At this week’s groundbreaking ceremony, Skanska and CBT Architects unveiled the rendering for 121 Seaport in Boston. The tower’s distinctive elliptical design was created to enhance the area’s artistic architectural landscape, maximize the skyline viewable from Seaport Square Green and reduce solar heat gain.
Skanska USA Commercial Development, joined by Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh and CBT Architects, broke ground this week on the city’s newest office tower - 121 Seaport - a 17-story, 400,000-square-foot Class-A office building with two floors of retail - in Boston’s Seaport District.
Located at the corner of Seaport Boulevard and East Service Road, 121 Seaport’s unique design is meant to promote innovation and collaboration, and increase employee productivity in the workplace. This highly sustainable building, which is targeting LEED Platinum certification, will feature a number of amenities and open spaces.
“It is a top priority for us to design world-class office buildings like 121 Seaport that can attract talented, bright minds that have helped solidify Boston’s international reputation as an intellectual, forward-thinking city,” said Shawn Hurley, executive vice president for Skanska USA Commercial Development in Boston. “We recognize and have seen first-hand how companies succeed when employees thrive in their work environments. We’ve designed 121 Seaport to match how people work best in what is fast becoming Boston’s most desired neighborhood to live and work in.”
At the event, Skanska unveiled 121 Seaport’s rendering. The tower’s distinctive elliptical design was created to enhance the area’s artistic architectural landscape, maximize the skyline viewable from Seaport Square Green and reduce solar heat gain.
The high-rise building will employ a 40,000-gallon tank rainwater reuse system, reducing its water use by approximately 30 percent. The building will also include a highly-efficient chilled-beam mechanical system, which was first pioneered in Boston at Skanska’s 101 Seaport. The system circulates water rather than air for building cooling, significantly reducing energy usage.
121 Seaport’s floor plates will be virtually column-free, creating more flexible workspaces that offer tenants the ability to customize their space to accommodate business growth over time and meet the specific needs of employees wanting private or open collaborative spaces. Elevated 10-foot ceiling heights coupled with high-performance vision glass will provide plenty of natural daylight deep into the building’s office spaces while simultaneously offering views of Boston Harbor and the Financial District.
“121 Seaport’s slender form, crisp and cutting-edge lines, and green values celebrate the innovative spirit of the neighborhood, while delivering a much-desired bold new form in the heart of the Seaport District,” said David Nagahiro, Principal at CBT Architects in Boston. “This bold new building will energize and engage with our city from street level to the skyline and serve as a catalyst for innovative design in the Seaport and beyond.”
The three-story lobby, with its ultra-clear vision glass, will face Seaport Square Green and Boston Harbor while the entrance will open to Harbor Way, an expansive 70-foot-wide pedestrian retail promenade with approximately 15,000-square feet of tree-lined open space at the building’s base.
The building’s location is immediately adjacent to the MBTA’s Silver Line and within short walking distance to South Station. It also offers 230 bike parking spaces and 270 underground parking spaces with close proximity to I-93 and I-90.
121 Seaport joins Skanska’s two additional Seaport developments - 101 Seaport, a 17-story, 440,000-square-foot office tower with 20,000-square-feet of ground floor retail which will be home to PwC’s new headquarters come October 2015, and Watermark Seaport, a 300,000-square-foot residential building with ground floor retail that is currently underway with pre-leasing scheduled to begin this fall.