Mass Turnpike at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston Street, Parcel 12 is the first air rights deal to be done in Boston in over 30 years.
The project includes a mix of uses that will create a vibrant hub on the Parcel 12 Air Rights site. Featuring 325,000 square feet of office uses, 70,000 square feet of retail and restaurant uses, and 150,000 square feet of residential and hotel uses, Parcel 12 will repair a barren section of Boylston Street and Massachusetts Avenue disrupted by the Turnpike. Once complete, the project will knit together Back Bay and Fenway as well as the South End and the City of Cambridge by creating a dynamic mixed-use development with ground-floor uses that will activate the street, repair the discontinuity in the urban street wall left behind by the Turnpike Extension, and improve the experience for pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists, as well as those using the wide array of nearby public transit options. Designed holistically to address nearby public infrastructure needs, the project has the capacity to improve a long-overlooked swath of Boston's urban fabric.
Retail Plaza at Parcel 12
Students got to meet with the developer and tour the retail plaza and enjoy the views from the 16th story of the office tower. During the visit, the developer shared some of the innovative construction techniques necessary to construct over an active freeway without a road closure. Thanks again to Samuels & Associates for hosting HREC last week.