From PCJ General Manager Betsey Krumholz:
Being from Vermont you'll have to excuse our personal interest in the Boston Red Sox. But we think you'll find the following Red Sox story worth hearing about -- especially in light of the article on charrettes just published in our Summer issue:
“For ten days [in August 2000], an air of controlled chaos characterized Room L308 in the Library Building at Simmons College in Boston. Chalkboards were crammed full of random, late-night-inspired ideas written in a vaguely decipherable scrawl. Reference books, rolls of trace paper, markers, and miscellaneous drafting tools piled high on a ragtag collection of worktables. Clumps of wires and cords stretched across the room to power laptop computers, CAD stations, printers and copiers. Empty Coke bottles unceremoniously scattered the floor. Amongst it all, clusters of casually dressed professionals and curious visitors feverishly debated the intricacies of traffic counts, aisle widths, and historic preservation standards above the combined din of ringing cell phones and a borrowed boom box pumping out strains of Elvis Costello and the Attractions.”
-- From Design Symposium A Rousing Success! Summary Report by Jeffrey Harris of Save Fenway Park.
Charrettes gather professionals, community leaders, and passionate citizens under one roof for one purpose. When done properly they harness imagination, balanced by fact and reason, and the results can be surprising. While many charrettes are organized by planning officials or development interests, this is the story of how community advocates used the charrette process to reframe one very important development discussion, and challenged public officials to see things differently.
From the earliest whispers that the Boston Red Sox were planning to build a new ballpark, the Save Fenway Park (SFP) volunteers understood clearly the threat to the historic park.
The Red Sox organization had a comprehensive vision which included not only a brand new facility, but the major redevelopment of the surrounding neighborhood. With support from the Mayor’s Office (and a big advertising budget) it appeared that the deal was done, and Fenway Park would become yet another piece of Red Sox history.
But the SFP team was not out yet. The Fenway Community Development Corporation (FCDC) had been working for several years on its “Urban Village Plan” which envisioned new affordable housing and a more attractive environment for retail and other commercial uses along an under-developed section of the main thoroughfare through the neighborhood. The location and footprint of the beloved Fenway Park, and its associated uses, loomed large in this planning.
Both SFP and the FCDC were frustrated with the “public” planning process charted by the Boston Redevelopment Authority (and the Red Sox organization) as the city deliberated the re-zoning of the neighborhood to accommodate the demands of the team. The neighborhood groups felt that the process was geared only toward the development of a new stadium, and had not sufficiently considered the possibility that keeping the existing stadium could, in fact, be a better option.
Working on a shoestring, they contacted media outlets, handed out bumper stickers, called elected officials, and wrote grants. But they needed a real and convincing alternative -- something viable and visual -- to convince both the public AND the team that Fenway Park could be saved. They also needed experts, imagination ... and money.
Dan Wilson of Save Fenway Park contacted Philip Bess, an architecture professor (now at Notre Dame University) known as an advocate for urban ballparks. Intrigued by the project, Bess agreed to assemble a team of experts to lead the community through a comprehensive visioning process. Photo on left of Bess speaking at the charrette.
Carl Koechlin, Executive Director of the FCDC, signed on to offer expertise and credibility, and secured critical seed money from a neighborhood foundation. Computer support, food, lodging, and anything else that came up was organized by Erika Tarlin of SFP.
Volunteers called everyone they knew to ask for supplies, time, space, and money as they set a date in August for a week-long charrette (which they renamed a symposium because the term charrette was not yet in the public lexicon).
City and Red Sox officials were both informed of and invited to attend the event, but did not sign up to participate officially. Local architects, engineers, planners, transportation experts, citizens, and baseball aficionados did sign on. Photo on right: some of the charrette participants.
Timing proved to be everything. In late July of 2000, the Massachusetts Legislature passed a funding bill that provided a substantial chunk of money for the new stadium. However, it wasn’t quite enough. It was the opening this group needed -- and the charrette began with great optimism on August 5, 2000.
Despite the chaos described in the opening paragraph, the design teams were well prepared and well organized. Divided into teams representing three critical aspects of the project (transportation, historic preservation, and the “business” requirements for seating, improved facilities and training space), the process was led by professionals who understood the necessity for a plan that would work.
top above: section perspective drawing by Rolando Llanes; immediately above: potential Fenway improvements shown in rendering by Howard Decker. reprinted with permission of Save Fenway Park. Click on each image to view it at a larger size.
The results were proof of the charrette’s sensitivity to both the business needs of the organization and the desires of the neighborhood.
This story continues to be written. A change in team ownership, a review of the financial data, and other circumstances caused the Red Sox organization to take another look. The neighborhood’s enthusiasm for their iconic structure led to a process that opened up new ways of thinking for everyone involved. The City discovered that planning is not always controlled by the folks at the top, and the resulting plans for incremental changes to Fenway Park and the surrounding neighborhood will serve the team, the fans, and the community for years to come.
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For more details:
Jeffrey Francis, of Save Fenway Park, gives a great overview of the participants and the process in his excellent article, Design Symposium a Rousing Success.
The complete proposal based on the findings from the charrette can be viewed online at Homefield Advantage.
Related stories:
"...Not long ago, the Save Fenway crowd looked like crazies. The crazies turned out to be right. Who now will save Boston?" by Steve Bailey, Boston Globe, Aug. 18, 2006 (posted on the Save Fenway website).
The Future Fenway Symposium, by Jeffrey Harris and Randy Divinski (published in Elysian Fields Quarterly -- The Baseball Review).
