GAIMS Collaborative
Parcel H | Development Submission April 2019 Grace Palmer | Ashutosh Singhal | Isaac Stein | Maksim Wynn | Sydney Fang
Introduction Boston’s Seaport is a district defined by connection and opportunity. Known for its seafaring traditions and knowledge economy future, the area maintains its status as a gateway to Boston and an epicenter of industry, jobs, and mobility. But affordability and inequality crises paired with environmental realities face the Seaport with significant challenges. The GAIMS Collaborative, an experienced, mission-driven not-for-profit development group, is pleased to submit a Proposal that addresses these challenges while leveraging the assets and opportunity presented in Parcel H’s prime location and connections to the Seaport and surrounding neighborhoods. Our project is an innovative mixed-use design, with a commitment to deep affordability and serving locals throughout our housing, commercial, and placemaking programming. We approach this development as an opportunity to weave public benefits into each element of core programming, rather than viewing them as an add-on. Our resulting proposal maximizes social benefits and minimizes financial returns to the threshold necessary to support our mission over the long-term. Throughout our design and programming we stress commitments to the following: ● This development affirmatively serves all community members, including those currently disenfranchised from much of the Seaport’s development. ● We are mindful of the needs of community members outside the Seaport, including via transit investments. ● We plan for environmental sustainability, especially impending sea level rise. ● We highlight the Seaport’s history, its current-day business and artistic community, and future climate effects as part of our commitment to activating the Public Realm. We have met MassPort’s request for public benefits with an ambitious agenda which goes far beyond their requirements and bakes mission into our operations. We minimize financial returns to that which covers costs in order to maximize the social benefits our programming can return. To us, financial returns are a tool to reach more valuable social good outcomes rather than an end in themselves.