The large-scale redevelopment of Boston’s Seaport district is part of a $22 billion dollar attempt to turn a working waterfront into a mixed-use urban neighborhood. Spread over 20 blocks on a former working harbor just outside of downtown, the district has long been slated to become an “innovation district,” with more than a dozen office towers, and space for residential and retail use. But making a neighborhood from scratch is not always easy. One of its key designers wanted to make sure it didn’t become an isolated dead zone.
“The tendency for developments at this scale is the developer is always wanting to internalize the project, to turn it inwards,” says landscape architect James Corner, founder of James Corner Field Operations. “I always find those places bereft of urban life. They’re often empty and sterile simply because they’re not connected to anything.”
Instead, the master plan for the Seaport district, designed by architecture and urban design firm Sasaki, focused on forging connections to its impressive surroundings—the waterfront and the city’s downtown. Opening this month, the first completed phase of the project is Harbor Way, a linear promenade and central public park that carve pathways through the site. Corner, whose firm is known for its work on New York City’s High Line, calls it “a pedestrian armature” that will connect the city to the harbor.
Situated in between blocks of complete and nearly complete buildings that will make up this mixed-use district when construction wraps in 2024, Harbor Way turns what could have been a street into a pedestrian-focused civic and commercial space. Lined with trees, seating areas, and the frontages of stores and restaurants, it’s intended to draw people in and also help redraw connections to the waterfront.
The linear promenade connects to a wider central green space that is intended to be used year-round, even through Boston’s generally frigid winters. Corner says the park space embraces the region’s climate, with evergreen trees to provide wintertime canopy and maples, oaks, and cherries for spring and fall color.
Year-round programming will also help, as will the retail and restaurants that are beginning to open along Harbor Way. Mostly though, the project aims to insinuate itself into its surroundings by creating connections beyond the ends of its new promenade. “It knits the development into the fabric of the city,” Corner says.