Parks plan mired by turf battle

First of three parts

The effort to establish a cohesive set of parks and buildings on the mile-long strip of land created by the submersion of the Central Artery -- one of the most anticipated new urban spaces in any American city in a century -- is faltering in the final stages because of political turf battles, colliding visions, and key details that are still not in place, according to those involved in the planning process.

Although the elevated highway will be almost completely demolished this summer, and the planning for filling the open space left in its wake has been going on for nearly two decades, critical elements remain unresolved. Chief among them is uncertainty over who will manage the land.

The struggle for control of the Rose Kennedy Greenway -- as the Legislature has named the land -- among the city, the Romney administration, and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority has in turn become a drag on design. Several features of the planned parkland, from cobblestones to innovative lighting, have been put on hold because it is not clear who will maintain them.

The conditions are not conducive to creating lively public spaces like those in Paris, New York, or San Francisco, design professionals say. Four different groups or outside designers have issued critiques in the last two months, pointing out shortcomings in the three major park sections and charging that the parks and the proposed buildings along the corridor don't hang together as a whole. Instead of a meeting ground and destination for people throughout the region, the Greenway as currently designed could become a disparate set of neighborhood parks, shaped and constrained by nearby residents who regard the space as their front yard, some warn.

"What you're seeing is a reduction of the plan to a compromise that satisfies as many of the interest groups and abutters as possible," said Rob Tuchmann, cochairman of the Mayor's Surface Artery Completion Task Force, which was set up to monitor proposed designs. "That may not be the worst thing in the world. We have time to make improvements and see how the park is used. But it would have been wonderful if we had leadership to begin with."

The management question

The lack of resolution on the management issue and the questions raised by the recent critiques have led to grave concern among civic and political leaders that a two-decade-long planning process is sputtering just when it should be in its triumphant homestretch.

Indications of problems began around April, when Gary Hack, dean of the school of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and head of a special advisory panel on the Greenway, dispatched the first in a series of four memos saying the design proposals were in some cases a mishmash, and that decision-making was muddled.

Then last month, the Boston Society of Architects said the proposed designs for the Wharf District, the central section of the Greenway between Faneuil Hall and the New England Aquarium, were bland and uninviting, and that the entire process should be called to a temporary halt.

At the same time, Toronto-based urban designer Ken Greenberg, hired by Mayor Thomas M. Menino to strengthen the city's hand in charting the course of the Greenway, wrote a study suggesting that key crossroads along the corridor needed significant work.

Finally, last week, the Artery Business Committee, which represents downtown property owners and businesses, and the Boston Foundation released a study that echoed Greenberg's view, urging that improvements to private property along the edges of the corridor be integrated into the Greenway plans.

Other missing pieces have yet to be filled in. There are currently no detailed plans for what designers call "programming," the events, concerts, and gatherings that often mean the difference between success and failure in public spaces. No one seems to agree on exactly where the main visitor center should be, or the locations of kiosks, pushcarts, and other amenities. And the sidewalks and streets are laid out in such a way as to make it difficult for people to get across the Greenway, from Faneuil Hall to Christopher Columbus Park, for example.

Many of the outside critics attribute the design's shortcomings to the lack of a clear leader or agency guiding the planning process.

The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is in charge of restoring the surface land atop the submerged Big Dig as a component of the $14.6 billion highway project. The authority hired designers for the three major park sections -- the North End, the Wharf District, and Chinatown -- provided a $31 million budget, and began issuing development rights for the parts of the Greenway that are to be built on. The authority's chairman, Matthew J. Amorello, says that the city of Boston is a full partner in developing the Greenway, which runs through the heart of downtown. But Menino and top aides Mark Maloney and Rebecca Barnes have been critical of the authority's approach, and Greenberg was brought in to give the city fresh ideas and direction.

Governor Mitt Romney has also jumped into the fray, asserting that a highway agency should not be in charge of such precious parkland. Romney wants to put the Greenway under state control, taking it away from the Turnpike Authority, an agency he wants to eliminate.

In the last few months, the uncertainty over management has had a clear impact on the Greenway's design, said Richard Dimino, president of the Artery Business Committee. Designers aren't sure who their ultimate client will be. Decisions are put off. Multiple constituencies are left to squabble over issues large and small.

"The situation is far from ideal, in light of the fact that there's still no defined public custodian that would be responsible for operations, maintenance, and programming," Dimino said. "It's important to have someone who will be operating the parks sitting right there in the design process."

Senator Edward M. Kennedy has offered to broker a power-sharing deal, most likely involving an independent trust or conservancy to raise part of the estimated $10 million that will be needed each year to maintain the land. But a deadlock remains on which government entity would partner with such a conservancy -- the city, the state, or the Turnpike Authority. Kennedy wants the governance issue resolved before the Democratic National Convention, now about six weeks away. The senator's father-in-law, Judge Edmund Reggie, has begun to play a prominent role in brokering a deal.

As long as the long-term management remains unsettled, the design issues will be difficult to resolve, Tuchmann, Dimino, and others say. For example, the San Francisco-based design firm EDAW, hired by the Turnpike Authority with Boston firm Copley-Wolff Associations to draw up plans for the Wharf District parks, proposed that the area be mostly lawn. City planners argued for a hard surface -- not so much for aesthetic reasons, but mostly because they worry that the grass won't be properly maintained.

