Ann Donner on The New City Hall Plaza


As the Executive Director of the Trust for City Hall Plaza, a non-profit organization whose mission it is to manage the planning and implementation of redevelopment on Boston's new City Hall Plaza, Ann Donner has been centrally involved in leading the project to approval.  Along with Norman Leventhal, the Trust's Chairman, and other members of the organization, Donner has helped push the project through the pre-developmental process.

In undertaking this endeavor, Donner and the Trust have worked to build ties with their Plaza neighbors, the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), both of whom are planning redevelopment initiatives in the Plaza area.  By working together with these groups, she has assisted in facilitating this process, which has combined several distinct projects into a cohesive planning initiative.

The impetus behind this increased development fervor is the present state of the Plaza.  The area has long languished as an open space whose potential has yet to be unlocked.  It was originally designed as an area that would become one of Boston's premier social spaces.  The European-style design of its wide expanse was intended to allow the Plaza to fulfill a variety of community functions, from hosting performances to providing a quiet respite for reading or relaxation.

However, instead of welcoming city residents as a central gathering place, the desolate landscape offers little in aesthetic comforts.  The open expanse of bricks is unpleasant to the eye and the rather unorthodox placement of stairs makes the Plaza an eyesore in what has the potential to be one of Boston's premier open spaces.  The present design causes the Plaza to be wind-swept and cold in the winter and offers little shade to provide relief from the heat and humidity of Boston's summers.

In 1994, the city took action to revitalize this space.  Mayor Menino displayed his commitment to revamping the Plaza in sponsoring a citywide competition to develop potential proposals for its redevelopment.  This competition produced a concept for constructing an arcade in the Plaza space.  This arcade, designed by architects Chan Krieger and Associates in collaboration with landscape architects Hargreaves Associates, was conceptualized to fulfill many of the Plaza's originally intended functions, while adding new elements to its design.  The proposal sought both to add visual beauty and increase the Plaza's functionality as a social space.  

In following in the tracks of its initial commitment to investment in the Plaza, the city established the Trust in 1995.  As chartered, this new entity was charged with jump-starting the area's collective redevelopment.  In working toward this goal, the Trust held more than 100 public meetings between 1995 and 1998, hearing the concerns and goals of community groups, design consultants, and related officials from both the public and private sector.



View of planned Community Arcade from City Hall

After this extensive process of community and architectural review, the Trust used the input and advice it had received to develop a Final Concept Plan for revitalizing the Plaza in 1998.  This plan was formally introduced to a panel of independent reviewers later that year and then, in 1999, many of the Trust's recommendations were adopted in the Mayor's office's final report on the Plaza's redevelopment.  

However, this was by no means the end of the story.  Within this 1999 report, the Mayor's Advisory Panel had made it quite clear that something on the Plaza must be done-and done quickly.  This verbal ultimatum proved the city's commitment to the project and its willingness to take action.

In response to this challenge, the Trust not only mobilized the arcade project, but also coordinated its construction with the various developmental projects its Plaza neighbors were planning.  Over the next year, the Trust began working with the GSA, the MBTA, and the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) to discuss how these agencies' individual planning initiative could be molded into a master plan for the Plaza.

Out of these dialogues arose the Plaza's Phase I improvement plan which included the arcade, the MBTA's new Government Center Station, and the GSA's garden and lobby improvements for the JFK Federal Building.  Phase I encompassed the distinctiveness of each of these three projects, while uniting them into a single initiative that brought cohesion to the Plaza's Cambridge Street edge.



The Cambridge Street edge of City Hall Plaza

The central component of this tripartite agreement is the community arcade, which will be located directly in the center of the Plaza.  The structure will consist of 13 stainless steel columns, each of which will measure 16 inches in diameter.  Lights placed at the top and middle of each column will further increase the space's ability to meet various programmatic needs.  When illuminated in concert, these lights will create a distinctive horizontal line of light along the Plaza's Cambridge Street border.  To further light the plaza area, 13 light posts will be placed along the pedestrian walkway, each of which will be 11 feet tall.

