Boston Redevelopment Authority, Boston, MA
Creating Boston’s Next Great Place: Boston Common on the Waterfront
Over the last 10 years, this plan has guided Fort Point Channel’s transformation from a neglected urban waterway to one of Boston’s most lively and distinctive public places, linking Boston’s historic core to its emerging Innovation District. Envisioned as a funky destination that mixes cultural uses with office, hotel, residential, water-related businesses, and waterside eating and entertainment venues, the Watersheet Plan focuses on use of the waterway and its edges to create a unique place in the city. Today, Fort Point’s watersheet hosts a diverse and distinctive mix of water-based activities—from rowing races to Boston Tea Party re-enactments to artistic and cultural performances.
Goody Clancy led development of the plan on behalf of a public-private partnership among the City of Boston, landowners, the arts community, and the non-profit group Save the Harbor/Save the Bay.
Notable elements envisioned in the plan and now completed include:
- More than one mile of expanded public access to the water’s edge, including new park space and waterfront plazas, and reconstruction of two bridges
- Completion of more than two million square feet of new or rehabilitated hotel, restaurant, office and residential space at the channel’s edge
- Major expansions to cultural anchors, the Boston Children’s Museum and the Boston Tea Party Ship and museum
- Establishment of a unique program of water-based arts, cultural and recreational programming coordinated by the Friends of Fort Point Channel, established to guide ongoing management and programming