Neighborhood involvement

The lack of firm leadership has led to a dynamic in which the neighborhoods along the Greenway -- the North End, Downtown, and Chinatown -- have been flexing their muscle, negotiating directly with the designers hired by the Turnpike Authority. Because the chief aim of the Turnpike Authority, city officials say, is to get the Greenway finished, the neighborhood demands -- section by section -- are generally accommodated.

Residents say they deserve a seat at the table, not least because of all the disruption the Central Artery and the Big Dig have caused.

"We want this to be something the city and the state can be proud of, but it is in our community and we want it to be sensitive to our community and reflect the community's needs," said Susan Lavoie, a resident of Harbor Towers, who has been meeting regularly with fellow neighbors at the Boston Harbor Hotel to critique EDAW's Wharf District plans.

The residents from Harbor Towers and Rowes Wharf worry that a proposed nautilus-shaped fountain in front of the aquarium will be too tall and will splash water around in the wind; they want no loud concerts, and no large gatherings late into the night.

Not lacking for funds, they even hired their own design firm, Sasaki Associates, to help articulate their objections. A Sasaki memo from a recent meeting critiqued everything from the proposed placement of trees to ideas EDAW has floated to evoke Boston's maritime past.

In the North End, residents have similarly been picking over plans for the two centerpiece neighborhood parks, at the mouth of the Callahan and Sumner tunnels. The design firms Crosby, Schlessinger & Smallridge and Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd. have proposed two rectangular spaces with long strips of water, a pergola or trellis, and extensive gardens.

Some have complained that the parks aren't Italian enough to reflect the dominant ethnicity of the neighborhood. At one recent meeting residents peppered the designers with suggestions, such as providing more trash cans, and changing the shape of the pergola to discourage pigeons from perching there. The Boston Society of Architects warned that the parks will look too lush and suburban for an urban setting.

A handful of Commercial Street residents, led by North End activist Daniel Nuzzo, is seeking a more fundamental change: an extension of the North End parks to the spot where exit ramps come up from the Big Dig tunnels. Turnpike officials have proposed a building for the site, with housing and retail, and argue that a park over the ramps won't work, because the green space would be elevated and difficult to enter. But Nuzzo has vowed to fight the development proposal.

A powerful alliance between Chinatown and the Leather District, meanwhile, has helped give residents of those neighborhoods extensive control over the small parks in their section of the Greenway; however, disagreements continue over further landscape improvements that would be made by private developers.

In Chinatown, the issue is not so much the surface park near the Chinatown gate -- in the final stages of design under Carol R. Johnson Associates and the Beijing-based design firm Turenscape, also hired by the Turnpike Authority -- as the privately owned spaces along Surface Road, where the Big Dig runs underground, said Leather District resident David Seeley.

Property owners and developers have promised to build attractive spaces with outdoor cafes and the like, but residents remain skeptical, Seeley said. "It's created a bunch of interesting dynamics," he said.

At a meeting with residents earlier this year, Tim Love, principal at the architectural firm Utile Inc., flashed images of colorful murals and sidewalk cafes to suggest how the area could be transformed with the help of private developers. But residents seemed unimpressed. An elderly couple, wearing headphones to hear the slideshow's narration in Cantonese, remained expressionless throughout.

"People don't want to see parks developed for one property owner," said Stephanie Fan, a Chinatown neighborhood leader. "We want the parks to work for the whole neighborhood."

Chinatown and the Leather District have an interest in demonstrating their neighborhood clout in the area, said Love, because an even bigger district of future growth is about to be developed, on the turnpike-owned parcels south of Kneeland Street, not far from South Station and at the portals for the Big Dig tunnels. The Turnpike Authority invited proposals on that land earlier this month. Residents say they want open space and affordable housing to be big parts of any development there.

Love said the neighborhood input is "democracy in action," but he and others say the Greenway is too important to be negotiated solely in Boston's neighborhood-vs.-developers manner. For one thing, they say, proposals that are unconventional or would draw people from afar tend to get shelved -- such as a carousel, a skating rink, a Ferris wheel, a tethered hot-air balloon, a light-and-laser display, or a portion of the Central Artery left standing as a viewing platform.

"You can have a pleasant place that offends the least number of people," said Love, "or a place that takes some aesthetic risks, that becomes a must-see stop for cultural tourism."

Fred Yalouris, the Turnpike Authority's top architect on the project, said the authority has incorporated numerous changes suggested by critics over the last two years. The basic framework for the parks is being set, and they will evolve over time, he said. In addition, Yalouris said he is gathering all Greenway designers together every month to make sure signs, plantings, and sidewalks are uniform all along the corridor.

But if Greenway planning doesn't aim higher, and the parks are a series of "pretty suburban gardens," a phrase used by the Boston Society of Architects in the group's critique, the prized stretch of land won't attract visitors or city residents, said David Dixon, principal at Goody, Clancy, and a member of the society.

"The biggest loss would be the lack of common ground, to bring everyone together, because we don't have that," Dixon said. "We don't have a zoo that everyone goes to. Not everyone goes to Downtown Crossing. We don't have a place where everybody comes together, and we could have that on the Greenway. Instead we're going to get a nice set of neighborhood parks."

Said landscape architect Martha Schwartz: "These spaces are symbols for people who live in the city, places to talk about, pictures on postcards, places for people to come and see. It's like a really good book, or a painting, or a movie. There has to be a strong feeling behind it, a memory created by it. But that takes civic leadership. It takes a mayor or a City Council, making demands."

Anthony Flint can be reached at flint@globe.com