Seaport Square approval is re-approved

(Rendering courtesy of MS Seaport LLC)

Aerial view of the proposed Seaport Square.

By Cara Bayles, Globe Correspondent

On Tuesday, the Boston Civic Design Commission heard an extensive presentation on the Seaport District from several architects and Boston Global Investors CEO John Hynes.

It all came a month after the commission had already approved the project.

"That was a little unusual," conceded commission vice-chair Michael Davis, who explained that Boston Global had already won over commission members in subcommittee and hadn't prepared an exhaustive presentation for the full commission meeting on August 3rd.

"We had voted in our last monthly meeting to approve the project, but we weren't really satisfied with the level of presentation from the development team," Davis said. "We voted to approve it on the condition that they come back and do a show and tell of the whole project, so we could all feel convinced by it."

Hynes spoke about how the project would live up to the city's "innovation district" designation, and architects James von Klemperer and Rafi Segal explained the philosophy behind the design and how it would be integrated into Fort Point and the Harborwalk. They were about an hour into their PowerPoint before the Commissioners cut them short and thanked them for the thorough presentation.

In addition to the BCDC approval from last month, Seaport Square also earned state environmental approval on August 18th.

The Seaport Square project is due to break ground in the summer of 2011. The 23-acre, $3.5 billion mixed use development would include 2.8 million square feet of residential space and 1.3 million square feet of retail space, and aims to get LEED-Silver certification status, which would make it one of the largest sustainable development projects in the country.