A 59 story, 705 foot-high, 419-residence, 605,000 square foot mixed-use building has been proposed for 1 Bromfield Street in Downtown Crossing. The developer, Midwood Investment and Development, has owned downtown real estate for over two decades, but this is their first development project. According to the filing with the Boston Redevelopment Authority, 13 percent of the units will be affordable.
The approximately 23,768 square foot site, at the intersection of Bromfield and Washington Streets, is currently occupied by four commercial buildings from the 19th century containing 80,000 square feet of space. Washington Street is pedestrianized and the site is literally less than a minute from the Downtown Crossing Red and Orange Lines or the State Street Orange and Blue Lines and maybe two minutes from the Green and Red Lines on Park Street. Naturally, then, despite the existing traffic congestion and pedestrianization, the developers want to bring 235 parking spaces to the building.
Walking and taking the T would be so much faster to pretty much every destination within at least a mile of this building site.
The first three levels of the building will be retail space, which the filing touts as a public benefit, along with the boring glass modernism, even though the site already has existing retail and good architecture.
