Pru advisory panel vows openness

An artist's rendering of the new plaza at street level in front of the proposed 242-foot office building at 888 Boylston St. (CBT Architects)

By Justin A. Rice Globe Correspondent / October 5, 2008

As the fight over the height of two new towers continues, the embattled advisory board charged with overseeing Prudential Center expansions since 1988 is bowing to community pressure to be more transparent.

To the chagrin of many Back Bay residents, the Prudential Project Advisory Committee, or PruPAC, is poised to allow the towers at the already mammoth complex to exceed the 155-foot limit under current zoning.

But at a Sept. 25 meeting of PruPAC's subcommittee on community benefits, the group showed signs of a new openness. Democratic state Representative Marty Walz of Back Bay, a member of PruPAC for almost two years, called the subcommittee together to clarify how PruPAC doles out community benefits payments pledged by developers.

As with past Prudential Center developments, community benefits for the proposed 242-foot office building at 888 Boylston St. and a proposed 27-story residential tower on Exeter Street would be allocated to neighborhood organizations that PruPAC approves. PruPAC also recommends Pru projects for Boston Redevelopment Authority approval.

"In the past, PruPAC did not meet in public and does now, and that is a good thing in my view," said Walz, who was unable to attend the Sept. 25 meeting. "So it is a step in the right direction."

Walz said PruPAC members affiliated with an applicant for funds should disclose those connections in the future.

Disclosure is a sticking point for longtime Back Bay resident and neighborhood activist Shirley Kressel, who is trained as a landscape architect. At the Sept. 25 meeting she argued that money is motivating PruPAC's inclination to sign off on the taller towers.

"The more square feet that's approved, the more money you get," Kressel said, referring to the fact that PruPAC would control $1.25 in community benefits per square foot. "That's an incentive to approve it."

Boston Properties pledged a combined $471,999 in community benefits when the two towers were first proposed in 1990. That money remains on the table, although PruPAC members said they will eventually ask for an inflation adjustment. Then, PruPAC would accept grant applications from community groups.

In the interest of transparency, PruPAC members agreed to hold off on funding decisions.

"The initial consensus is we shouldn't have a meeting until after PruPAC puts in recommendations so it doesn't look like we're being bought off," PruPAC president Betsy Johnson said at the meeting.

Johnson pointed out the current conflict of interest of board vice president, Elliott Laffer, who was not at the meeting. Laffer is executive director of the Boston Ground Water Trust, which was allotted $50,000 in community benefits for the first four phases of Prudential construction. However, he was not employed by the city at that time.

Johnson also said the South End Land Trust, for which she volunteers, received $100,000 last time around, but said another PruPAC member nominated the group for funding.

On Sept. 25, Johnson suggested she'd be willing to forgo future money donated to the Land Trust, but during a phone interview the next day she was disappointed by the lack of trust in PruPAC.

"It's harming a neighborhood and 600 other people for what seems to be pettiness," she said.

In 1989, PruPAC handled $1,384,000 in community benefits tied to the complex's shopping arcade, the Prudential tower, the Belvedere apartments, Shaw's Supermarket, and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, which opens this week.

Responding to Kressel's claim that money is motivating PruPAC's support of height increases, both Johnson and BRA senior project manager John O'Brien said they made developers come down from 265 feet to 242 feet on the 888 Boylston building to minimize shadows.

"Your argument that the bigger the better, it's not true, it's not true," O'Brien told Kressel on Sept. 25. "We got it down in size."

Walz is also opposed to building above 155 feet, which Johnson says is allowed because the two towers are designated Special Project Development Areas. A similar exemption was given to the Mandarin hotel in 2002, according to Kressel, allowing it to increase in height from 120 feet to 150.

Johnson said she understands that neighbors who helped hash out the original Back Bay zoning code don't like the idea of overhauling it, but she said there's a bigger picture to consider in terms of discouraging sprawl.

"It's five stories on the back side of the Pru within a corridor of Back Bay's tallest buildings," Johnson said.

About 20 residents expressed their disapproval of the project during a BRA meeting at the Boston Public Library on Sept. 23. The BRA said the public comment period would end Oct. 31. Johnson, however, said PruPAC's vote was likely to come the week of Oct. 13 or 27.

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