Among the projects in an overall plan to revitalize the district is One Franklin Street, a redevelopment of the vacant Filene's department store and adjacent buildings into a mixed-use project that will stack retail, hotel, office and residential space on one city block. The project will contain 339,000 sf of retail, 242,000 sf of hotel space, 506,000 sf of office space and 257,000 sf of residential units in the area bounded by Summer, Franklin, Washington and Hawley streets.
"Our objective was to create more density, more height on a very important block in that district," said John B. Hynes III, president and CEO of Boston-based Gale International. The company is working with owner Vornado Realty and designer Elkus Manfredi to create the project. "I don't think this could be done anywhere but Downtown Crossing."
Space at One Franklin will be stacked, with Filene's Basement taking three levels underground, topped by four levels of retail, then four levels of hotel, 17 floors of office space and 14 levels of residential units. Retail tenants could include restaurants, a grocer, apparel stores, a big box, and a health club.
Plans call for the Filene's store to be demolished with Filene's Basement to be closed for a 15- to 18-month period during construction. Construction is scheduled to begin in January 2008, with opening scheduled in December 2010.
The Downtown Crossing area has always reinvented itself, said Ronald M. Druker, president of Boston-based Druker Co., which was involved in an earlier redevelopment of one section of the district. Downtown Crossing was a department store core in the 1910s, evolving into an entertainment district by the 1930s. It continued to survive, despite retailer flights to suburban shopping centers in the 1960s and 1970s.
"What began to happen was a conflict with the automobile," Druker recalled. The creation of a unified Downtown Crossing district in 1978 helped the neighborhood continue to thrive. "As we look forward, those of us who own significant property in Downtown Crossing are very excited."
Macy's consolidation of its namesake store with Filene's has created a hole in the region that will be filled with mixed-use. One Franklin is just one part of an overall plan created by the Boston Redevelopment Authority in 2006 to recreate and remarket the greater Downtown Crossing area as a live/work/play environment.
"We have $1.2 billion in redevelopment over the next five years," said Andrew Gale, project manager and senior urban designer of the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
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