Dive Brief:

• Nothing if not audacious, a project disclosed by well-known New England developer Don Chiofaro would replace an eight-story concrete block of a parking garage on the Boston waterfront with residential and commercial towers of 500 and 600 feet and public space virtually on the doorstep of the New England Aquarium.
• The project is squarely in space regulated under Massachusetts coastal-protection law and needs rezoning to exceed the current 400-foot height limit for the waterfront.
• The cost is estimated to be $1 billion, including $180 million to sink what is now above-ground parking into the ground under the project.

Dive Insight:

The Chiofaro Company bought the Boston Harbor Garage seven years ago, paying $153 million, but proposals for redevelopment did not fly with the city administration at the time. Now there is a renewed proposal for the 1.3-acre parcel. Chiofaro's plan, designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, would replace the garage with 1.3 million square feet and an open space with a retractable roof for open air events in summer and ice skating in winter.