When James Hook Lobster Co. on Boston’s Northern Avenue burned down in a seven-alarm blaze in the spring of 2008, it didn’t just threaten a great place for a lobster roll.
Many feared it would prove the end of 83 years of tradition – one of the last surviving connections from the heart of downtown Boston to the working waterfront that gave birth to downtown Boston in the first place.
But Hook fought back, reopened and has seen its business bounce back, and now its owners have dreams of reaching for the stars, proposing from what’s now decrepit piers a 22-story skyscraper with about 100 condominiums or apartments, saving ground floor space and a deck over the water for a continued Hook Lobster business. The location is right on the Fort Point Channel where the new Northern Avenue bridge connects with Atlantic Avenue, just across the Rose Kennedy Greenway from International Place and across the water from the federal courthouse and Innovation District.
Hook and developer William Zielinski of SKW Partners say it’s still very early in the development process, and the plans are still very conceptual and subject to revision as the city rezones the area and they work with neighbors and harbor access advocates to refine the design.
But the reaction from many harbor advocates has not been "no way" but more like: "Let’s talk."
"It's a fabulous , because you're going to have views of both the harbor and the Rose Kennedy Greenway," Vivien Li, executive director of The Boston Harbor Association, said in an interview Tuesday afternoon. She said her group has a lot of questions about how much construction, parking, and traffic can be accommodated in that area. "This is going to be a very tight site, so they've really crammed a lot of activity into that very tight site," Li said. But, she said, she understands why so many people would want to live there and enjoy dining and drinks there.
"Our city's become so much more attractive, our harbor is clean, and so they're trying to capitalize on having harbor views as well as Greenway views, which is a good thing," Li said.
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Residents of Harbor Towers nearby, one of the biggest residential complexes in the vicinity, have been battling with developer Donald Chiofaro over his plans to replace the Aquarium garage with towers soaring hundreds of feet. But Lee Kozol, chair of the Harbor Towers Garage Committee, said of the Hook plan: "Unlike the Chiofaro/Prudential team, the Hook group is proposing something slender and about 300 feet in height, which is at least worth discussing. It is more than the state [Chapter 91] waterfront protection law, zoning, or the Greenway District Guidelines would allow -- but the scale is reasonably consistent with the rest of the waterfront, its height being about the same as the nearby InterContinental Hotel."
The project does face big regulatory hurdles. It’s about five times as tall as what current city zoning would allow to be erected, and the city’s also several months from winding up a long, complicated process of rezoning the area from South Station to Long Wharf, and any Hook tower would have to either comply with the new zoning or get a variance from the Boston Redevelopment Authority with support from Mayor Martin J. Walsh. And because it is so close to the water on filled-in tidelands, the project would also have to get separate state environmental approvals as well.
"For the developers," Li said, "they’re in it for at least another year in terms of the municipal harbor planning process and then approval by the state, and after that, they still have to get their regular permits. So when will we see a shovel in the ground there? That probably won't be for at least another two years, assuming no appeals, no litigation, if it went very smoothly."
With videographer Daniel A. Valente Jr. and video editor Beth Kidwell