Further extending from the structure's columns, hard wooden trellises will be suspended horizontally above the ground, each supported by a galvanized frame and multiple stainless steel suspension rods.  These trellises will be 10 feet high on the Plaza side of the structure and 15 feet high on the Cambridge Street edge.  Above the trellises, the columns will be constructed so as to support large banners, spanning between columns, and/or standard size banners along a single column.  These banners will serve as visually reminders of upcoming Plaza activities and general happenings in the city.

The final piece of the city's involvement in the project is the construction of three seating platforms that will extend over the Plaza's steps.  Each platform will measure 34 feet wide and 8 feet deep and be constructed of hardwood.  These platforms will look down onto the main Plaza area, providing visitors with a nice place to sit and take respite.

Overall the arcade will measure 58 feet high, 300 feet long, and 20 feet deep.  Construction on the project is slated to begin during the first week of August 2000 with a target completion date of December 15, 2000.  The cost of building the arcade will lie somewhere in the range of $2.5 million.  The Trust hopes to have the Plaza completed in time to accommodate a variety of First Night activities.
    
Partly in response to the city's movement on redeveloping the Plaza space and mostly as a result of its own initiative, the MBTA has proposed an initiative to redesign its Government Center train station.  This represents the second component of Phase I redevelopment.  This project, just as with the city's arcade, was brought forth in response to a need for modernization and refinement of a Boston landmark.  Ever since its construction, the station's bunker-like, brick head house has been visually unappealing and recently its interior layout has become increasingly inefficient in fulfilling its basic functions.



City Hall Plaza with JFK Tower Garden and Government Center Station

As a result of these realizations, the MBTA hired City Builders design team (made up of Thomas Design Associates, Inc. in partnership with Systra Consulting) to take the project to the next level.  Out of this relationship, the MBTA and City Builders have devised a multi-faceted initiative that calls for the current head house to be replaced with a more modern and visually pleasing, glass-enclosed one and for the interior space to be redesigned with an eye to greater functionality.  These refinements will bring more natural light into the station and, having been designed in concert with the Plaza arcade proposal, will bring cohesion to the Plaza's architectural landscape.  The new station is scheduled to begin construction in December of 2001 and will be fully completed by 2003.

The final component of this collaborative Phase I development is the GSA's proposal to revitalize the area surrounding the John F. Kennedy Federal Building on Cambridge Street.  Like the Trust's and MBTA's initiatives, this project is comprised of numerous smaller parts.  The most significant of these is the proposed creation of a large garden at the base of the building's tower on the corner of Cambridge and New Sudbury Streets.  

In addition to the garden, visual improvements will be made to the building's Cambridge Street edge, including a new main entrance and further landscaping.  The New Sudbury Street grounds will also undergo a number of enhancements ranging form the inclusion of a new canopy to a comprehensive landscaping treatment of the low-rise section of the building along the Plaza's face.

This project is in the midst of the planning stages and the GSA has just recently submitted a request for federal funding to help carry out its goals.  Pending the approval of federal funds, a more detailed design plan will be developed in 2002 and construction should be underway by 2003.

When viewed individually, each of these three proposals offers a number of exciting improvements to the City Hall Plaza space, however, as a unified planning initiative they will demonstrate the dynamic potential that the Plaza has to offer.  The unity of vision and design inherent in this unique coalition brought together by the Trust displays what can be accomplished if the private and public sectors can join forces in redevelopment.  Without this partnership, the vision these entities shared for the Plaza may have never become a reality.  As a result of the success of their concerted push for action, however, the new City Hall Plaza will soon be transformed into a space that is both visually stunning and architecturally integrated, finally allowing it to realize its full aesthetic potential.



View of City Hall Plaza at night

Ann Donner is Executive Director of the Trust for City Hall Plaza

NB: FutureBoston.org neither endorses nor guarantees the historical accuracy of "Recollections" columns.  All facts and opinions expressed here are taken from informal interviews.

Interview: June 22, 2000  |  Last Updated: July 18, 2000