Makeovers are set for five lobbies

Blackstone, the largest owner of office space in Boston, will spend millions of dollars redesigning and modernizing the lobbies of five prominent towers - even adding commissioned artwork - to better compete with newer buildings and towers opening over the next few years.
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Buildings that will get new, friendlier looks on their ground floors and at entrances over the next 18 months include:

One Post Office Square, 60 State St., the Center Plaza offices across from City Hall, 225 Franklin St., and 150 Federal St.

Yesterday, the Boston Redevelopment Authority approved the plan for One Post Office Square.

The company will spend an estimated $60 million on renovations, said Gregory P. Shay, president of Equity Office, the Blackstone unit that owns 22 buildings in the Boston area. The improvements will give the company a leg up in a competitive office market.

The vacancy rate is 5 to 7 percent in top-quality office buildings downtown, Shay said yesterday.

"A lot of our competition is now coming from new buildings, and it's hard for 30- to 40-year-old buildings to compete," he said.

At the BRA meeting yesterday, Blackstone's architect, Robert Brown of the Boston firm CBT, showed the plan for a significant expansion of the three-story lobby of One Post Office Square. It would consolidate three security desks into one, extend the exterior glass walls toward the curb, and add 2,000 square feet of coffee shop or other retail space.

"It will be a good place for repose," Brown said, "and at the same time invigorate the sidewalk," where new trees will be planted. "It's a great opportunity to take an existing piece of the city and put a fresh new face on it."

The changes at the five buildings would be instantly noticeable to anyone who has gotten used to narrow entrances, lobbies crowded with security desks, and sidewalks that need new paving or additional lighting.

"They are trying to open it up and make more accessible the entire public realm of the ground floor of these buildings," said Kairos Shen, the city's director of planning, who has been working with Blackstone planners for several months.

In many cases, the lobbies are difficult for tenants and visitors to maneuver in because of the increased security restrictions that followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

State-of-the-technology turnstiles and security systems will be installed in some buildings.

"We have been against having a security desk in a very prominent location," Shen said. "It's like doormen - people are discouraged to go through."

Shen said that in several cases, Blackstone's plans are to expand the lobbies out onto sidewalk areas, making the entrances more visible, and giving lackluster openings character and style.

"They're doing the sidewalks in a much more organized way," including planting trees, Shen said.

Some buildings will also get new lighting up to their rooftops, giving them more prominence at night and enhancing the nighttime skyline.

Blackstone's plan for 150 Federal includes moving the main entrance around the corner to High Street, which now has a secondary entrance, and renaming the building to reflect new, modern space on High Street. Most of the plans require further city approvals.

Blackstone executives and city officials said that as part of the improvements to the plazas or sidewalks, the company has agreed to pay for public art. The art would be permanent, typically some sort of sculpture on the sidewalk. The process of selecting the type of art and specific artists is just beginning, Shen said.

Other Boston building owners have made similar moves recently. One Washington Square, managed by Jones Lang LaSalle, recently unveiled a new lobby and entrance near Court Street. And, nearby, the owners of One Boston Place are undertaking improvements.

Blackstone, a private equity firm, paid $39 billion early this year for the entire portfolio of Chicago-based Equity Office Properties Trust, including about 11 million square feet in 22 buildings in the Boston area, 17 of them downtown.

Though it has since resold some buildings elsewhere, the company still has almost all of its Boston holdings. Its executives view the office market here as rapidly recovering and have determined they could profit from rising rents.

In fact, the firm quickly began asking for higher rents, leading to what executives in the industry have called "the Blackstone effect" - upward pressure on rents in the overall Boston market, which in some cases have gone above $80 per square foot.

source: boston.com